The Latest in Latino Entertainment News

Solitary Man (Movie Review)

The veteran actor Michael Douglas takes heads the indie route to star in one of my favorite films of 2010 – Solitary Man. The film reminds me of Ben Stiller’s ‘Greenberg‘, about a man who is trying to find meaning in life, except that Douglas is far better and much more appealing.

The plot, infused with comic moments tells the story of Ben Kalman (Douglas), a renown businessman who owns a chain of car dealerships, whose career and marriage are being ruined by his constant indiscretions both professionally and personally. Will he be able to rescue himself from the abyss into which it is located? The story also weaves questions about death and the fragility of the human psyche in a very entertaining way.

How many times have you heard of people being in situations where they have lost everything or about to lose everything, but refuse to see the gravity of the situation; a person who never learns from his mistakes, who prefers to apologize before asking permission first. This is one of Douglas’ best performances in years. It’s full of a rogue charisma that he has perfected throughout his career. One of the salient features of Douglas is his charm and outside of Gekko, he’s never played a role like this one.

Michael is accompanied by a cast of heavyweights such as Susan Sarandon, Mary Louise Parker, Danny Devito and Jesse Eisenberg. It is a pleasure to see this cast work together in this genuine, witty and heartfelt film about the ups and downs of a man. I think we all know people like Kalman – or maybe one might look in the mirror and see none other than… Ben Kalman himself.

Robin Hood (Movie Review)

The new adaptation of Robin Hood, directed by Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator) and starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett hits the big screen after much anticipation and hype. Is this the definitive version to ever be done by Hollywood? Not by far, but it is a noble intent. This adaptation is a prequel, that is, an account of the origins of the green hero before he stole from the rich and helped the poor. The film has some fine moments but also lacks of a fresh new approach to an old story.

The plot begins with the death of King Richard of England (Danny Huston) and Robin Longstride (Crowe) traveling to Nottingham, a city that suffers from corruption and oppressive taxes from the sheriff, to start a new life. There, Robin falls in love with the widow Lady Marion (Blanchette), meets Friar Tuck (Mark Addy) and fights in the war against the French.

To be fair, I found the film to be entertaining and visually absorbing, but due to weak development of the story and shortcomings of some secondary characters, there were moments of confusion in several of its sequences. For example, for most of the film, I could not distinguish who were the British or the French, I couldn’t understand the dialogue very well at first due to the rough and the villains motives weren’t fleshed out properly.

However, if you’re looking to entertain yourself, any imperfections the film might have are put aside for the high level entertainment value. I particularly left satisfied enough to recommend it for a few reasons: one because Crowe and Blanchette are tremendous actors, second because the director Ridley Scott captured beautiful scenes, and third, the locations and details of the movie transport you to back to that period. Robin Hood is worth the watch.

Letters to Juliet (Movie Review)

Men: ‘Letters to Juliet’ is a film with such pipe dream romance that you can’t help but barf more than once. Mexican heartthrob Gael Garcia Bernal co-stars and Puerto Rican Jose Rivera writes this cheesy and predictable film very hard for any straight man to like.

Women: You’ll love, love, love ‘Letters to Juliet’ because you’ll be swept away in the glittering panoramas, the unconditional search for love and the poppy soundtrack that your local top 40 station plays. Moreover, the true reason you’ll love this film is because men like Charlie (Christopher Egan) will fight for your love even though you’ll push men like this away all the time in real life.

The plot of ‘Letters to Juliet’ is interesting. An American girl (Amanda Seyfried) on vacation in Italy finds an unanswered “letter to Juliet” — one of thousands of missives left at the fictional lover’s Verona courtyard, which are typically answered by a the “secretaries of Juliet” — and she embarks on a quest to find the lovers referenced in the letter.

When it comes to romantic movies, I have adopted a philosophy. All you really need to develop a love story, successfully, is that the characters are well developed, the actors playing the leads display a degree of sexual chemistry, and that their relationship is portrayed on the screen naturally. Details of the plot are relatively irrelevant as all romance films follow a predictable path. Unfortunately, lately, romantic movies have become less and less convincing, with stars having higher priority than the narrative and interesting supporting characters never being fully fleshed out. Unfortunately, ‘Letters to Juliet “does not apply my formula to the ‘letter’, thus, its virtues are few. Its core narrative is more given to the sensibilities of young women and tweeny girls.

Gael Garcia Bernal plays Victor, a chef whose top priority in life is to open his own Italian restaurant in New York. Gael plays one the romantic interests to Amanda Seyfried. For Gael to be acting in this film, it had to be a hefty paycheck to convince him. He derides these types of films and more likely did it to make an indie back home in Mexico.

‘Letters to Juliet’ is for women who are looking for their prince charming or are not happy in their own relationship. If you female friend are in this situation, you’re gonna love, love, love this film.

Babies (Movie Review)

I’m a fan of documentaries. It’s a great way to learn, in-depth, about a specific topic in a quick and efficient way. ‘Babies,’ unfortunately, wasn’t very insightful. It was extremely cute and adorable, but to pay $12 to see this, I’d rather recommend you string together 2 hours of cutesy YouTube videos of cuddly baby stunts and call it a day. Or just call your sister or friends who just had one and have them pop out their digital portraits of them. I’m sure the collection is already prepped and ready to go!

Because this is a documentary, there is no concrete plot, except that it focuses on one year in the life of four babies living on different continents: Namibia, Mongolia, Tokyo and San Francisco.

The cameras capture the social, economic and cultural contrasts that each baby is provided. We also have a peek at how their parents raise them with the resources that life has made available to them. Besides the lovely tender moments of these infants, the film depends solely on the innocence of its four protagonists. The target audience is newly parents who will appreciate the idiosyncrasies that they have lived with their own children. It’s difficult to recommend you pay to see this in the theater. The wiser option for your pocket will be YouTube or when it comes out on DVD.