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Posts Tagged ‘Movies

Pedro Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is considered a comedic masterpiece and is a personal favorite of mine. One might think I’d be excited about the premise of bringing it to television, but more than enthusiastic, I am feeling a bit tortured. This will be either the best or worst show ever:

Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar is venturing into television with a series adaptation of his first international hit, the Oscar-nominated 1988 feature “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”

Fox TV Studios is developing the English-language hourlong project and has tapped Mimi Schmir to pen the pilot script. Almodovar and Schmir are exec producing [...]

The “Women” series “will be a suburban drama about a group of women who have known each other for a long time, perhaps from college, who are in the middle of their lives and looking at the second half of their lives,” Schmir said.

Like the movie, the series will feature a fair amount of humor. Schmir also is planning to pay homage to the movie by keeping some elements, like the film’s ongoing gag of unsuspecting visitors to the actress’ apartment being knocked out by sleeping pill-laden gazpacho she had intended for her philandering lover.

That sounds…boring. I am not going to judge too much before seeing it, but I think a lot about what makes Mujeres al borde special has to do with the when, where and who of the film. When? The 80s. Where? Downtown Madrid. Who? Some of the best comedic actors Spanish-speaking film as ever seen — and at their prime at that. How do you pull this off in a U.S. suburb? And furthermore, how do you make the premise worthy of an on-going series? I’m just not seeing it.

Have a look at the clip from the original classic and let us know if you think this show has any chance in hell of being good.

Via / The Hollywood Reporter

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Peruana Wins Top Honor at Berlin Film Festival

11:47 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Arts|Culture|Events|Germany|Movies|Peru · Comments Off

26 Feb 2009

Young Peruvian director Claudia Llosa is getting a great start on a promising career. Her film The Milk of Sorrow (which has a more interesting title in Spanish — La Teta Asustada) was honored earlier this month at one of the world’s most important film festivals, the Berlinale in Berlin, with the top honor: the Golden Bear for best film:

In the politically tinged drama, which also has elements of magic realism, a disease is being passed from mother to daughter through breast milk. It turns out, the mothers were all victims of the decades-long battle between the Peruvian government and Shining Path terrorists.

Check out the trailer for La Teta after the jump. Read more…

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Beverly Hills Chihuahua Defeats La Macha

8:38 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Movies · 3 Comments

16 Oct 2008

I’ve tried to go to see the Beverly Hills Chihuahua three times since the movie came out, but alas, the Chihuahua is stronger than La Macha. I can’t do it, I just can’t. I want to be able to see the movie, and offer a valid critique of it, but everything about it makes my teeth set on edge. For example, this is the blurb about the story:

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

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antoio%20banderes.jpeg Felipe Calderon is taking a break from fighting corruption to focus on movie making. He met with big gun movie makers/actors Antonio Banderas and Manoel de Oliveira (amongst others) to talk about how Latin America and Spain/Portugal could start competing in a legitimate way against Hollywood.

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

Read more…

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The Battle for Reality

9:01 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · media justice · 1 Comment

19 Sep 2008

resist2.jpgRemember how I told you yesterday that Charlize Theron was out promoting her new film, Battle in Seattle? Well, I just got word in my email inbox that actual protesters that were at Seattle during the World Trade Protests have something really major to say about that movie:

It’s time that we in the social movements tell our own stories, reclaim our own histories, and publicly fight damaging myths of our movements past and present. We must intervene in the public understanding of what happened, what is happening, and what it all means. Stories are how we understand the world and thus shape the future—they are part of our fight against corporate power, empire, war, and social and environmental injustice and for the alternatives that will make a better world.

The real story of Seattle 1999 is of tens of thousands of people rising up, taking direct action, and changing history; standing up to corporations and governments and winning; joining with movements around the world in our common struggle against the WTO.

Here is the really interesting website that this statement came from–it is run by the activists themselves, and I found all sorts of amazing information and commentary there. I highly recommend you check it out!

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Spike Lee’s new movie, “Miracle at St. Anna” is coming out September 25th and already getting reviewers tied in a knot. Some people find it lumbering and dull, others find it amazing and refreshing. Briefly, Miracle is the story of a battalion of black soldiers during WWII. Apparently all the usual themes are in the movie, racial conflicts, soldier angst, haunting magical realism, etc.

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.

Read more…

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crash_movie_215.gifRemember Crash, that supposedly poignant film which purportedly made us all have a collective epiphany and own up to our own racism? Me neither (I liked it, saw it again, and hated it…weird). But you’ll have another chance to reflect on your bigotry with the new television series of the same premise:

Several producers of “Crash” have signed on to produce a 13-episode television series based on that Academy Award-winning film. This one-hour series will be the first original drama on Starz, which will produce it with Lionsgate. Production is expected to begin in the spring, with a premiere by the end of the year.

Starz? What is that?

Don Cheadle, a member of Crash’s (the film) original cast doesn’t have much hope either, saying “I don’t think you can do 13 episodes on that subject and keep people interested.”

Via / The New York Times

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If you’re tired of all the goody-goody comfort and joy this season brings, you might want to catch El Orfanato, a new horror flick produced by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro which is getting rave reviews.

The film premieres tonight in the U.S. and some say it’s got Oscar written all over it (though others are skeptical because it didn’t get a nomination for the Golden Globes). Critics are comparing it to Pan’s Labyrinth — the Del Toro film which took home numerous Oscars last year — and Spain’s hit horror film The Others.

Looking at the trailer it doesn’t look all that scary but I admit it takes a lot to creep me out. I’ll be checking it out and reviewing it for you here very soon. But in the meantime, get out and see it (and in the process, support films en español!) and let us know what you think.

Via / The New York Times

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81857.33Venezuela-Chavez-Spacey.sff.jpgHugo Chavez is getting into the film business, or rather the government of Venezuela is, funding a new state-controlled movie studio called Cinema Villa. And as you might have guessed, the content of the films set to be produced are political in nature:

Now rolling are biopics about national heroes and villains, including Luis Posada Carriles, the former CIA operative who allegedly masterminded a jetliner bombing and tried to kill Fidel Castro.

Scenes are being shot in and around Caracas this month for the movie about Posada, considered by Chavez to be a Latin American version of Osama bin Laden. Scheduled for international release next year, it’s one of a growing number of films the socialist government is financing in a fusion of politics and art.

The trend is a boost to homegrown cinema in Venezuela, but critics say it reeks of Soviet-style propaganda efforts.

Read more…

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three-amigos.jpgThe three Mexican directors Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Inarritu and Guillermo del Toro – sometimes referred to as “The Three Amigos” have just signed the deal of a lifetime with Universal Pictures, reports AP:

The three Mexican directors who shook up Hollywood last February with 16 Academy Award nominations have formed a moviemaking partnership with Universal Pictures worth a reported $100 million.

Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu will produce five movies, some of them in Spanish, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

Congratulations are in order for these talented guys, and this is great news for fans of Spanish language film as well.

Via / Yahoo! Entertainment

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VivirLatino is a daily publication published by Mamita Mala Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse Latin@ diaspora.

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