09.17.2023 | By Jack Rico |
I once met Gustavo Santaolalla around 2012 at a PR office in Manhattan where I had the chance to speak with him briefly about music and a potential Broadway musical run for Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Flash forward 11 years later, and I am having a one-on-one with a musical legend who, as you will hear in my podcast interview, had a tremendous influence on my youth. Read More
02.10.2023 | By Jack Rico |
The New York Times Bestseller “Olga Dies Dreaming” by Xochitl Gonzalez has been making a huge impact on the Latino community since its release in January 2022. Despite its success, Hulu has passed on the highly anticipated book adaptation starring Aubrey Plaza and Ramón Rodriguez, as confirmed by the author in a recent podcast interview.
01.27.2023 | By Jack Rico |
As the dust settles on the 95th Annual Academy Award nominations, I had a chance to visit my friends at PIX11 News, Marysol Castro and Chris Cimino, to break it down. One thing is clear: the sci-fi epic, Everything Everywhere All at Once, is the film to beat. With a whopping 11 nominations, it has more than any other film this year. Top Gun received 7 nominations, but Tom Cruise was snubbed… again.
01.28.2022 | By Jack Rico |
This week on episode 170 of the Highly Relevant podcast, I welcome the beloved actress Justina Machado known to many as Penelope Alvarez in the Emmy-nominated hit comedy reboot of “One Day at a Time”. In the following Q&A, we discuss her new voice-acted film, “The Ice Age: Adventures of Buckwild,” and what her role as the zorilla ‘Zee’ means for Latino representation. Our conversation also covered several interesting subjects such as the world’s love for animated films, why Hispanic animated films succeed and real-life Latino films and television shows don’t, and why she stopped using the term Hispanic to describe herself. Catch the video interview on our YouTube channel below. Read More
06.1.2021 | By Jack Rico |
Actor Juan Pablo Raba currently co-stars in Liam Neeson’s border thriller ‘The Marksman’ out on streaming right now. He plays Mauricio, a Mexican cartel soldier out to retrieve his missing prize. Raba discusses how border stories are not going anywhere. People will keep coming up with these stories as they feel so relevant and are here to stay. We also debate The Marksman’s “white savior” narrative and why he believes the movie is really a “brown savior” film. Read More
02.22.2019 | By Jack Rico |
Not sure if you noticed, but a Latina is the star of the #1 movie in America. Rosa Salazar, the star of “Alita: Battle Angel,” spoke to us about white-knuckling her way to this grand moment, why there was no pressure once the call came, why Latino representation matters, and why she’s proud of being Peruvian. Read More
01.12.2019 | By Jack Rico |
The Highly Relevant podcast has reached a milestone 100th episode and to celebrate it, I brought in the biggest director in Hollywood at the moment – Alfonso Cuarón (3:19). He discusses ROMA, why critics love it so much and I reveal to him my favorite scene. Also, Nicole Acevedo joins the show to discuss her article from NBCNews.com about how Latin music sales have surpassed Country albums (10:30). Then we finalize with Mexican director Manolo Caro who talks to us about his latest comedy “Perfectos Desconocidos“. (28:53) It’s a great episode, hope you enjoy it! Read More
11.10.2018 | By Jack Rico |
In the latest episode of Highly Relevant with Jack Rico, Basil Tsiokas, the program director of DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary festival, joins us to speak about this year’s LatinX documentaries and why so many LatinX stories are starting to be made (1:06). And if you’re going to the movies, film and culture critic Mike Sargent talks to me about two new releases – Hugh Jackman’s political drama The Frontrunner and the WW2 horror-action film Overlord (16:09). Read More
05.18.2018 | By Jack Rico |
In this new episode of Highly Relevant, it’s Upfronts Week in NYC and all the TV networks are making their annual pitches to sponsors with the intention of obtaining millions of dollars to advertise their programming. We speak with journalist/blogger Laura Martinez, about how Univision and Telemundo are trying to adapt to the demographic growth of US-born Latinos, if we’re ready for English-language novelas and why the next CEO of either network needs to be a woman. Then Mike Sargent joins us to review Deadpool 2 and why he thinks it’s better than the original – from its diversity down to its humor. Read More
04.15.2018 | By Jack Rico |
Ecuadorian-American actress and singer Michelle Veintimilla joins us on this episode to discuss her role as the villainess Firefly on FOX’s Gotham series. Listen to our interview with Michelle on the Highly Relevant Podcast after the jump to find out why she isn’t a fan of telenovelas.
