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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 3781
Released: June 17, 2008 |
| Our Price: $10.07 |
| Used Price: $3.73 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Movie DVD
Description of Under the Same Moon:
Under the Same Moon puts a human face--several very appealing faces--on the dilemma of Mexican "illegals" living and working clandestinely in the United States and the loved ones back home they're supporting. Rosario, a young single parent, left her village four years ago and jumped the border to find work in Los Angeles; ever since, she and son Carlitos, now nine, haven't seen each other, but she faithfully calls him from the same street-corner pay phone every Sunday morning. When Rosario's mother--the boy's guardian--dies in her sleep, Carlitos taps into an impressive reservoir of street smarts and contrives his own border crossing. The border is just the first of many obstacles to a mother-and-child reunion--not least the fact that the only address the boy has for Rosario is a mental image of the corner she always phones from.
It's easy to take cheap shots at Patricia Riggen's feature-directing debut for tugging at the heartstrings, and certainly Under the Same Moon aspires to nothing like the political and psychological complexity of The Visitor, another film involving illegal immigrants that was released around the same time. But that misses the point, the nature of the mission, and the effectiveness with which Riggen carries it out. Carlitos encounters an almost Dickensian gallery of rogues and menaces, but that's allegorically appropriate for a crossover film (pun unavoidable) aimed at the general U.S. market as well as the Latino circuit. Nor is the movie guilty (as some have charged) of flogging an Anglo-bad/Latino-good poetics; there's opportunism as well as love among Carlitos's neighbors back home, and although Rosario is exploited and cheated by one of the two L.A. households she serves as a maid, the other family appears fond, even solicitous of her.
Riggen's casting is on the money: Kate del Castillo makes a heartbreakingly lovely Rosario, and Adrián Alonso, in addition to giving a gutsy performance as Carlitos, has a marvelous old-man's face the camera never tires of. Veteran actress María Rojo creates a shrewd portrait of a woman who arranges border crossings and observes her own brand of ethics while doing so, and Eugenio Derbez brings raffish charm to a crowd-pleasing role, a guest worker who, though himself two leaps ahead of "La Migra," becomes Carlitos's reluctant protector. America Ferrara (yes, "Ugly Betty") contributes an unflattering cameo as a U.S. college student of Hispanic descent who doesn't understand Spanish. --Richard T. Jameson
Under the Same Moon Reviews:
Watch it with your mom, I bet u will shed 1 tear 
2009-10-05 - Okay, my mom has been telling me to get this movie for at least 2 months straight. Everytime ii go to blockbuster to look for it I can't ever find it. She told me it was brand new, so I look at the new releases section, then I find the movie in the drama section finally. This movie is about 2 yrs old already so it wasn't it were I've been looking this whole time.
Anyways, the movie is excellent!!
Adrian Alonzo is gonna be 1 of the best actors in the next 2 yrs just wait. The story is very touching and I am a cold guy, but this movie really moved me, I even shed a tear at the end.
I watched the entire movie with my mom and that was powerful, she loved it as well.
The story is a little hard to believe, how is a 9 yrs old boy in Mexico who hasn't seen his mom in 4 yrs gonna make it to L.A? Let alone by himself! That's the Main part of the story that kept me interested, because you want the kid to make it, even though it seems impossible, you keep hoping that they will reunite. Carlitos the 9 yrs old boy is no ordinary kid you quickly find out that he is really smart making it all the way to Arizona after his attempt to cross the border went all bad and ended up in El Paso Texas. Carlitos meets a laborer named Enrique played by Eugenio Derbez who at first despises the kid and wants nothing to do with him. After a close call with immigration where most of the immigrant workers they work with get caught up they manage to hide out and start to look for work and Carlitos tells Enrique he is searching for his mom who lives in L.A. Enrique reluctantly agrees to help, and Carlitos finds both of them a job really quick working in a diner as a dishwasher and waiter. There is a scene that you will really enjoy were Carlitos. Starts to sing along to a song on the radio, a song about a person who refuses to help someone, because the person thinks it will lead nowhere. Enrique then joins in on the song and they both sing it back and forth getting louder and louder until they are screaming it in each others faces. It is the best scene, because that song represents exactly what they are going through and what the movie is all about. The movie just gets better after that
I only have 1 complaint and that's that there is the mom decides to get married with the security guard who works at 1 of the house she cleans at, but all this happens over just 2 days! I feel that part could have been left out. It doesn't help the story at all
I reccomend this movie to anybody, great cast all the actors are on point, a great messege of hope and love, 5 stars!!!!
ok,,,the ending was bad.. 
2009-09-10 - I kind of liked the movie it was hard for it to be believable do like not really realistic but it was nice I hated the ending do definitely would have liked a better ending overall ok.
Item never arrived
2009-07-07 - I have viewed and purchased this vieo before and thought it so good that I gave it as a gift. Then reordered the same video for my own files. BUT, the video never arrived. Why? Who knows, but I suggest you change your mode of delivery. USPS mailbox drop-offs are not relieable. Please use UPS at least they will deliver to the door.
Great for Spanish Classes
2009-06-13 - I got this movie as a discussion-starter for my Spanish classes, and all my students loved it and were engaged. I highly recommend "La Misma Luna".
Under the same moon
2009-06-11 - This movie is very nice to show in Spanish Class. It shows the struggles of a working single mother from Mejico and the efforts to get her son with her. Since it shows the boy acting the content is appealing for the students. We talked about this and a teacher can design a variety of activities around it. Tomorrow the students will work in groups to write a different ending. Muy Buena!!!
