Miguel A. Alvarez Movies

In a bleak future where the borders have been sealed, vast computer networks commodify memories, and corporate warriors have been militarized, a tech-savvy "campesino" from a small Santa Ana farm village discovers a mysterious transmission that seems to be a blueprint for the city of the future. Memo Cruz lives with his family in Santa Ana del Rio, a remote farming community that has recently been hijacked by a private company. Having already taken control of the entire area's water supply, the company is now seeking to sell the precious resource back to citizens at criminal prices. As a result, aqua-terrorist cells have recently formed, with the explicit goal of taking back the water supply by force if necessary. Despite the growing tension in Santa Ana, however, all Memo really cares about is technology. Memo longs to find employment as a node worker in the high-tech factories of the northern cities, and has recently constructed a transmitter that allows him to vicariously experience the lives of others.

One evening, while surfing the local airwaves, the gifted eavesdropper locks onto a forbidden broadcast not intended for the general public -- a broadcast that lays out explicit plans for creating a future that Memo could have never imagined. Subsequently targeted by the government -- which has discovered evidence of his radio intercept and now views him as a direct threat -- Memo must flee to Tijuana after his home is destroyed in a violent remote-control bombing. Memo hopes to find work in Tijuana, and along the way he meets aspiring journalist Luz, a bright young woman in search of her breakthrough story. Later, after selling some of her memories online to a mysterious client, Luz helps Memo acquire the nodes he needs to connect to the network and get a job. As Memo plugs his body into the system and discovers that work in a high-tech factory can be fairly treacherous, Luz works to uncover the identity of her biggest fan, and these three unsuspecting individuals become caught up in a plot that could transform their world forever. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The celebrated Latino director Gregory Nava (American Family) helmed, scripted, and co-produced (with star Jennifer Lopez) Bordertown - a suspense thriller with an A-list Hispanic cast. Lopez portrays Lauren Adrian, an American correspondent from a Chicago newspaper, who longs to cover the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Instead, Lauren's mentor at the paper, George Morgan (Martin Sheen) reassigns her to Mexico. She is promptly shuttled off to Juarez, a troubled community on the Texas-Mexico border rattled by a series of brutal, unsolved homicides. The victims - all young women, employed in the maquilla plants that manufacture electrical components for exportation to the U.S. - are uniformly found raped and strangled to death. One of those women, Eva, manages to escape her captors (who believe her dead) and flees not to the corrupt police, but to the local newspaper. There, her life intersects with those of Lauren and Lauren's former boyfriend and lover, the reporter Alfonso Diaz (Antonio Banderas). Suddenly, Lauren foresees, in the prospect of reporting Eva's story, an assignment that could bring her closer to Iraq than she ever dreamed possible. Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman), Maya Zapata and Juan Diego Botto co-star. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A conservative politician who believes he can count on his family for support discovers his son is not the man he thought he was in this drama. Jack Kray (Michael Lerner) is a United States senator from the South whose right-wing views have earned him the nickname "the Nazi from North Carolina." Jack is running for reelection and is looking for support wherever he can get it; told he needs to increase his appeal with younger voters, Jack tries to persuade his son Henry (Matt Newton), a college student, to make a few campaign stops with him. While Jack's wife (and Henry's mom), Eunice (Karen Allen), tries to convince her husband this isn't a good idea, Jack refuses to take no for an answer from Henry. But there's something Jack doesn't know about his son -- Henry is gay, and while he only shares this secret with a small handful of trusted friends and lovers, he can't bring himself to support his father's anti-gay "family values" platform. However, Henry's sexual preference may not stay a secret for long -- Henry has hooked up with Anthony (Jack Noseworthy), a student political activist who wants a long-term relationship with Henry and refuses to play coy about it, while some of Henry's other partners have come forward about his homosexuality. Poster Boy was originally announced as a project for director Herbert Ross, who died before the film went into production; Douglas Keeve took over as director, but resigned before shooting was completed, so editor Zac Tucker completed the movie and received sole screen credit. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A powerful political allegory set in an unnamed Latin American country, Men With Guns concerns Dr. Fuentes (Federico Luppi), an elderly physician long involved with a group that trains young people to provide health care for the poverty-stricken citizens of the outlying hill country, where small agricultural communities struggle to survive under primitive living conditions. The doctor has heard rumors that many of his former students are lost and feared dead, so he goes into the hills to investigate. The deeper he digs into the jungle, the more Fuentes finds that the people are menaced by "men with guns'" -- military forces who use torture and execution to intimidate the people, and guerillas from opposition groups whose agenda is only marginally more benign. Accumulating several travelling companions -- a defrocked priest, a deserter from the Army, a boy who survives by stealing, and a woman who has turned mute since she was raped -- Fuentes finds that his journey becomes more revealing but also more perilous the deeper he ventures into the hills. American writer and director John Sayles filmed most of Men With Guns in Spanish (an language he speaks fluently), as well as several indigenous dialects; he claims to have based most of the film's incidents on actual events that have occurred in a number of different Third World nations. Mandy Patinkin has a brief role as an American tourist Fuentes encounters in his travels. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this bloody Mexican horror outing, a beautiful woman suffers a terrible accident and becomes maimed and ugly. Desperate to again be lovely, she visits a dastardly dermatologist who tells her that for his experiment to work, she must provide him with a constant supply of fresh skin and blood for the transfusions she will need. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Counterplot is a standard murder melodrama in which a man mistakenly believes he has killed someone. Brock (Forrest Tucker) flees to Puerto Rico from New York City, the scene of his supposed crime. A Puerto Rican boy who had befriended Brock years ago turns out to offer him a haven in this aftermath of the presumed murder. As time goes by, it is revealed that the murdered man's business partner was the one responsible for his death. Complicating matters is the fact that the dead man had taken out a hefty life insurance policy before he died. Brock's next challenge then, is to get evidence on the real killer. This was director Kurt Neumann's last film, he died within a year at the age of fifty-two. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide