Bob Fosse walked to the front of the house, put his hands on the rail, and said, “Now that’s what I call a well prepared audition.” Then he jumped up on stage with me and started giving me his signature bumps and grind moves to try out. I waited three days to hear if I got it. After three days I was a very happy girl.
If you were born in New York and see a set that has been detailed with a rollaway folding cot in the hallway, and a living room view of not only the standard-issue brick wall of the building behind yours, but also the laundry hung out wherever space permits, you know that this is the Bronx, Brooklyn or Manhattan West Side post-war apartment that your parents grew up in, and spent their lives striving to escape.
But there’s a lot of energy and creativity in El Mariachi. Rodriguez has gone on to become a popular and successful director. Watching this film gives you the sense of watching a rock star back when he was in a neighborhood garage band.
It was an appeal on behalf of Mario Rocha, a Los Angeleno of Mexican descent, who in 1996, at the age of sixteen, had been convicted of the murder of another Latino youth, the result of a shooting that had occurred at a backyard house party. Rocha was given two consecutive life sentences, although he was in fact innocent.
