My 11 year old had read all the books (and so have I- pero I always read what she reads so we can discuss etc), so she just had to be at the local movie theater's first showing at 12:01 early this morning/late last night to get her some Edward Cullen and she wasn't the only one.

The Filiberto Ojeda Rios Film Festival 2008 is an initiative of the ProLibertad Freedom Campaign to showcase films that speak to our experience as a colonized people fighting for independence and self-determination!

We have named the film festival after assassinated Machetero leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios because his death raised consciousness throughout the Puerto Rican Diaspora; his murder illustrated the colonial oppression Puerto Rico faces and has radicalized a generation of young activists to continue the fight for independence.

We hope these films will do the same. Join us on our three consecutive Fridays!

Don’t support the Hollywood machine that feeds you nonsense, sex, violence and cheap humor! Learn about yourself, your people, and your struggle!

This Friday's film is la Operacion, a film I have written about and referenced often. Pero for those who have not been paying attention:

La Operacion/The Operation
This documentary brings to the foreground the problem of widespread
sterilization among Puerto Rican women through the use of personal testimony, newsreels, and government propaganda excerpts. The procedure is so common that more than one-third of all Puerto Rican women of childbearing age have been sterilized. Begun in the 1930's as a means of curbing the surplus population, it continues to be reinforced politically and socially in the Puerto Rican communities.

$5 donation/Best offer at each film!

Friday November 21st, 2008 @ 8pm @ The Brecht Forum 451 West Street (that's the West Side Highway) between Bank & Bethune Streets.

This is not just history. It is directly tied into how women's cuerpos are used today as projects and not respected, how the language of choice is often manipulated to help some while harm others and devalue our lives and how and when we continue to bring forth new lives or not.

The premise of the movie is effed up enough. La Macha has mentioned the whole dog as Latino problem, and no matter how many Latino actors are in the this animated flick, nothing justifies the stereotypes that were used in this film.

Warning if you haven't seen the movie I will give away the whole damn thing. You shouldn't see the movie anyway so just click after the jump anyway.

The part I found interesting was how Audra stated that she didn't "look the part." But what is a Puerto Rican *supposed* to look like? And knowing Latin America's historical roots of mestizaje, why on earth would there ever be an assumption that a black woman could not be Latina?

Besides, I think she makes a more convincing Maria than Natalie Wood.

How could I?

Maybe this is how?
Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't hyper sensitive Latinos that created Latino=dog imagery, but politicians that are hell bent on playing on fear and difference to get elected?

"They are distorting the facts and ridiculing the Hispanic community," said Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "It's a shameful piece. It really is gutter politics."

Carrie Cantrell, a spokeswoman for The Republican State Leadership Committee, an Alexandria, Va.-based political organization that works to elect down-ticket Republicans in state races, said she appreciates the groups' opinion, but that the ad was simply a parody of a well-known popular culture reference, a Chihuahua once used in Taco Bell advertising.

She did not apologize.

Oh, look at that--popular culture used and manipulated to make a racist point? How unuuuuusual.

Drew Barrymore is the voice of Chloe, a high-maintenance, pink-bootie-wearing Chihuahua with a hovering celebrity owner (Jamie Lee Curtis). When her careless dog sitter (Piper Perabo) takers Chloe to Mexico, the pooch is kidnapped by a dog-fighting ring. But in this pup's harrowing quest to return home to the Hills, she ends up finding her inner bark.

So, all the leads are white folks, right? But watch the trailer:

Where are all the white folks? For some reason, watching the trailer, I get the idea that the movie is about George Lopez for.

Could Disney be using Latinos to justify a racist movie that plays on tired stereotypes? But if it is, why on earth is every Latino under the sun in the damn movie? Does Latino Hollywood need jobs that badly??

I can not watch the movie to give some answers--maybe my dear VLatinos can?

via TIME

In spite of the repressive government attendance, it still sounds like there were some interesting ideas being passed around at the event:

(btw, notice how my girl Michelle Rodrigez makes an appearance! How exciting!)

The two reportedly feel “furious” and “betrayed” over reports that a short story in Cervantes Prize-winning Carlos Fuente’s upcoming book “Happy Families” is actually a thinly veiled “novel a clef” about their own affair -– and allege that parts of the story were lifted word-for-word straight from Hayek’s own personal diaries.

The good thing about this, apparently the lifted words were actually rather poetical, proving my belief that Salma is not only physically but mentally desirable.

Reads the story: “Truffles began to make me itch, pheasants left me cross-eyed, lobsters grabbed at my hands to pull me back to the ocean floor … Love can suffocate us. It’s like eating candy all the time. You have to give tedium its due.”

“These are words that were taken directly from my own private diaries,” the distraught Hayek has confided to several close friends.

I spit on anyone who would invade another person's privacy in such a way--and I invite Salma to find courage during these difficult times in my arms.

via/huliq

But the thing that I was interested in reading about the film is that it works to create a 'black community' in the U.S.

So, anybody who knows me even slightly knows that Salma Hayek is my girl. I am sure that someday Salmita will see the queer light and become my wife, or at the very least, girlfriend. But until that day, I will settle for my other girl, Eva Mendes.

You see, Eva makes the news for all sorts of naughty things, for example, getting angry because her nipple was censored, while various forms of guns, violence and murder are given free reign over our television sets.

Eva Mendes is furious with the censor board for allowing violence on TV screens and not her Calvin Klein TV ad that featured a nipple slippage. Since the ad was pulled from U.S. TV networks last month (Aug08) before it aired, only few people have seen the Secret Obsession promo. The ad came under fire for being too provocative.

...

The actress admits she's a little upset the sexy ad won't be seen on TV, she said: "We can show guns everywhere and stuff but we can't show a woman's nipple; that's a bit backwards to me."

As a child of a former "make love not war" flower power hippy, I see Eva's point. As an eager girlfriend want-to-be of Eva's, I see her point even more. As a very sensible feminist, I have to wonder if maybe the point is to get rid of the guns and violence rather than increase consumer mentality around women's bodies.

Ai, such conflicts in my life. I hardly know what to do about them all.

via/One India

This weekend, Trouble the Water, a film that follows a New Orleans couple through and after Hurricane Katrina, opens in New York City and Los Angeles. It won the Grand Jury prize for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival and serves to remind us all that Hurrican Katrina was one horror, how the U.S. government treated its own in the aftermath was another.

Yesterday, 50 year old comedian Bernie Mac, who had been in the hospital for some time due to pneumonia, passed away in a Chicago area hospital. Bernie Mac is best known for his stand up comedy, a television show bearing his name, and his film work.

Isaac Hayes, known for a range of things from winning an Oscar in 1971 for his “Theme From Shaft” to starring as Chef on South Park and being inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame in 2002, died today at age 65. He was found unresponsive by a family member, having apparently collapsed during a workout.

Ironically both Hayes and Bernie Mac will appear in a film scheduled to be released in November, Soul Men.

The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community.
But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis.
The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand answers:
Why was the land sold to a wealthy developer for millions less than fair-market value? Why was the transaction done in a closed-door session of the LA City Council? Why has it never been made public?
And the powers-that-be have the same response: “The garden is wonderful, but there is nothing more we can do.”
If everyone told you nothing more could be done, would you give up?

Could there be something redeeming in a Chihuahua movie? Why is the lead Chihuahua character voiced by a non-Latin@? I guess we'll have to wait until October 3rd to get our answers!