Like many aging luchadors, Saúl Armendáriz — better known as Cassandro el Exotico — has to begrudgingly deal with the constant pain of his body being bruised and battered on a daily basis, the nightly toll of the fame and fans his jaw-dropping flips and superhero-like leaps in the ring have brought him.
For over 25 years, Cassandro has been a world champion of Mexican wrestling and, now, an elder statesman of lucha libre, training new athletes of the sport in Mexico and Texas. But what makes Cassandro’s story all the more appealing is that he is also an out and proud gay man, something that has brought him equal parts heaven and hell.
As a Latino, I can easily admit that, especially in a sport like lucha libre, the macho blustering of many a male fan can come out in surprisingly vitriolic ways — except for in the case of Cassandro, it seems. While he’s had his problems in the past, now he’s considered an icon of the sport, a testament to Mexico’s growing “live and let live” culture, something that America could do well to learn from.
Still, in the documentary Cassandro, the Exotico!, Marie Losier’s 16 mm camera goes deep into the legend of Mexican wrestling as it plays now, a world that is nothing like the WWF spectacle of pomp and pyro that we’ve come to expect; many of the these current luchadors go through life without so much as health insurance, each local match getting them one step closer to either low-rent obscurity or forced retirement.
Losier goes beyond the typical fandom and, instead, takes us into Cassandro’s surprising life, where one minute he’s the uncle we all wish we had and the next a powerhouse of pulverizing agility in the ring. And even though the film does end on a bittersweet note with Cassandro losing his lush mane in his most recent fight, he’s always an upbeat character it’s impossible not to cheer for. —Louis Fowler
I have always had the wholly holy belief that a Christian-made found-footage film — especially in the realm of diabolical spiritual horror — would be an interesting and entertaining way to preach the message and mysteries of the Gospel … and then I actually saw one, in the form of the barely released movie The Lock In.
A group of overly caffeinated teens are on the way to a lock-in at their local church, all hoping to “get crazy” and help a friend possibly kiss a girl. On their way there, however, they stop by an area dumpster and find an old porno magazine; now, as a committed dumpster diver during the first half of the ’90s, believe me, the last thing you want in your hands is trashed porn, with layer after layer of grimy, stuck-together pages, simply dripping with the devil’s country gravy.
The magazine is quickly discovered by Pastor Chris; his solution is to burn it outside as quickly as possible. A few minutes later, however, the magazine is back, showing up again in the backpack. When they try to throw it away, a demonic growl is heard and a garbage can is thrown down the hall. Fearfully moving down the stairs, the teens find themselves in a dark and empty church, and then the forced horror truly begins.
The year is 2019. America is under the rule of a tyrannical despot that will, without mercy, capture and kill those who don’t meet his idea of genetic perfection simply to attain his primarily dark goals of world domination. No, it’s not the long-awaited Donald Trump biopic — give it a few years, though — instead, it’s the 
Only in the 1970s — or at least the New World Pictures version of the 1970s — could you make absolute heroes out of a pair of cop-shooting, hostage-banging, dynamite-toting bank robbers the way that the drive-in favorite 
