This month, two films by two of the most exciting voices in Mexican cinema open in Los Angeles within weeks of each other. First up is Alfonso Cuarón's coming-of-age-on-the-road movie Y Tu Mamá También (So's Your Mom, loosely translated), and then, across the genre divide, Guillermo del Toro's Blade 2. Last year, del Toro's The Devil's Backbone, a Spanish-funded chiller about a haunted orphanage set during the Spanish Civil War, opened here to raves after a successful tour on the international festival circuit. Also last year, Y Tu Mamá También made a splash at the Venice Film Festival, hit a few other hot spots like Toronto and New York, and eventually became one of the highest-grossing films in Mexican box-office history. Del Toro lives in Los Angeles, Cuarón lives in New York City, and both make movies wherever it suits them. Recently, we checked in with both directors to talk about the state of an art and industry in which borders are increasingly porous, if not yet incidental. We also spent time with actor Jorge Rivero, who lives in Los Angeles but became an icon in Mexico, and with Lupe Ontiveros, who hails from El Paso but often shows up in movie kitchens with a thick Mexican accent. And if you think this is about what's happening across the border, think again. Across whose border is more like it.

Manohla Dargis reviews Alfonso Cuarón’s breakaway road movie, Y Tu Mamá También; John Powers profiles the filmmaker. Meanwhile, F.X. Feeney interviews The Devil’s Backbone and Blade 2’s horrormeister, Guillermo del Toro, and Paul Cullum deconstructs Amores Perros director Alejandro Iñarrítu’s heart-stopping, establishment-tweaking BMW commercial. Finally, Joseph Treviño waxes nostalgic with his boyhood screen idol, Jorge Rivero, while Judith Lewis talks about Chuck and Buck and Storytelling with the ubiquitous Lupe Ontiveros, fresh off her Sundance acting award for Real Women Have Curves.

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