La Cucaracha, starring Eric Roberts, was released on video/DVD on June 27th (1999). Look for it at the video store. If they don't seem to have it, ask for it. It's done well at the film festivals (see stuff below) so video stores should carry it. My local Blockbuster store has it. If your local video store doesn't have it and you end up buying it, you should buy the DVD. The DVD has extras that the video tape doesn't have. On the DVD there is a great commentary on the film by both the director, Jack Perez, and Eric Roberts.

This is a great movie and you don't even have to take my word for it. You can read some other reviews online at The Chicago Sun Times by Roger Ebert and at the Austin Chronicle. La Cucaracha won BEST FEATURE FILM at the Austin film festival and Eric won best actor at the NY Independent film festival.

OK, now listen up because this is the important part: Eric is the star of this movie so he's in the whole thing. Yes! He's in the whole movie!! Not just one minute... not just two minutes! He's in the whole blinking movie!!

At the beginning of La Cucaracha Walter Pool (played by Eric Roberts) is in Santiago, Mexico, broke and drunk. We find out later (in a scene that left me actually laughing and crying at the same time!) that he was a typical American Dilbert cubicle-dweller who came to Mexico to sort of find himself as a writer in the Hemingway mode. Instead he was mugged and robbed. He has stayed in Mexico anyway, spending his nights in a shack and his days in the bar.

If you thought that things couldn't get any worse, you are so wrong! Is this what they mean by "Film Noir?"

Roe has emailed me with a short explanation of "Film Noir" and it turns out that it doesn't mean that the movie is depressing, it means that it has poor lighting. So this is film noir. It's a dark comedy with bad lighting. There were, indeed, several scenes with the light supplied only by a fireplace, candles, or fireworks.

Poor Walter sees the money and forgets everything else. Whatever common sense he may have had once just flew out the window.

How much money? It's $100,000. I know exactly how much money it was because I watched the movie, unlike the critic for the L.A. Times. Maybe Kevin had a few too many before the movie and spent all his time in the men's room, I don't know.

I'm sorry that I don't have a photo of Louis Grace, played by James McManus, who handed Walter this money. Louis Grace is the little slime ball who introduced Walter Pool to the evil Jose Guerra. In real life, James McManus was the writer of the screenplay.

Walter makes a deal with the devil. Recognize him? Clue: You saw him in Falcone. The bad guy, Jose Guerra, is played by Joaquim de Almeida. To be honest, I wasn't that enthusiatic about him as the mob boss in Falcone but he was great in La Cucaracha. Actually, he was pretty good in Desparado too but I had to watch it a second time to notice anything besides Antonio Banderas.

Eric has his victim in his sights. How could he possibly miss at this range? I have received email from several people saying that this scene has the funniest line in the film. Well, OK, I will agree that it's the funniest single line but my favorite part came later.

Eric is lying in a small hospital in Mexico. Breakfast is being served. Tastes like chicken?

This scene worried me the first time I saw it. On one hand, I couldn't quite believe that Eric had actually eaten a big bug, mainly because the Humane Society or somebody sends observers when you are using animals in a film and is not supposed to let you abuse them and eating one of them must fall into the category of abuse, right? On the other hand, the scene looked pretty realistic and I've seen people eat lobster in a movie and what's a lobster if not a large red cockroach. When I bought the DVD, I stopped it at this scene and it looked even worse! I have a certain amount of experience with squished cockroaches from my first apartment and, although this looked like a different sort of cockroach from what we have in New York, the chewing part looked grossly realistic.

See, things CAN get worse.

This is Eric in the middle of what is absolutely without question the best monologue that I have ever heard in all my days. I loved it the first time I watched it and the second time I liked it even more. I laughed until I was missing parts of it and had to rewind and play it again.

I just watched it a third time on my new DVD and have decided that it is my all-time-favorite scene. Then I watched it with the director's commentary and, while some things were explained, it didn't change my feelings about the scene at all. From now on I'm going to laugh when anyone says "Iceland."

I would also like to say that this is the best director's commentary that I have heard. The commentary was by both the director, Jack Perez, and Eric Roberts. They commented on every scene, not just a little here and a little there, and there was a lot of information in the comments. It was like they were showing the movie in a lounge to a group of fans and telling us about making it.

Obviously, I liked this movie a lot and I loved parts of it. I admit, Eric doesn't look good in this movie -- he's so dirty I'm forever thankful that the movie didn't come with "Smell-o-vision." He's wearing ughly geek glasses. He doesn't get to seduce a bunch of girls. And he doesn't shave on a regular basis. Even if I misunderstood the "film noir" stuff, there were some really funny parts between the disasters (sometimes DURING the disasters). There was also, from a certain point of view, a happy ending. So, if you like Eric Roberts, watch this movie. If you only like him clean and pressed, better not watch. I rate the DVD higher than the video tape because of the extra stuff (and because I love to stop the action and get a closer look).

Read The Quest for KooKooRooŽ chicken, return to The Updates Page or to The Home Page