Ricardo Molina

Assigned the thankless task of teaching freshman English at a gang-infested Long Beach, CA high school, a 23-year-old teacher resorts to unconventional means of breaking through to her hardened students in director Richard LaGravenese's adaptation of Erin Gruwell's best-seller The Freedom Writer's Diaries: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. Her students had been written off, and her chances of succeeding scoffed at, but Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) wasn't about to go down without a fight. Long Beach is a place where a new war is waged with each passing day, and when the hardened students who walk those dangerous hallways sense an outsider attempting to understand their plight, their cynical resentment threatens to keep a deadly cycle in motion. Despite the initially hostile reaction she receives in the classroom, Gruwell uses the writings of Anne Frank and Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo to teach her students not only the basis of the English language, but compassion and tolerance as well. Later, when the time comes to tell their own tales in a project specially designed to explore the daily violence that the majority of students have grown numb to, the barriers that had once stood so strong gradually begin to crumble. When the only chance for survival is to befriend the person who was once your mortal enemy, the world is opened to a whole new realm of possibilities. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

After making the trip from Mexico to Los Angeles with hopes of starting life anew in America, three cousins find their efforts to earn a living as day laborers quickly sidetracked by their intense experiences in the strange new culture. Upon arriving in East L.A., Tura, Pillo, and Quique are warmly taken in by their Uncle Gilberto. Though Gilberto offers the trio food, shelter, advice, and friendship during their stay in the city, getting work as a day laborer proves much more difficult than any of them ever imagined. Increasingly dejected by the long hours, back-breaking work, and pathetic wages of the day laborer, Pilo slowly begins to succumb to the allure of the drug trade as a means of supplementing his meager income. Though things seem to be going a little better for Tura, who has slowly begun to establish a romantic bond with pretty local Maria, things begin to get a little more stressful as the seductive lothario becomes infatuated with the beautiful wife of his wealthy employer. Meanwhile, conflicted Quique begins to question his sexuality after he is drawn into an affair with homosexual gallery owner West. When tragedy strikes, Tura, Pillo, and Quique all find their loyalties put to the ultimate test. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A loyal Mexican drug runner inherits the lucrative business only to find his empire crumbling around him when a lucrative deal goes bad in this tale of crime and betrayal from filmmaker Jose Reyes Bencomo. Mexican drug lord Sr. Acosta (Joe Estevez) has always treated Rafael (Jorge Cordova) as a son, and in turn Rafael has always treated Sr. Acosta's reckless biological son Carlos (Nico Guilak) like a brother. When Sr. Acosta bestows his empire upon Rafael with the understanding that Rafael will do his best to keep Carlos out of trouble, it appears as if Rafael is set for life. The situation takes a turn for the worse, however, when Rafael goes against Sr. Acosta's wishes by allowing Carlos to broker a high-profile drug deal. When the deal goes south and Carlos is hunted by the authorities for a brutal double homicide, the paranoid Rafael attempts to stonewall police by relocating the operation and purging his empire of suspected traitors with a little help from feared assassin Chupacabra (Jorge Soriano). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide