The third film in Robert Rodríguez’s “Mariachi” trilogy takes its title, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, as an homage to Sergio Leone. The title reputedly suggested by friend Quentin Tarantino, who told him that this was his “Dollars” trilogy (in reference to Leone’s three spaghetti westerns featuring Clint Eastwood, the third of which is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and in which Once Upon a Time in the West plays no part). None of that matters, though, because Rodríguez and Tarantino love to riff on the culture of coolness. They love being in the know and they love to throw little tidbits in for their fans who are also ‘in the know’.
