I've been unexpectedly lucky in winning tickets to random, quirky and utterly entertaining events in London. I'd have to be, given my bad run with both job and love. There's got to be a balance, right?

So, I won tickets for Cine Cazadores at Roxy Bar & Screen on Borough High Street last week. This was a Mexican night with free food, free cocktails and a free screening of Once Upon a Time in Mexico by Robert Rodriguez (the guy who did Death Proof or Grind House with Quentin Tarantino doing the other), all sponsored by Tequila Cazadores.

Now, it's widely-known that Mexican food ranks among my top five favourite cuisines (Italian, Vietnamese, Indian and Japanese being the other four), and, given my not-unfavourable-disposition towards hard liquor, this was bound to be a night I would enjoy.

The food was incredible, as expected, given that it was catered by Green & Red. I polished off two servings of burritos (small ones, not full-sized ones), a lot of nacho chips which came with very mild and creamy guacamole, but the last serving (some kind of sweet fried meat and beans served in a bowl) was amazing. I haven't a clue what it was, but I should would love to have some of it again.

The tequila cocktails were nice too, but I was careful not to drink too much following my misadventure the Sunday before.

The unexpectedly good part was the movie. I had a vague idea of what the movie was about (Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek playing hired assassins, or so I thought) and didn't expect to find it all that great. I mean, if it was that good, I'd have gone to see it when it first came out all those years back, right?

Was I glad to be proven wrong. Once Upon a Time in Mexico turned out to be hilarious, much in the same way I found Kill Bill, Vol. 1 sidesplittingly funny. While there was violence (there were plenty of gunfights), it was done so in a way that was both stylish and funny. So what was the movie about? Well, Antonio Banderas plays hired gunman El Mariachi whose wife (Salma Hayek) and daughter were killed by General Marquez. Johnny Depp plays CIA agent Jeff Sands who is attempting to organise a coup d'etat in Mexico, and this involves getting El Mariachi out of his self-imposed exile to have him assassinate Marquez who is working for drug baron Barillo (Willem Dafoe), who intends to assassinate the president on the Day of the Dead. In order to carry out the kill, El Mariachi goes to find his two compadres-in-arms and fellow bandmates, Enrique Igleisias (!) and an alcoholic gunman.

It all sounds rather complicated, doesn't it? Suffice it to say that it was very entertaining. Johnny Depp played Jeff Sands a little like he played Captain Jack Sparrow, which was all right by me. I completely cracked up at some of the more obvious jokes, such as Jeff Sands wearing one of those cheesy tourist t-shirts which said "CIA" right in front well at a bullfight, or him paying off his cronies with money in a retro kid's metal lunchbox as he "wasn't able to find a briefcase."

And it didn't hurt that there were so many good-looking men in the show as well. Rrreow.