This Sunday, April 29th, 2pm at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes downtown there is a special birthday celebration in honor of Dolores Huerta. The spirited, iconic civil rights leader will be turning 82. I just checked the website and $50 tickets are sold out but the next tier is $200. If you got the cash, this is a pretty good cause and fiesta. All proceeds go to the Dolores Huerta Foundation which does a lot of education work and outreach to low-middle class immigrant workers, giving them the tools and resources to become leaders of their communities and continue to fight la lucha. Ticket link here
Month: April 2012
FILM REVIEW: GIRL IN PROGRESS is sweet and just a tad spicy
From Latino studio, Pantelion Films, Girl in Progress stars Eva Mendes as Grace, an immature and impetuous single working mother who faces off with her equally impetuous but way more mature, scholarly teenaged daughter named Ansiedad. Like a Freaky Friday where adult and child roles are reversed to comedic and lesson-learning effect, but without the body switch, Girl In Progress is an ebullient, if a bit twee, meta-fable set to capitalize on its May 11th, Mother’s Day weekend release.
When not scrapping for tips waiting tables at a busy Crab shack to pay the bills, Grace wastes her time hooking up with a bored and married doctor (Matthew Modine) much to the loud disappointment of Ansiedad. Ansiedad (a real Dominican name that means anxiety), a doll face who wears Clueless inspired outfits, does all the chores around the house and despises having to be the responsible one in the house while her mother goes out and flip flops on going to night school. Grace is preoccupied with paying the bills, but also oblivious to her daughter’s needs. Determined to leave her mom behind and start her adult life, Anna, as she anglicizes her name, is inspired in lit class by Ms. Armstrong (Patricia Arquette who phones it in) to fast forward her coming of age. With the help of her best friend Tavita, Anna methodically plots out key pit stops on the way to adulthood taking a page from various coming of age classics like The Catcher In the Rye, and ever thorough, reviews a chrysalis diagram showing the process of cocoon into butterfly transformation. With self imposed urgency, Anna sets up and tackles her own passage of rites, including stealing money for a gothic bad girl makeover, making friends with the Mean Girls, dumping her loyal friend, up to scheduling the de-blossoming of her virginity with Mr. Popularity at an upcoming party to mark the final stage into womanhood. Distracted by her job, her breakup with Mr. Doctor and the fact she’s short money for bills, Grace remains unaware of what her daughter’s antics are trying to tell her.
Girl In Progress is directed by Patricia Riggen, director of the 2007 Sundance breakout film, La Misma Luna. Her short film Lindo y Querido which was in the Revolucion anthology strongly captures the first generation Mexican American experience for me. Riggen imbues emotion and light quirky humor to the script written by Hiram Martinez, a Dominican New Yorker who made the 2005 micro-budget indie comedy, Four Dead Batteries. The dynamic of the reverse mother daughter roles reveals itself in very deliberate dialogue between Grace and Anna, both who struggle to act their age. Anchored in its PG-13 safe level of funny zingers and slight sexual undertones the film is nicely embedded in popcorn movie-land. After all, nuclear families are not any better than single parent families and affairs with married men are no longer taboo. The crux of the story lies in its empathetic rendering of the tenuous and complicated relationships of mothers and daughters. Eva Mendes does what she does best and drips sensuality with her short hemmed waitress uniform and demonstrates more comic than dramatic chops. Oddly enough, there is zero chemistry with Modine, which rejects any credibility to their affair. Nobody can blame a girl for having poor taste in men, but it does show Grace has some juvenile and irresponsible streaks to shed herself.
Played with relish by young newcomer Cierra Ramirez, Anna’s naive insistence that she can induce her transformation seems to belie her intellect, but at the same time reveals her internal desire to be the little girl to her mom. It’s part of the film’s concept that she follows the coming of age formula, a Meta conceit, the proceedings manage to keep an energetic pace. Still, the over-familiarity of each prerequisite High School- nerd-goes-bad sequence begs for something fresh and authentic in this canon.
In thinking about the current Latino identity culture change that says “Hispanics are the Mainstream”, I feel like we are saying that the stories will remain the same (universal) but the characters might look, smell and sound Latino. In Girl In Progress for instance, we have the unique Spanish language Dominican names, Grace’s sideways cursing and swearing to the holy saints (swearing in Spanish is more expressive and fun than in English) and of course the music. As Grace gets ready for her date, she dances to Sabor A Mi by Edie Gorme y los Panchos in her negligee looking super sultry.
Perhaps the only time the film portrays an unequivocal Latino identity is when Grace escapes from the suburban mainstream and accompanies her co-worker played by Eugenio Derbez in a secondary role that is more plot vehicle than anything, to his aunt’s cramped and colorful apartment fiesta. There, Grace lets loose and dances to Mexican band singer Espinoza Paz. The Latino experience is driven home by the reference to the vastly different and crude existence of his immigrant working lifestyle when he points to a couch he calls home.
I can’t help compare Girl in Progress with BABYGIRL, a film by Irish filmmaker Macdallaly Varela that just premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Babygirl has the same dynamic except in this raw, Puerto Rican Bronx set world, the teen daughter competes with her mother for the attention of a smooth talking papi chulo. The budding lust and romantic triangle combined with boriqua street vernacular give it much more of a base in reality and credibility. Both films deal with young mamas who have more of a friendship than a traditional mother-daughter relationship. Babygirl really goes there and unravels. Girl In Progress neatly contrives its denouement.
The reason I bring it up is to make the point that the problem with practicing this hispanics are the mainstream trend. I believe there’s more value in creating more distinctly personal Latino stories that are informed by the Latino experience instead of stories with characters that just happen to be Latinos. This goes against the desire and moneymaking business of appealing to the widest scale possible. You can still taste the hint of spice in the mainstream of hispanic culture, but its so carefully measured to ensure that middle america can tolerate it.
All that aside, Girl In Progress is a tender, warm and pleasingly accessible Hollywood film that works on the surface and sufficiently carries out its cute tagline, “A Tale of Acting Up, Acting Out and Acting your Age.”
Watch trailer here
NALIP 2012 – Why Filly Brown is so Fly
It was pretty rad to talk to co-director, Michael D. Olmos and his lead actress, Gina Rodriguez at NALIP. Check out the interviews by linking on their names, where they talk about their movie Filly Brown (which will be released by Indomina Releasing), and the US Latino film community in general.
And if you don’t know about Lisa “Khool-Aid” Rios, who plays herself as the DJ who puts Filly on the spot, and represents her flagship music stylings channel, Pocos Pero Locos, you should. We are all dying to get our hands on the official soundtrack she is producing along with E-Dubb Rios which we can expect sometime in the fall.
Hola! Mexico Film Festival 2012 announces lineup
In only four years of existence, Hola Mexico has proven there is a voracious appetite for contemporary Mexican cinema in Los Angeles. This year the festival has scored a couple noteworthy coups – the US premiere of Dias De Gracia by Everardo Gout, an adrenaline fueled multi-linear action drama that screened last year in Cannes, and the International premiere of a film currently smashing box office records for a documentary theatrical release in Mexico, De Panzanzo! , a social advocacy piece about the public education system in Mexico directed by Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Loret de Mola.
Another personal favorite of mine on the roster includes Kyzza Terrazas’ first feature, Lenguage de los Machetes. A fiercely drawn portrait of two anti-establishment artists in Mexico City who confront and conflict with political and biological forces that once fueled their creative expression and now threaten to drive them apart. Jessy Bulbo, real life rockstar, gives a commanding performance – I hope she comes and performs after the screening!
Hola Mexico Film Festival will take place May 24 – May 30 and all screenings will be hosted in Hollywood at the Ricardo Montalban theatre (across from Trader Joes off Vine). In all, thirteen feature length films (four documentary) and eight short films (under 65min). Full list of films and descriptions HolaMexico2012_PR_Program_Eng
NALIP 2012: Robert Rodriguez – The Universal Latino Entertainer
Last Friday while lunching on poached salmon and tomato bisque on the 21st banquet floor of the Universal City Sheraton, Robert Rodriguez enthusiastically shared a few anecdotes from his early career, remarking on the 20th anniversary of EL Mariachi, and expounding nuggets of wisdom like, Think Big, Be Positive and Take a NMIDIM mentality, a cute acronym for Never Mind I’ll Do It Myself, a really named production company of his. Referring to a notebook on his lap, his conversation sounded a bit scripted, with distinct pauses that cued applause from the packed dining hall. The floor-to-ceiling windows were all steamed up with only a few visible gray clouds which obstructed the usual gorgeous Hollywood Hills vista, giving our one-on-one setting with RR feel as if we had come to visit him at the top of Mount Olympus. I crashed a sponsor table in the front for a better view of the tiny stage that Rodriguez shared with a moderator who replaced the scheduled Luis Castro of HBO and who in the second half seemed to lose direction of the conversation which Rodriguez naturally hijacked. There was good energy in the room but looking around I saw more NALIP organizers, panelists, and sponsors than upcoming artists – which kind of defeats the purpose since the address is geared to green, next-generation of writers/directors/producers/actors.
RR’s steady stream of anecdotes deliberately kept coming full circle to hyping up his new Comcast network set to unveil in 2013, a place he says will welcome those stories and voices that Hollywood is not serving. Unfortunately this cut into time for the audience to ask questions. Only one person got the chance to ask a question, which made for a memorable moment. A true Tejano vato, Carlos Calbillo from Houston basically asked him what’s up with not identifying as Mexican-American or Chicano. Rodriguez responded swiftly and rather tactfully. You can see the video I took of this exchange here. The full transcript at bottom of post, but the main soundbyte is:
…”Now if I don’t specifically say I’m Chicano….I didn’t ever intentionally do that. But if you ask me now, ‘Would I say I’m Chicano?,’ You know I would probably say….I wouldn’t make myself that specific”.
UNIVERSAL BUT SUBVERSIVE
Rodriguez says that when he got to Hollywood to make Desperado he wasn’t trying to make a Latin film but a film that was entertaining just like when he saw John Woo’s, The Killer and he thought, “Damn I want to be Chinese”. With Desperado he liked the idea of people watching it, who would say, “Wow I want to be Mexican”.
About El Rey, he mentioned that he had considered creating TV shows before, but was turned off by having to compete with everyone in town for an NBC slot. Instead he thought if I have my own network I can put on any show I want (Think Big). He was quite open about what his pitch was to Comcast. Male oriented –‘”So the guys think if I’m home, I’ll be taken care of. If you’re a girl and a badass, you’ll like it too – if you are anyone who likes cool programming you’ll like it. Its for an English language, 2nd, 3rd generation, highest growing population, and they don’t have anywhere else to go. Its going to be addicting and intoxicating.” Rodriguez further ingratiated himself with the room by saying, “ Advertisers are desperate. They keep banging their heads on the wall asking how do we get to their wallet (pointing to his hip pocket), but nobody talks about this (pointing to his heart). So I was coming at it in a different way”.
POCHO POSITIVE:
Rodriguez emphasized the good things that came out of his early failures and setbacks, encouraging people to avoid thinking negatively. When he approached the owner of an Austin restaurant he frequents about having a show on his Hispanic cable channel, set around family and cooking, the owner hesitated and said, “But I don’t speak Spanish that well and I’m embarrassed about it.” When Rodriguez told him it would be in English, he responded, ‘You mean Pocho? ‘ (laughter). Rodriguez pointed out the negative connotation of the word and that’s what El Rey says, “You’re okay exactly the way you are. “
He went on to say that we have the key to content and ideas people haven’t seen before and guess what, that’s an advantage, that no one has heard your voices. If his network fails to succeed, he encourages us to sift through the ashes of his failure to pick it up and move it forward.
OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM
Rodriguez says he’s never worked with a major studio because it infringes on his freedom. He’s gotten close a couple times, like when he was attached to John Carter which fell through the second and final time he left the DGA. Prior to the Sin City debacle where he resigned from the DGA in order to give creator Frank Miller co-director credit, he had left the DGA in order to work on his segment of the Tarantino produced, New Years Eve anthology, Four Rooms (which in turn directly inspired him to create Spy Kids). Although this means he cannot collect residuals and will never be nominated for an Oscar, he no longer has to follow the rules. He made an interesting quip on the word Independent in the acronym of NALIP saying ‘You probably think you HAVE to be independent because you have no choice, I bet you actually want to be in the system’. The audience laughed as if in agreement. He encouraged people to change from feeling they have to be independent to wanting to be independent. “Sometimes you have to do it yourself because you have a vision that noone else shares. Do it first and then they’ll share.”
LA NETA
All in all, Rodriguez had valuable advice to share. Themes like Finding Success in your Failures and Staying Positive made for an inspirational address. Yet I’m personally skeptical when it comes to him talking about his network becoming a platform to serve under-represented voices and stories that are made by and for the US Latino community with their distinct point of view. What does he mean exactly? Well, here’s a Variety article where RR talks about the underserved hispanic male audience (!).
Ever since he started shooting movies, beginning with the engaging, b/w, sibling rivalry, $400 short film, Bedhead, you can say Rodriguez has written from his heart and what he knows best – and that’s big family dynamics (he has nine brothers and sisters, and has five kids of his own) and awesome action/adventure. If you ask me, that is as universal of a genre classification you can get. What distinguishes Rodriguez’s work is those brushes of Tejano culture, which as I learned firsthand with my recent trip to San Antonio, is a very distinct socio/political culture within the US Latino spectrum and one beyond the 1st generation of bi-lingual folks like myself. Rodriguez’s impact in the indie 90s film scene is huge and two-fold; On top of showing major studios he can capture a market they can’t by making an entertaining movie for as little as $10,000, the fact that his last name is Rodriguez and his protagonists were heroes who spoke English with an accent, made a difference to the growing population of US Latinos. After all, Rodriguez’s first trilogy began with romanticizing and glorifying the mariachi, an icon terribly dear and close to Latinos. Wrap it in gritty action packaging and it works for that lucrative 18-35 male demographic.
Rodriguez says he’s consciously been subversive about the identity angle. Which is an interesting observation I made and makes me wonder if he’d have the luxury of being able to work outside the system if his genre was not the potentially commercial mine of the family and male driven audience? Would he be as successful if his films were say showed the true life contemporary struggles of underrepresented and multi-dimenstional gay Latinos and empowered females? The point is he knows his audience. His work up to now has represented US Latinos in a corporal sense. I agree that identifying with the physical image onscreen can be an empowering experience but there’s a difference between taking a hero archetype and painting him/her Latino, and making a Hero out of an everyday Latino in middle america.
Whether simply because he’s a successful Latino in a position of power makes Robert Rodriguez obligated to represent the diversity of the US Latino fragmented mass is debatable. And anyway why would he want to suddenly step outside his tried and true money making action fare? Lets be real, Comcast licensed him a network because they are after the audience of Rodriguez’s franchises, El Mariachi, Spy Kids and Machete. So while I would love to see him hold the door wide open and program content that demonstrates the rich dimensionality of Latinas and the Latino LGBT community – that’s not going to happen here. However, if he’s still got that subversive renegade in him, he just might ‘flip the script’ and support unique content on his channel made by the next generation of storytellers who are authentically rendering their unheard, real life based experiences into multi-media. I love intoxicating fantasy and pop entertainment as much as the next person….but thats just one dimension of our lives.
I say we take the hooligan to task and pitch El Rey our most kickass and personal passion projects for a slot on the network. Contact his partners, John Fogelman and Cristina Patwa at Factory Made Ventures at info@FactoryMade.com.
Lets see just how open and interested they are to tapping our talent and showing our point of view.
RR in response to why it doesn’t seem he identifies as Chicano:
“ That’s a valid question, that I’ve never identified myself as Mexican American, but, if you look at my bio, that’s the first thing it says, Mexican-American. I’m very proud of that. (cue clapping). You bring up something very important about identity, because you want to belong and identify with something. This leads to El Rey, you don’t have a place where you can say that’s me, or someone’s success that you can attach to and you feel some of that success is yours, and if that’s a person who isn’t acknowledging that, that’s a terrible thing, I’m sorry you felt that. But I’ve always pointed out, that what I am, what I do with my work speaks for itself. I’ve tried to do it in a very subversive way because that’s been the key. Even after the success of Desperado and From Dusk till Dawn I wanted to do Spy Kids and again, you write what you know, you write in our image, its based on my family. My uncle Gregorio worked as special agent so Antonio’s character’s name is Gregorio. The kids are named after my brothers and sisters. Its all about my family. But the studio says, “Why are you making them Mexican American? Why don’t you just make them American?” That’s why its so important to have a Latin filmmaker to make this argument; “Well because its based on my family”, and its not going to be like only Latin kids are going to watch it, …and then I had the best argument possible, I said, “ Lets put it this way you don’t have to be British to watch James bond. (applause)
You identify with it more if its universal and not that specific. So of everyone watching it, if you’re Latin, you just changed their idea of what’s possible, you’re changing the child’s idea of what they can accomplish because they see my name at the end, “Rodriguez” directed it, two kids with Latin names as spies. It’s very empowering. You want as many people to see it as possible. (Applause)
NALIP 2012 – Empowering our Multi-Cultural Creative Identity
Described as the largest gathering of Latinos working in media in the U.S., the 13th annual National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) Conference presented by Time Warner, most actively by way of HBO Latino and NBC Universal, and The National Latino Media Council, took place this weekend at the model tourist convention hub, Universal City Sheraton. NALIP finds itself in a bit of a transition following Kathryn Galan’s departure as Executive Director who spent almost eleven years at the organization shaping it into what it is today. The search is still on for a replacement but guiding the transition as Interim Director is the affable Beni Matias who started with NALIP from its inception. A couple of the board members are new, including Rosa Alonso, founder of My Latino Voice who will lend her digital marketing expertise to the organization. These high level leadership changes can potentially bring about a revitalized and evolving mission to NALIP’s growing legacy. Covering the conference for Latin Heat Online Magazine, I greatly enjoyed the ability to observe and take part with an inquisitive gonzo-like spirit. Indeed I’d be remiss if I did not approach the significant Latino organization with an on-the-ground, critical eye, especially now while it is in a very ‘review mode’ on how to continue to stay relevant. Its crucial to recognize its monumental formation and landmark achievements. Equally as crucial is to identify how to pragmatically further the conversation it began thirteen years ago about US Latino representation in front and behind the camera. Most important is to distill the relevant but sometimes incongruent messaging – for instance, the Robert Rodriguez keynote illustrated a polar opposite way of thinking to that of Ron Meyer’s keynote (Do we want to Break Out or Break In to the mainstream?), which makes for an intriguing forum of deeper discussion.
What to expect from Chicana from Chicago’s multi-part NALIP coverage? A couple of case-studies/interviews with Rashaad Ernesto Green who epitomizes the DIY mentality which made his feature debut, Gun Hill Road a unique success story, the filmmaker Michael D. Olmos and his star, Gina Rodriguez of Filly Brown who embody the US Latino pop culture flavor.
I’d like to recognize the influential Gatekeepers at non-profit, artistic development institutions responsible for introducing the most fresh, diverse and underrepresented voices to audiences, like Shari Frilot, Senior Programmer at Sundance Film Festival, Tamir Muhammad, Director of Feature Programming at Tribeca Film Institute and Richard Ray Perez who is the newest and welcome U.S. Latino staff addition at Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program. I’m also most excited to give you a heads up on fresh new film and multi-media projects in the works, and I’ll make sure to dish on the fancy Awards Gala.
I found the theme of NALIP 2012’s, “Diverse Voices, Universal Content” sounding futuristic and empowering, yet initially too broadly defined and perfunctory. I strongly feel that the more focus we can bring to next year’s themes, the better we’ll be able to advance conversation. That said, I’ve identified a few key points that were strong merits of this year’s NALIP, and an excellent way to frame and contextualize what was really being said:
- Training our content producers and artists, to not only compete but to raise the bar and expectations in every industry.
- Advocate and encourage our friends of color and diversity in all professions, in particular policy-making fields, towards becoming ‘Decision Makers”
- The need to vocally and financially support ‘our own content’, as peers but especially obligate those in a position of power who represent us and utilize our fan-dom (Robert Rodriguez with his new El Rey network)
- Networking and sharing with peers, and takeaway the hard lessons learned by our elders, those who first paved in-roads into mainstreams, like Rita Moreno and Jerry Velasco, recipients of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Awards.
- Developing our individual and personal voices with which we distinguish our mestizo identity while simultaneously relating the universal the power of storytelling
Overall, I found NALIP an absolutely positive and celebratory environment. . I’m happy to share my thoughts but I would love and need to hear from YOU. I invite you to engage and kindly ask you to share your comments and observations from this year’s NALIP, and in general the landscape of US Latino representation in media as you’ve experienced it.
What is El Rey? – coverage from NALIP 2012
Chicana from Chicago is on the scene at NALIP 2012 thanks to Latin Heat. Armed with a press badge, two borrowed flipcams and camera, I’ll be uploading video and writing coverage from the panels, guests and parties this weekend to find out what la nueva onda of US latino voices are saying about our place in the mainstream. As a teaser, here’s a short spot from Robert Rodriguez about his new network. I apologize for the link. Apparently I don’t have the video setting to embed (its $50, thanks wordpress).
Chicana from Chicago 