Jack Black does funny things

Rating: 6/10 (16 June 2006)

Nacho Libre has many funny moments. All of them involve Jack Black singing, talking, hollering, fighting, or just making faces. I like Jack. He is funny. He is silly. He is overweight and jiggly. His friend has crooked teeth. Ana de la Reguera is pretty.
Seriously, though, I laughed out loud many times (most uproariously when Jack sings his special song close to the end of the movie--wait for it), and while this is not the best movie ever or even among the funniest, it's nice to go to a movie and laugh at things that were meant to be funny (unlike, say, the recent Omen remake where most of the audience laughed at things that were meant to be spooky or, I imagine, the new movie Lake House, where foolish paying customers will laugh at Keanu Reeves trying to act serious). For some reason, I'm not a big fan of comedy films in general--they don't make me laugh much, with some notable exceptions. But this one was pretty entertaining.
More seriously, I would love to know how this movie goes over in Mexico, or even among Mexican-Americans. Is it a loving satire of several aspects of Mexican culture, including wrestling, or is it a racist exploitation of age-old derogatory stereotypes of Mexicans? Or, perhaps, both. I guarantee you that some people will be very offended, and I can certainly see why. It's one thing to parody American rock stars (as Black often does) or American high school students (as in Napoleon Dynamite, the director's previous hit), but another thing to parody people who have always been parodied, generally with either malice or ignorance or both. It would be an interesting conversation to have, anyway.