Friday, October 31, 2014

Pitbull performs with Carlos Santana at Latin Grammys


Source by 
Latino superstars Pitbull and Carlos Santana are set to team up for an electric performance at the Latin Grammy Awards. The two stars' set at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on 20 November (14) will be one of many collaborations on the night, including the TV debut of Pepe Aguilar and Miguel Bose. 
Guitar great Santana has two nominations for Best Contemporary Pop Vocal Album and Best Long Form Music Video for Corazon: Live From Mexico - Live It To Believe It. Pepe Aguilar is nominated for Best Ranchero Album for Lastima Que Sean Ajenas. Actress Jacqueline Bracamontes will co-host the event, which will air live on America's Univision network. The telecast will be distributed internationally to more than 80 countries.


Three Films From ‘Cine Latino

Source by Jonathon Sharp
This weekend kicks off Cine Latino, a film festival put on by the Film Society of Minneapolis-St. Paul that seeks to celebrate movies in Spanish and Portuguese.

Thirty-eight films are part of the lineup, and most of them screen twice. The two venues showing the films are the St. Anthony Main Theatre, and The Heart of the Beast Theatre. Both are in Minneapolis.

Here are capsule reviews of a few of the films in this wide-ranging lineup.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

10 Must-Read Books by Latino Authors

Source by 


Put down your phone and pick up a book (you do remember those, right?).

Check out the LIST of the 10 Must-Read Books by Latino authors.

The Latino Dream

Source by Daniel A. Flores 


Manuel Miranda has a long, white beard hanging over the faded text on his Pink Floyd T-shirt.

Two generations of Mirandas are standing in their rented space, booth 65, at an indoor bazaar peddling their books, vinyls, CDs and cassettes. Dated music blares as browsers try out records and tapes on the stereo residing on the side wall.

An artist for more than four decades, Manuel Miranda raised his children surrounded by music, film and various other forms of fine art. One son became a cellist and music educator while another went on to study architecture.

Imanol Miranda, the middle son, studied art at the University of Texas-Pan American and found a passion in using digital photography to investigate larger concepts.
“His dad does the old world art with the colors, paintbrush and canvas,” said Bob Jones, exhibit specialist at The Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center in Austin. “And then his son moved on to a more modernized, digitized type of environment.”

Read More.

Author of Graphic Memoir "Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White" Explores Identity, Mysteries of Creativity

Source by Nicole Akoukou Thompson


Buenos Aires, Argentina was home to author-illustrator Lila Quintero Weaver until the age of five, when she and her family immigrated to a small town in Alabama during 1961, in the heart of Alabama's Black Belt. 

That Alabaman home was "chock full of books," predominately stocked by her father, who was orphaned and lived in the streets of Mendoza, yet he taught himself to read. "Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White"
is an ode to the staying power of that family history.

"Darkroom" began as an academic project, inspired by the graphic memoir "Persepolis" by Marjane Sartrapi, an Iranian émigré to France. "Persepolis" was an eye-opener to Weaver, who has drawn and created art all of her life, and has always been committed to telling stories. Read More.

NUVO Point of View: The Emerging Latino Filmmakers Showcase

Source by Carlos Aguilar



NUVOtv, the premier English-language destination for Latino entertainment, will debut the official film selections for NUVO Point of View: The Emerging Latino Filmmakers its  showcase on Saturday, November 15 at a screening held in conjunction with the NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) film festival at the AT&T Center in Los Angeles.

In addition, the televised special by the same name will include exclusive interviews with the filmmakers and host Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin, "Filly Brown"), and will air on Thursday, December 4 at 8pm ET/PT. Actor and SAG-AFTRA Board Member Jon Huertas (Castle, "The Objective") will also lend his support to the premiere event as one of the evening’s program presenters. Read More.

Esther Cepeda: Elizabeth Peña was trailblazer on the big screen

Source by Esther Cepeda

It's no overstatement to say that we lost a trailblazer when Elizabeth Peña died earlier this month. To note that she was wonderful, but not exceptionally famous, isn't a knock on her abilities. It is a testament to her undervalued contributions to the performing arts.

Peñabroke a major barrier for Hispanic women in Hollywood: playing a woman, not a “Hispanic” woman. Formerly, only women who Anglicized their names—such as Jo Raquel Tajada aka Raquel Welch—pulled that off. Though several advocacy organizations complain about a lack of Latino representation in Hollywood, Hispanics have been part of mainstream entertainment for as long as movies have been around. At the dawn of film, some actors changed their names to sound Latino in order to capitalize on the “Latin lover” trend in movies—Jacob Krantz morphed into Ricardo Cortez and went on to stardom in the 1930. Read More.


Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Ruben Blades Dedicates Songs to Disappeared Mexican Students

 
 
Ruben Blades dedicated songs to the 43 disappeared Ayotzinapa students in the closing performance of the 42nd International Cervantino Festival.

Salsa legend Ruben Blades has added his support for justice for the Mexico students from Ayotzinapa who have gone missing since last being seen held by local police.

The salsa artist Ruben Blades had the public swaying and dancing for two and a half hours in the Guanajuato, Mexico, with songs against racism, family violence and state violence.

Early on, hundreds of young people filled the open-air stadium with chants for justice for the teacher training students disappeared a month ago in Iguala, Guerrero.

Blades took up their chants and also called for justice for the missing students, their families, and all the people found in the mass graves near Iguala.

“Love and Control,” he said, is a song that speaks of the family, and it’s impossible not to think of the families who don’t know where the students are…”

To the cheers of the young people, with pictures of the disappeared Ayotzinapa students projected on a screen, he broke into the song Disappeared with the poignant lyrics lyrics “Can anybody tell me if they’ve seen my son? He’s a medicine student. His name’s Agustín. He’s a good boy, kinda stubborn in an argument. They've disappeared him, I don’t know where.”

He roused the crowd of 4,000 people with songs with a strong social message such as They’re Looking For You and The Bells Are Tolling” with its lyrics, “You can kill the people, but you can’t kill their ideas.”

Blades closed the concert with his best known songs, Pedro Navajas, Plastic and Forgetting is Forbidden.

Acclaimed Writer Rigoberto González on Reaching Latino Children Through Literature


Source by Lawrence Lerner

Rigoberto González, Professor of English and Creative Writing, is a versatile, prolific and acclaimed writer who arrived at Rutgers University–Newark in 2008. He is the recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, and winner of the American Book Award, The Poetry Center Book Award, and the Shelley Memorial Award of The Poetry Society of America, one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon and American poet

His fourth book of poetry, Unpeopled Eden (Four Way Books, 2013), recently won the 2014 Lambda Literary Award, along with the prestigious 2014 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, given out by the Academy of American Poets and which carries a $25,000 prize. He is the first Latino poet to achieve this honor.

González is part of a rich literary tradition that examines life in the borderlands between Mexico and the U.S. He writes about what it means to be a gay Chicano immigrant in the U.S. and to grow up poor, as well as the hardships and resilience of migrant farm workers, religion, masculinity, and a host of other important issues.
We sat down with González recently to talk about his childhood and his work, along with the importance of reaching out to Latino children through literature and mentoring emerging writers.

Read the interview.

The Latino Presidency: How Hispanics Will Elect America's Next President

by Tony Castro



Imagine the late historian Theodore White writing The Making of the President 2016, examining the Latino political impact on America today in the groundbreaking way that his Pulitzer Prize winning presidential books analyzed the mid-20th Century national culture and how the country shaped its future.

The Latino Presidency: How Hispanics Will Elect America's Next President, penned by published author and long-time Hispanic political journalist Mr. Tony Castro is that book, a fascinating narrative history of how the nation's fastest growing segment of the population will influence the 2016 election and how both major parties are trying to win the Latino vote in what promises to be a magical moment in U.S. political history.


In what promises to be a ground-breaking political book, Tony Castro captures the heartbeat of a long campaign that began shortly after 2012, and that is increasingly being fashioned by the political reality that Latinos today make up 53 million people in the U.S. and that the Hispanic vote is primed to decide the presidency not only in 2016, but also in every presidential election beyond. It is interesting to note that the seven states where Latinos make up at least 20 percent of the population account for 153 of the 270 electoral votes needed for election of a president. This includes red state Texas where the growing Hispanic population threatens to change the traditionally Republican state that has not been carried by a Democratic candidate for president since 1976.


The prospect that Latinos could dramatically transform the course of history in Texas typifies the potential altered reality of U.S. presidential politics that was underscored recently when Joe Holley, political editor of the Houston Chronicle, looked over his state's changing landscape and concluded that, "This is sort of, in kind of a quirky way, the second Texas Revolution. And this time, the Mexicans are going to win."


In my opinion, no other author is better qualified to write this book than Tony Castro, whose landmark civil rights history Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America (Dutton, 1974), is considered a seminal work in Latino Studies and a critical achievement. (Publishers Weekly: "Brilliant... a valuable contribution to the understanding of our time.") A former national correspondent for The Washington Post, Castro has covered every presidential election since 1964, when as a Texas high school student he reported on President Lyndon Johnson's reelection campaign. Today, the dean of Latino political journalists, he is the national political writer for the Miami-based Hispanic site Voxxi.com, which Vanity Fair has called "the Hispanic Politico.com."


In writing The Latino Presidency, Castro has tapped into his years of experience reporting in Texas, California, Washington, D.C., and across America, which has given him deep insights into political power in America and how our democracy works in choosing the president. The book details the history of Latino politics in America, from the post-World War II period when Hispanics comprised fewer than a couple of percentage points of the population to today when they make up 17 percent of the country and prepared not only to be the balance of power in determining the next president but also to possibly see one of their own elected.


The Latino Presidency also offers an exclusive behind-the-scenes account of how U.S. Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas rose to prominence in the Republican Party and could ultimately wind up being on the GOP's presidential ticket, a historic move that is likely to shake up national presidential politics even more than the nomination and election of Barack Obama in 2008. While Obama's election as the first African American elected president was certainly unprecedented, The Latino Presidency argues, the nomination of a Latino on the Republican presidential ticket could have a longer-term impact. It could shatter the traditional Hispanic loyalty to the Democratic Party, radically changing future political alliances, as well as break the "Brown Ceiling" that has historically limited Latinos in state and national Democratic politics.

A marvelous writer, Castro's strength is his meticulous reporting and his descriptions of the personalities, the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, the momentum shifts, and the infighting, tactics, and strategies that make up a presidential campaign and what leads up to one. The book is based on hundreds of interviews with major political leaders and figures since the 2012 presidential campaign alone, plus exhaustive research throughout the country. If you want to understand what is happening in the 2016 campaign, which will be unlike any in the past, then The Latino Presidency is the book to read as Castro artfully goes behind closed doors and shows how candidates, their parties and political operatives battle for the Latino vote to help them seize the nomination and, finally, the presidency.

Contact:
Leticia Gomez
Savvy Literary Services
savvyliterary@yahoo.com
phone: 281-465-0119
3 Griffin Hill Ct., The Woodlands, TX 77382

Friday, October 24, 2014

[Video] Salsa and soccer: Players translate rhythm onto field

Source by Jaylon Thompson
On a road trip to Florida, Georgia freshman defender Delaney Fechalos made a simple request.
Joined by a chorus of teammates, they turned their attention to freshman defender Natalie Goodman. Goodman, known as a talented singer, was thrown into the spotlight. Goodman got up and gave her rendition of American Honey by Lady Antebellum. Everyone was filled with emotion. She even had freshman teammate Mariel Gutierrez up and dancing. Interestingly, Gutierrez and Goodman share a connection that stretches beyond the soccer field. This bond is a love for the musical rhythm of fine arts.
Gutierrez has been involved in fine arts ever since she was a little kid. Growing up in Mexico, the Hispanic culture was apparent on every street corner. From the famous salsa music to the smooth rhythm of the tango, Gutierrez fell in love with dancing. She started doing ballet at the request of her mother at three years old. She would perform in local ballrooms and put on performances. Gutierrez would take this passion into middle school where she engaged in dance battles. While, she wasn’t the best dancer, it was here that she honed in on the rhythm and movement of dance. It was this discovery of rhythm and motion that intrigued Gutierrez.
“In dancing, you have a rhythm and movement that is important,” Gutierrez said. “You have to understand times to turn around, when to move your hips, and know where to place your hands.”
These specific movements in rhythmic dancing are also key techniques on the soccer field. For Gutierrez, she uses the techniques to anticipate where her opponent will be. This allows her to be in a better position to defend on the field. While not the swiftest, Gutierrez uses her mind to counter any attack from the opposition. This edge comes from the repetition of steps and rhythm that performing provides. It is something that Goodman understands completely.
“I feel like I can pick up a rhythm when we are passing around,” Goodman said. “When we are passing around, I know how fast or slow I need to play. Sometimes you need to change the rhythm. So when I play, I may need to speed up or slow it down.”
Goodman has been around fine arts her whole life. Along with being a singer, she is also a guitar player. From her time at Savannah Country Day School, Goodman has always been able to grasp the concept of rhythm. Under the tutelage of jazz band director David Elliott, Goodman became acclimated with musical pitches, beats and flow. Her memory of these fundamentals allows her to memorize a musical note and string them together into a smooth flowing song. This ability translates to the soccer field for Goodman. On the field, she is able hear the pace of play and get in harmony with the flow of the game.
“Because I have a musical background, I can pick up something one time and I know it,” Goodman said. “In soccer, I’m able to learn set plays quickly because I can hear it and perform it.”
Dancing and music have played a big role for both Gutierrez and Goodman. It is their ability to understand rhythms that gives them a mental advantage on the field. Through anticipation, they are able to beat defenders by playing smartly and effectively. It allows them to be in the right situations and in turn help the team perform better as a unit. Head Coach Steve Holeman recognizes their mental attributes and he sees how important it is to team’s overall performance.
“Mariel understands the game at a very high level,” Holeman said. “She is not physically the fastest player, but she anticipates well. She knows how to defend players faster than she is. She makes up with her speed with her intelligence.”
Holeman spoke just as highly about Goodman.

“Natalie is one of the hardest working players on the team,” Holeman said. “She plays center back and it’s extremely important to understand the tactics of that role. For Natalie Goodman, she just gets it.”
Watch these salsa soccer video

[REPORT] Latinos Love Going to Movies

The Hispanic market is still a mystery for Hollywood and the film industry, eager to benefit from Latinos’ growing purchasing power, continues to struggle to understand what is a diverse population.
Research by the Motion Pictures Association of America confirms a trend the studios know well: Hispanics like to go to the movies with their families, and they like it a lot. So much that, adjusting for their demographic presence, they are the most loyal moviegoers.
Hispanics, who are about 17 percent of the population, last year made up 32 percent of the audience for Hollywood movies in the United States. Whites, who are 63 percent of the population, accounted for 43 percent.
Blacks, about 12 percent of the U.S. population, also made up 12 percent of moviegoers.
This statistical bump is what has been labeled the Hispanic market, a generalization that covers tens of millions of people who come from different countries and have a wide variety of traditions.
“It is not a huge single market, nor is it many small markets either,” Rick Ramirez, Warner Bros’ vice president for Targeted Marketing, told Efe.
“There is not a single promotion formula” that works all the time with Latino audiences, he said.
Studios tackle this conundrum on a case-by-case basis, because each movie is a challenge different from the previous one.
“A Puerto Rican in New York is completely different from a Mexican in Los Angeles,” according to Fabian Castro, Universal Pictures’ vice president for Multicultural Marketing.
“There are some things that unify this market such as language, food, their interest in some sports, religion,” he said.
Another key factor is the Spanish language and, Ramirez and Castro say, it helps to have a bilingual cast.
“A particularly effective tactic” is to have Anglo stars such as Vin Diesel and Tom Hanks making the tours of national television shows in Spanish, Castro said.

Pitbull to host the American Music Awards for the second consecutive year

Source by Jaylon Thompson
Two times's the charm for Pitbull.
The Cuban-American rapper is set to host the American Music Awards for the second consecutive year, Dick Clark Productions announced Monday.
“Mr. Worldwide” hosted the 2013 AMAs and for many of the 12 million viewers who tuned in, his presence on stage – and that of other Latino stars – was a point of controversy and xenophobia.
Viewers took to social media to not only criticize the rapper’s hosting, but to question why he was chosen to host because he “isn’t American.
But it looks like Pitbull and Dick Clark Productions, who puts on the American Music Awards, have shrugged off the criticism. The 2014 AMA will air live Nov. 23 from the Nokia Theatre on ABC.
A few days later, Pitbull will perform during the halftime show on Thanksgiving Day when the Dallas Cowboys play the Philadelphia Eagles. The Nov. 27 game will take place at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and will air on FOX.
Iggy Azalea is the leading nominee at the AMAs with six nominations. John Legend, Katy Perry and Pharrell Williams have five nominations each. Lorde is up for four honors at the fan-voted show.
Latino superstars Marc Anthony, Enrique Iglesias and Romeo Santos are up for the favorite Latin artist award.
Those acts are all nominated for artist of the year, competing with Beyonce, Luke Bryan, Eminem, Imagine Dragons and One Direction.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Salsa stars to gather in New York to honor Cheo Feliciano

Source by Ruth E. Hernandez Beltran.
Latin music stars will gather at New York's Madison Square Garden on Friday to honor Puerto Rican salsa and bolero singer Cheo Feliciano, who died in a car accident in April.
"Cheo was one of the 'last of the Mohicans' and a very talented one," Willie Colon, who shared the stage many times with Feliciano as members of the legendary Estrellas de Fania band, told Efe.
"His death hurt me a lot, it was a shock," the trombone player, singer and composer, one of the stars who will participate in the Oc. 24 homage, said.
The 79-year-old Feliciano, known for his rendering of standards such as "Triste problema," "Amada mia," "Pa'que afinquen" and "Anacahona," among other hits, was killed on April 17 when the car he was driving swerved and crashed into a concrete pole.
The Madison Square Garden stage where Feliciano himself performed will be taken by Colon, Gilberto Santa Rosa, la India, Oscar D'Leon, Tito Nieves, Jose Alberto "El Canario", Raulin Rosendo and Sergio George with the Los Salsa Giants band for a show titled "La Salsa Vive" (Salsa Lives On) to highlight Feliciano's five-decade music career.
Colon, who will travel from Los Angeles where he is to perform on Oct. 23, recalled Feliciano, whose career began in New York with the Joe Cuba orchestra, as a man "of good humor and an incredible personality."
"When I was with Estrellas de Fania, the thing I liked most was to perform along with Cheo, to see him, to be able to work with him," Colon said. "He was a fast thinker, both in English and Spanish, and had a wonderful philosophy of life. People enjoyed being around him and wherever he went things would lighten up."
"All the songs he sang would come out in a unique expression. He had a peculiar syncopation, a way to shape phrases, he was a brilliant character," Colon said.
Gilberto Santa Rosa, known as "El Caballero de la Salsa," remembers of Feliciano mostly for "his humility and comradeship."
"He never made a distinction between the star level he was in, and us, the generation coming up behind him," Santa Rosa said.
"From the first time I met him, he always treated me as an equal and I never saw him keeping his distance," Santa Rosa said. EFE

Latino Festival exceeds expectations

Source by Paola Trabanco

Have you ever arrived early to an event and found yourself surrounded by madness and chaos? You see people going left to right, making sure that every last detail is set for the event. This mass chaos shows how much work and motivation goes into planning events.
The Latino Festival was celebrated on Thursday, October 9 at the Hagan Campus Center. It was a chance for different cultures within the Student Body to come together and celebrate their unique cultures. Nathalie Vega and Mike Blandon were excellent hosts throughout the night. They were very engaging, friendly and welcoming to the crowd.
One thing that was different from other years is the amount of people that showed up for this event.
“Every year we have a bigger crowd, [sic] its so exciting to see. A diverse array of people enjoying this great event. So nice to see so many faculty members here,” said Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. Catherine Woodbrooks.
The Latino Festival has much to offer: delicious food, beautiful decorations, live music and dance performers. Each table was decorated with a flag from a Hispanic country and each table had fun facts about that country as well.
“For me it’s a chance for all backgrounds of the Latino culture to come together and enjoy each other’s company, food, music and also for other cultures to learn about the Latino culture” said President of ALANA Jackie Louro.
The food was served buffet-style with a wide variety from which to choose. Foods from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Brazil were served that night. Having live music for any event makes a difference—Grupo Fantasia was very engaging with the audience and they played salsa, merengue and bachata. They invited everyone to get on their feet and show their dancing skills. Ritmos y Raices were the performers of the night. They each showed their dancing skills and colorful costumes.
Of course, we cannot forget about the piñata. A piñata is a container made of paper mache and is filled with all sorts of candy that is hung from the ceiling. The person is blindfolded, spun around or her person five times and asked to hit the piñata with a stick to try to break it so that candy will come out.
“I was excited to show the Latino culture to students at Assumption who don’t know a lot about our culture. A lot of people came and I hope that more people will come back next year,” said Erika Jyring-Lopez who is on the Community Outreach Executive Board. Each year the Latino Festival has a bigger audience, and hopefully throughout the years, many students will attend and enjoy what the ALANA board has to offer.

[Video] Cast of ‘Jane the Virgin’ wants to change Hollywood

Source by 
Gina Rodriguez may be on the brink of stardom thanks to the new CW show  “Jane the Virgin.” The Latino actress wants to change Hollywood.
The Puerto Rican actress says Hollywood too often casts Latino actors in the roles of maids or landscapers.  With her role in Jane, she is hoping to be a positive role model for the Latino community and young girls. The predominantly Latino cast believes the show will resonate beyond the Latino community. Watch the video here.

Hollywood’s Hottest Hispanic Men


Source by Rahsheeda Ali

On the heels of Hispanic Heritage Month, we’ve been thinking about the gorgeous Latino men who’ve been heating up Hollywood for years. What better way to celebrate than compiling a list of the sexiest Hispanic hotties around?

We included actors like Esai Morales who’ve had places in our hearts for decades, while sultry stars like Mexico’s Diego Luna are becoming more familiar to U.S. audiences. Some of the guys even have VH1 ties, like LeAnn & Eddie star Eddie Cibrian and William Levy, who had a recurring role on Single Ladies.
Who else earned a spot on our list? Browse through our gallery to find out here.

Sofia Vergara Talks Latino Representation On Television

Source by 



Over the years Sofía Vergara’s “Modern Family” character, Gloria, has been heavily criticized for perpetuating stereotypes of Latinas. But now the Colombian actress is saying she helped the show’s writers become more culturally aware and that television could use more Latin writers.
Recently the actress spoke to Time Magazine as part of the Follow The Script campaign, which raises awareness about hypothyroidism, and discussed the kinds of cultural mishaps she initially experienced on set and the state of Latino representation in Hollywood.
In the interview published Wednesday, Vergara reiterated that when playing Gloria she is inspired by her mother and aunt.
Read more.

Hollywood and the 1,000 faces of the Hispanic market

Source by EFE
The Hispanic market is still a mystery for Hollywood and the film industry, eager to benefit from Latinos' growing purchasing power, continues to struggle to understand what is a diverse population.
Research by the Motion Pictures Association of America confirms a trend the studios know well: Hispanics like to go to the movies with their families, and they like it a lot. So much that, adjusting for their demographic presence, they are the most loyal moviegoers.
Hispanics, who are about 17 percent of the population, last year made up 32 percent of the audience for Hollywood movies in the United States. Whites, who are 63 percent of the population, accounted for 43 percent. Read more.

FGCU Mexican Film Fest gets to critical topics

Source by Janusz Zawewski

Mexican film art has earned a high reputation among international experts, who praised directors from Luis Buñuel — best director at Cannes, 1951, for “Los Olvidados,” and recently placed on UNESCO’s historical significance list — to a recent array of his successors:

Alejandro González Iñarritu
Carlos Reygadas
Multiple Cannes winnerAmat Escalante
Alfonso Cuaron (US-made “Gravity, 2013, Oscar for Best Director)
Yet Mexican film festivals are relatively rare in the United States.
They usually fall into the category of Latino film festivals, widely held across the country (from Miami to New York and Chicago, to San Diego, to Seattle).
Therefore it is worth noting that FGCU’s Department of Languages and Literature launched last week a series of Mexican feature films that will be presented every Thursday for four weeks in a row. This is not the first time FGCU makes foreign films available to the wider audience, the immediate previous one being the French Film Festival in the spring this year.
The films scheduled are three to seven years old, no longer in movie theaters and cover a broad range of topics, from generational gap bridged by Manuel Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” (“El Estudiante,” 2009), to migration of males from Mexican villages (“Spiral,” 2009), to sexuality of a mentally disabled boy (“La Mitad del Mundo,” 2007), to affection of a middle-age man for a teenager (“Flor de Fango,” 2011). Tragic and comic at the same time, they bring up a recurring topic of youth, its troubles and upbringing, present in Mexican cinema since it was first noticed over 60 years ago in “Los Olvidados.”
I watched the first film in a series, “Amor en Fin,” and was nicely surprised by the uncommon way it portrayed the Mexican society and its culture, so different from ours. I strongly recommend attending selected shows, since it’s an opportunity to learn how our closest neighbor sees itself through the eyes of their filmmakers.
If you are really interested in Mexican film, you may reach out for one of many very informative books written on the subject, the two more recent being:
Mexican National Cinema, A. Noble, Taylor & Francis, 2005.
Aesthetics and Politics in the Mexican Film Industry, by Misha MacLaird, Macmillan, 2013.
Janusz Zalewski is professor of computer science and software engineering, College of Engineering, at FGCU. He occasionally writes film, theater and art reviews for the Daily News.

Pitbull to perform at Cowboys' stadium for Thanksgiving halftime show

Source by Dallasnews
Pitbull is coming back to Dallas to do another Thanksgiving show during a Dallas Cowboys halftime.
The rap star will perform during halftime of the Dallas Cowboys game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Nov. 27.
That's pretty perfect timing since his new album Globalization is slated to release on Nov. 24. 
The pop star performed with Enrique Iglesias at the stadium for Thanksgiving in 2011. According to a release from the Cowboys, Iglesias is not mentioned as a co-performer, despite the fact they are on tour together this month and performed Friday night in Dallas at American Airlines Center.
Pitbull's new album reportedly includes collaborations with Chris Brown, Jennifer Lopez, Sean Paul, Jason Derulo, Bebe Rexha, Claudia Leitte, G.R.L., Dr. Luke, Cirkut, Sermstyle, Lifted, Kinetics, Wallpaper and more.
He will be part of the The Salvation Army show that launches the red kettle campaign, which raises millions of dollars throughout the holiday season.
Past performers included: Selena Gomez, Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, Daughtry, The Jonas Brothers, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Sheryl Crow, Destiny’s Child, Toby Keith, LeAnn Rimes, Creed, Jessica Simpson, Billy Gilman, Clint Black, Randy Travis and Reba McEntire.
Pitbull's real name is Armando Christian Perez.

Cheech Marin waxes about beauty, the Day of the Dead and ‘The Book of Life’


Cheech Marin has been a lover of art since he was a child. He would go to the library and mull over the various books on the great artists in history.As an adult, he began collecting his own art and now more than 700 pieces of Chicano art, which he takes around the country.“You can’t love or hate Chicano art until you see Chicano art,” he told Fox News Latino recently.
The comedic actor’s love for art shines through when he talks his upcoming animated film, “The Book of Life,” which hits theaters Friday.
“It’s wonderful,” Marin gushed. “It’s very colorful. It’s a great story with drama and comedy.” Read more.