Dowsing For The Future Big Mama Rar
Indira Rossetto
Keep skin hydrated, especially in the winter. Use organic creams with thick emollients as the base (coconut butter, shea butter) and contain healing elements (calendula, vitamin E, aloe vera, lavender). I use Episencials Better Body Butter on Marlie several times a day.
Wonderful post, Teresha! It's so very important that we share our experiences so that our Sister-moms can learn from what we've been through. Motherhood comes with so many "what-ifs" and "how-do-I's", and it always feels so good to hear (or read) another mommy say, "Girl, sit down, lemme tell you what I know."
Teresha, thanks for sharing this information. I agree with Execumama, that it is very important for moms (dads too) to share their progressive parenting techniques. I am always interested in natural ways to care for ourselves and our children. Great read! Thanks again!
My baby had cradle cap and I HATED it. It didn't bother her at all and wasn't as bad as some of the pics I've seen online, but it still just grossed me out. I took her to the doc and he gave me a script for some chemical-laden mess. I didn't bother with it. I'm not down with dowsing my kid with chemicals, even if a doctor suggested it. I just rubbed olive oil in her hair and had to be patient. It went away. She also has a little facial rash that comes and goes, but I notice it responds to almond oil. Natural remedies may not work as quickly, but if you keep at it, they do work!
There is no doubt in my mind that some dudes jerk off around each other. I think Howard Stern talked about it in his book, actually. Although that may have been a one-time thing as opposed to something casual.
I guess maybe this does lend towards Julio and Tenoch being higher on the gay spectrum. Is it a spectrum? I think so.
Cosign to this. I don't think a single gay experience makes a person homosexual. Also taking into account how granola Tenoch's mother is (talk of auras, allowing Tenoch's girlfriend to spend the night), it makes sense that he would be so comfortable with his sexuality and then transfer that comfort to Julio, maybe even making fun of his discomfort and further escalating.
I have no idea if teenage boys jerk off around each other. I do know that a shit ton of guys I knew growing up talk like they did. Teenage boys are fucking weird.
That scene at the pool was pretty brave to put on film. It's one of those things that is talked about in a locker room, but nobody ever knows if it's true or not. Maybe Tenoch and Julio will spawn an entire generation of poolside jerk off champions like Mexico has never witnessed before.
Alright, my first review! I liked this movie. As a fan of all "coming of age" things, I think this movie captures the 17/18 year old (mostly- making a gross generalization) male transition into something a little more adult like. Each character is experiencing transition and the "first" of many things.
I think a good movie should stick with you. You should be questioning scenes, dialogue, actions, etc after. Here is one of my questions after watching: Is it really a thing to masturbate/ masturbate race in front of or with another person?
A) I can't put anything beyond the scope of two teenage boys that are clearly very comfortable with one another.
After I read Joe's review I thought more about Luisa's actions. I do not think they are rapey. I think she is just deeply grieving. Grieving her sickness even more so than her failed marriage. In fact, I think the failed marriage is an analogy to her failed body and sets the stage for her actions. Out of grief people do some weird shit. Her sexual exploits with the boys-- grieving the loss of her marriage but also, probably a way to leave something of herself with the world. She tries to teach them how to be better lovers and friends and in general, she teaches them about embracing life. I think they would take her advice with their next relationships. Moreover, it is clear they are both affected by her death. She gave them more than just sexual advice- she gave them experiences that are unforgettable and that shaped them forever.
Not a movie I would want to watch regularly, but I definitely liked it. B+
I've got this movie down as an A on the spreadsheet, and was excited to watch it again. I had forgotten about all the narration, and how thoroughly Cuaron layers in Luisa's diagnosis throughout. This made Y Tu Mama Tambien so much more affecting this time around, shifting the focus from the story of two horny teenagers to a woman who is preparing for her death. The former is great on its own, but the latter is even better.
Luisa's path is equal to Tenoch's and Julio's based on the presence of several scenes that are all about her. This is the rare movie with three lead performances. Tenoch's and Julio's is what the marketing is based around, but Luisa's struck me as so much more interesting. I'd call the theme of Y Tu Mama Tambien the inevitable ending of everything. Luisa's marriage and life, Tenoch's and Julio's friendship, their relationships with their girlfriends, the reign of the dominant Mexican political party, Chuy's family fishing legacy, and the lives of so many people in the background. Cuaron chooses those asides on purpose. From the early break of the dead cyclist holding up traffic to the dead child in the Arizona desert to the crosses that litter the roadside, finality is all over the film. With Luisa, a lot of the movie is about the last time she's going to do something. The camera lingers over her apartment because it's the last time she's going to be there. With Tenoch and Julio, this is the last time they get drunk together, the last time they recite the charolastra oath, the last time they have a threesome and make out with each other. Luisa's last line is about becoming one with the ocean, a force that inexorably wears things away and will outlast all life on the planet, but will still experience its own ending in the far-distant future.
The seeds of those endings are organically planted in these doomed relationships. It's amazing that Tenoch's and Julio's friendship has lasted this long. They're the last two dedicated charolastras, down from five. The class differences between the two of them don't make things easier. Tenoch's elite status makes him entitled and high-handed with Julio, calling him a hick and only lifting toilet seats with his foot. Julio's lesser middle class upbringing means he's always behind his best friend, not getting to share in Tenoch's travel experiences, and always lighting a match when he uses his friend's bathroom. Their break in the end seems inevitable, as a difference in location is only going to exacerbate those intrinsic differences between the two of them. Luisa's cancer literally starts as an out-of-control seed that slowly takes over her whole body. Her relationship with Jano is based on their shared difficult relationships with mother figures, who are difficult in the first place because of other, natural events. Their marriage is then tainted by the gap in their interests and by her memory of her first boyfriend who died in a random accident. The cyclist's death is rooted in road construction, and the planning way back when that placed the bridge in one spot and not the other. Cuaron creates a giant universe where butterflies are flapping their wings and creating tsunamis down the road, making it feel real and endless.
Is the ending of everything the point? For Luisa, I felt like it was about takin control and leaving a stamp. It's preventing her ending for at least a period of time, which would be until the guys for or are too old to remember. She'll also be remembered by that family. She's creating a legacy.
Except her final wishes are for the family to never talk about her again. Jano probably never saw her again and was too pompous to talk about being left by her, Tenoch and Julio certainly thought about her but may or may not have talked about her, and Chuy's kids are probably too young to remember her. The narrator makes a point to mention that she has no other family. I'm with you on taking control, but not on making a stamp.
I could be wrong, but wasn't it that she didn't want the guys never mentioned again? I might need to rewatch the final 5 minutes to confirm, though.
If I'm correct, does that change your analysis?
I know if I'm wrong, it definitely changes some of mine.
I think both readings are valid (things end vs. making a mark). A roadside cross is a memorial to a life, but it's also a symbol of a death. The arc of the movie is a negative path, such that things that existed at the beginning don't at the end, so the more fatalistic reading fits with that arc.
Boyhood remains my favorite movie for 2014, because it contains so many alternate universes. The movie could have been about a friend the main character leaves behind, or a Mexican construction worker, or the children of a violent alcoholic. Its filled with stories equally, if not more interesting than the one the movie is actually about. Y Tu Mama Tambien is the same. The interlude where Tenoch chooses not to stop in his nanny's hometown implies a movie about a 13 year old girl who moves to Mexico City, struggles, gets a job as a nanny in an upper class home, and becomes closer to the kids than the parents. The restaurant with the old woman and the roadside sale is another, with several generations of women scraping out a living. The central threesome passes a VW Bug dressed up in Just Married decorations that implies another movie. The Mexican president leaving from the wedding and heading to the meeting that would become the infamous Battle in Seattle, which was actually made into its own movie. How deeply Cuaron fleshes out the world is a huge asset, making time spent in Y Tu Mama Tambien not enough, a sign of a great movie.
Like Boyz N the Hood, another thing that jumped out to me is how universal Tenoch's and Julio's behavior is. Seeing similarities across different ethnic groups is how empathy is born, and gives me a warming glowing warming glow. I disagree with Phil's emphasis on Mexican machismo, because this movie could be set anywhere. Berlin teenagers driving through rural Germany, Mumbai teenagers driving through Indian flood plains, Tokyo teenagers driving through Japanese hillsides. All would talk about the times they've been laid and make each other smell their farts. They exhibit insult escalation, a vital skill for male teenagers in the shower scene, and they call each other gay slurs because nothing's more important than masculinity. Machismo is just the Spanish word for what's ubiquitous among teenagers everywhere.
To heap more praise on Cuaron, I love his style of relying on single shots as much as possible. The shot taking in Luisa's apartment and then leaning out the window to find Tenoch and Julio, the tracking shot through the old woman's restaurant, the shots and toasts at the end, the single take sex scenes, all phenomenal. I love the underwater shots, the claustrophobia of Tenoch's, Julio's, and Luisa's first meeting, the placing of the jerk-off contest between the scenes of Luisa getting her diagnosis. All the things happening in the roadside communicate how privileged the central threesome is. Narration is very often a negative, but I loved it here, from the way the sound dropped out for a couple of seconds to what was actually communicated. I talked about sense memory way back when in The Sea Inside, and Y Tu Mama Tambien nailed it through the narration. The three main performances are all excellent and naturalistic, with emotion, intensity, and comic timing with the finger in the ass/flat tire sequence.
Thematically, technically, artistically, Y Tu Mama Tambien is flawless. I spent the first viewing very much immersed in the characters, buying into the popular narrative about the movie being a well-made Mexican road trip/sex romp. I still loved it, but the ending completely throws the entire film into a new perspective. Seeing it for a second time with knowledge of the ending elevates an A movie to a richer, more profound state, such that I think this has to join the ranks of my 26 other A+ movies. Dirk Diggler's fake dick, meet Gael Garcia Bernal's real one.