Fernando Luján Movies

Alejandro Gamboa's El Tigre de Santa Julia (The Tiger of Santa Julia) is a tale of the title folk character. Miguel Rodarte stars as El Tigre who joins the army in his twenties. He creates a life-long enemy in Calleja (Adalberto Parra) when Tigre ignores Calleja's order to shoot striking workers. After deserting the military, El Tigre ends up in Santa Julia and gains a reputation as a thief, thanks in part to writer Nando (Fernando Lujan) supporting him in the papers. The authorities, with Calleja's help, continue to pursue El Tigre. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel of Gabriel Garcia Marquez by the same name, but set in the forties, the film is a reflection on life and its illusions by the Mexican master Arturo Ripstein. In a small coastal town in Mexico in the late 1940's, an obstinate colonel of the anticlerical Cristeros War keeps waiting for the pension that has been promised to him but never delivered. Every Friday, he goes down to the docks, dressed in his best suit in anticipation of the arrival of the letter announcing his pension. Everyone knows that he is waiting in vain, but he refuses to face reality, even though, deep in his heart, he knows that the letter will never arrive. His wife is suffering from asthma; their son Agustin was killed by the fascists; and the roof over their head will soon be taken away because of the unpaid mortgage. Yet the Colonel stands by his dream, refusing to give up despite poverty and hunger. He knows that if he lets go, there is nothing else left. His wife Lola proposes to sell the cock, which is the only thing left behind from their son. But the Colonel does not want to give up the fighting cock, which he believes will win one day. The story is rendered in a simple and straightforward narrative style unlike Ripstein's earlier work, which is more baroque, or Marquez's magical realist style. Repeated close-ups accentuate the damages of a long and hopeless wait on a person's inner strength. Veteran Fernando Lujan is remarkable as the Colonel, but Spanish Marisa Paredes shines as the wife who suffers in dignity. Salma Hayek has a brief appearance as the prostitute who had a relationship with Agustin. In competition at the 52nd Cannes Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

This is a low-budget, low-brow comedy about people who have the misfortune of working in a hospital, though not as much misfortune as the patients. The doctors are universally incompetent, none of the nurses have been able to find a uniform that was not a tad too small, gangsters wander in and out of the premises, and misfits make up the corps of ambulance drivers, and sometimes, patients as well. The storyline is put together as a series of skits that revolve around a threat of foreclosure to the premises. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A greedy family schemes to find a means of wrestling a hearty inheritance from the ailing family matriarch, only to discover that the mischievous grandmother has left everything to her ever-faithful feline friend in this dark comedy starring Emma Roldan, Fernando Lujan, and Maria Elena Velasco. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

One family's love of soccer divides the household by pitting brother against mother and husband against wife in this classic comedy drama from Mexican director Icaro Cisneros. Small-town mother-of-two Flora is proud that her two soccer-playing sons have joined the successful Guadalajara team, but her excitement is short-lived when she learns that love-interest Felipe has a son that plays for the American team. Though the loving couple is willing to set their differences aside long enough to exchange wedding vows, the announcement that one of Flora's sons intends to marry Felipe's daughter threatens to turn a friendly rivalry into an all-out war! ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

An unpretentious musical comedy by Mexican director Fernando Coates, the "young and beautiful" in this tale are, on the one hand, a group of young women whose parents are worried about their future and on the other, some young men who are not worried about very much. The teen women are too involved with rock 'n roll and not paying enough attention to the important things in life, according to their parents. And so they are sent out into the countryside in the hopes that this isolation will leave them without their main passion. Unfortunately for the parents, the young men in the countryside are all for the new, modern sounds -- and just the opposite of isolation results. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Popular Mexican director Benito Alazraki has put together an effective cinematic version of a drama by Hector Mendoza which involved the participation of the audience. The play was held in a theater-restaurant and the dining ambiance is worked into the storyline. In the film, the setting is a cabaret where a prostitute and a young man fall in love. His intention is to marry her regardless of her past but that simple objective is not necessarily easy to reach. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide