BEST MOVIE QUOTE:

You sold your soul to the devil. How come you still look so good?”

– Gael Garcia Bernal as Hector in The Mother

Jennifer Lopez’s The Mother – Top Movie on Netflix

The Mother had the No. 1 opening weekend of any Netflix film released in 2023 after its release on May 12, 2023.  Distributed by Netflix, The Mother, starring Jennifer Lopez is an action-packed thriller that delves into the depths of a mother’s love in an unethical and captivating manner. Directed by visionary filmmaker, Nikki Caro (Whale Rider, The Zookeeper’s Wife, McFarland, USA) the buzz is that the movie takes audiences on an exhilarating and emotional rollercoaster ride. 

According to Heaven of Horror reviews, The Mother is a “good choice for a Friday night action flick where you want to be entertained but also want a decent storyline.” May 12, 2023

Additional Cast: Lucy Paez, Joseph Fiennes, Gael Garcia Bernal, Jesse Garcia,Yvonne Senat Jones, Paul Raci, Edie Falco, Michael Karl Richards, Link Baker, Mayumi Yoshida, Ryan Cowie, Todd Matthews, Yadier Fernandez, Olivia Lucas, Jay Cardinal Villenueve, Medi Regragui

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan

The official trailer for the fourth and final season of the action series, starring John Krasinski and Michael Peña as Domingo Chavez, Wendell Pierce, Michael Kelly, Betty Gabriel and Abbie Cornish, and Louis Ozawa. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan has been shared by Prime Video. The epic and exciting final season will be arriving through the streaming platform on June 30^th, with new episodes available every Friday.

The fourth and final season finds Jack Ryan on his most dangerous mission yet: facing an enemy both foreign and domestic. As the new CIA Acting Deputy Director, Ryan is tasked with unearthing internal corruption, and in doing so, uncovers a series of suspicious black ops that could expose the vulnerability of the country. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is co-produced by Amazon Studios, Paramount Television Studios, and Skydance Television, and executive produced by Allyson Seeger, Andrew Form, John Krasinski, Brad Fuller, Michael Bay, and John Kelly.  05/31/2023

Sergio Calderón, Mexican Character Actor Dies at 77

Sergio Calderón died Wednesday in a Los Angeles hospital of natural causes, a family spokesman announced. He was a popular and respected character actor who made his mark in such iconic films as The In-Laws, Men in Black and Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End. At the turn of the 20th century, Calderón came to the attention of Hollywood after he portrayed a Mexican revolutionary in Duck, You Sucker (1971), written and directed  by Sergio Leone, and was a murderous Mexican chief of police opposite Albert Finney in John Huston’s Under the Volcano (1984). In the 1979 Arthur Hiller comedy The In-Laws is the film that got him his SAG card. 

Eva Longoria’s Searching For Mexico

Stanley Tucci and Eva Longoria teamed up to produce six episodes that explores the culture, traditions and foods of her Mexican roots, in Searching For Mexico, CNN’s original series. Search for the show and once you watch the first episode you will not be able to avoid binge watching the five remaining shows. Longoria is in post production for two upcoming new projectd, Land of Women, a TV mini series co-starring with Carmen Maura and Vanessa Casta?os, and War of the Worlds, an adventure/drama/horror, co-starring with Ice Cube and Michael O’Neill.If you missed the episodes, they are streaming. Check them out on CNN!

Cast: Lucy Paez, Joseph Fiennes, Gael Garcia Bernal, Jesse Garcia, Yvonne Senat Jones, Paul Raci, Edie Falco, Michael Karl Richards, Link Baker, Mayumi Yoshida, Ryan Cowie, Todd Matthews, Yadier Fernandez, Olivia Lucas, Jay Cardinal Villenueve, Medi Regragui

Penélope Cruz joins the Lancôme: La Vie Est Belle Campaign

The short beauty high profile Lacome short promotes The Scent of Happiness… “life is beautify,” is about choosing your own path to happiness and inspiring others. Complex and modern, the Eau de Parm campaign  features Lily Collings, Penélope Cruz, Hoyeon, Julia Roberts, Amanda Seyfried, Aya Nakamura, Isabella Rossellini, and Zendaya

Director: Emmanuel Adjel

Michelle Rodriguez & Rita Moreno Forge Ahead in Fast X 

Action Film Roared into Theaters May 19, 2023

Moving forward without a key character, Brian O’Conner portrayed by the late Paul Walker wasn’t easy, but Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto the head of the family is joined by Michelle Rodriguez and Jason Stratham in the new action/adventure/crime Fast X movie. The legendary West Side Story actress, Rita Moreno, plays Dom’s grandmother, Abuela Toretto. And, boy it’s the ride of a lifetime! Fast X is such a spectacular movie production that it is a 2-part movie, the first being Fast X that just premiered and the second part will premiere sometime in 2025. 

 Dom Toretto and his family are targeted by the vengeful son (Jason Momoa) of drug kingpin Hernan Reyes. According to the storyline: “The end of the road begins. Fast X, the tenth film in the Fast and Furious Saga, launches the final chapters of one of cinema’s most storied and popular global franchises, now in its third decade and still going strong with the same core cast and characters as when it began. Cast also includes Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang, Jason Stratham, John Cena and Scott Eastwood, with several Oscar® winners, Helen Mirren, Charlize Theron, Brie Larson, and Alan Richtson. Fast X is produced by Neal H. Moritz, Vin Diesel, Justin Lin, Jeff Kirschebaum and Samanta Vincent. And, executive produced by Joseph M. Caracciolo, Jr., David Cain, Chris Morgan, Amanda Lews and Mark Bomback. 

Most of the reviews have been positive, sharing the same overall sentiment: “From the very beginning, Fast X grabs hold of the audience’s attention and refuses to let go.”

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Michael Pena was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 13,1976 to parents who are originally from Mexico.  Pena’s breakout film role was Daniel in the film Crash directed by Paul Haggis.  Other notable performances include End of Watch, directed by David Ayer and worked alongside Jake Gyllenhaal.

After high school Pena went to an open casting call for Peter Bogdanovich feature To Sir, with Love II (1996), and beat out hundreds of other young men for a role. He then moved to Los Angeles and booked several small roles in films like Star Maps, My Fellow Americans working along  Jack Lemmon and James Garner), and the Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer feature Gone in 60 Seconds (2000). 

He appeared in 5 movies nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award – Million Dollar Baby, Crash, Babel, American Hustle, and The Martian – with the first two movies winning.

Peña has said in interviews that in every film he’s cast in, he asks the writers to include a reference to his character being Mexican-American because, he says, he gets to mainly play characters who are not stereotypes & clichés, and that it is a source of pride to Mexican-American fans who go to his films to see him playing non-stereotypical roles

He recently played DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in Netflix TV series Narcos: Mexico; and Dr. Roarke in Columbia Pictures Fantasy Island. 

Pena will next star in the sci-fi epic film Moonfall where he plays Tom Lopez, a wealthy car dealer.  The film is to be directed by Roland Emmerich.

Featured Photo: Wiki Commons

— Latin Heat News Service

The post Happy Birthday Michael Pena! first appeared on .

Written by Roberto Leal

Dateline: San Antonio, Texas

Speaking of island…

Yesterday, I was having lunch at the Sea Island Restaurant with a group of friends. I asked one of them, Millennial Millie, if she remembered the old TV show, Fantasy Island. She looked at me with that puzzled look that so many of her generation get whenever asked a historical or cultural reference question that goes back more than five years.

Well, old geezers like me, certainly remember Fantasy Island, the TV show, with Latino Legend, Ricardo Montalban, and his diminutive sidekick, Hervé Villechaize. Every Saturday from 1977 to 1984, Montalban, as Mr. Roarke, and Villechaize, as Tattoo would greet a plane load of guests to the resort island with Tattoo announcing their arrival by ringing the bell, pointing to the sky and proclaiming: “Ze plane. Ze plane.”

Then it dawned on me. Millennial Millie was born in 1984, so, of course, the iconic TV show never crossed her cultural radar screen or Smart Phone. But I was looking forward to the movie remake, which premiered today. My interest was piqued by a recent GQ Magazine article hailing the Sony Picture and Blumhouse production remake as “2020’s First Great Horror Movie.” Blumhouse is the studio that made us wet our collective movie-going pants with two recent horror hits: Us and Get Out. 

Fantasy Island  director, Jeff Wadlow had previously teamed up with writers, Jillian Jackson and Chris Roach on 2019’s Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare, a spooky offering with a similar motif as this re-incarnation of Fantasy Island: a seemingly harmless and promising beginning turns horribly bad for the unsuspecting participants. Wadlow also directed the TV series, Bates Motel, so this creative team knows from scary.

But what about Mr. Roarke?

Michael Peña has been given the difficult task of resurrecting one of TV’s most memorable, enigmatic and mysterious TV characters: Mr. Roarke. For me, one of the most enduring mysteries about Mr. Roarke, was how the character, as played by Montalban, the suave, courtly Mexican with the cultured accent wound up with an Irish last name, running a resort for dreamers on a remote, tropical island. 

But Peña proves to be a good choice. The son of Mexican immigrants, Peña’s Mr. Roarke, retains that aura of mystery, but in a younger, cooler, hipper persona. Peña has an extensive and impressive filmography. I especially liked him in War on Everyone, (2016).

In a YouTube interview, Peña reflected on the challenge of playing Mr. Roarke and his approach to the part.

Back in the misty, prehistoric TV days of yore, Mr. Roarke would grant the guests their fantasies, with a price, of course. The episodes were frequently morality plays. The price of those fantasies was often a dark, unhappy ending for the guests.

However, in this updated rendition of Fantasy Island, Mr. Roarke grants each of the guests one fantasy, but they must follow the rules of the island. They must pursue their fantasy, no matter where they lead, to its logical conclusion. But when the fantasies inevitably turn into nightmares, the guests must solve the island’s mystery in order to escape with their lives.

The story follows the various fantasies as each one grows darker and creepier. Things start to get confusing as the fantasies overlap with each other and wind up merging. Eventually, after a series of hair-raising, often violent, sequences, the fantasies, in the end, reach a logical conclusion, with a surprise twist.

Fantasy Island is a fast-paced, action, adventure, horror, thriller, laced with moments of humor. The youthful, attractive cast headed by Peña, along with Lucy Hale, Maggie Q. and Portia Doubleday, will appeal to those younger movie-goers who don’t remember the original TV show.

So, to Millennial Millie: “Welcome to Fantasy Island“. To my fellow, aging, creaky, sometimes cranky, Baby Boomers, who loved the TV show: Welcome Back to Fantasy Island. But be careful what you wish for, in this version of Fantasy Island, you arrive on a plane, but you could leave in a body bag.

FANTASY ISLAND

Sony Pictures / Blumhouse

Rated PG-13

Director: Jeff Wadlow

Screenwriters: Jillian Jackson, Chris roach

FULL CAST

The post Michael Peña Headlines “Fantasy Island” Remake first appeared on .

Dora and The Lost City Of Gold Opens to $17M Nationwide!

Dora the Explorer as a mature teenager as played by Isabela Moner in the live-action Dora and The Lost City of Gold opened to a respectable but underperforming  $17 million box-office weekend (Aug 9-12). The good news is that the targeted U.S. Hispanic audience came out in droves for the reportedly $49M film before marketing costs. According to THR, 40% of the ticket buyers were Hispanic, 37% Caucasian and 12.3% Asian/other and 11% were African-American. I wonder where they get those figures from since I went to the theater and my ticket did not say Black or Hispanic (we will save that for another article). Half of the audience-skewed female mostly made up of parents and kids. 

 Dora, an animated character created almost twenty years ago with its worldwide brand should have brought in numbers closer to the $40M or $60M range in comparison to opening weekends for such family fare as Aladdin or The Lion King. Guillermo Del Toro’s produced Scary Stories pulled in $21M over the weekend with a lot less promotion.

 Dora tries to have it both ways trying to be an Indiana Jones and Jumanji like entertainment. The filmmakers succeeded more on the Jumanji side, over the other but completely missed the charm of the iconic Dora the Explorer character with its core worldwide audiences. Dora is perpetually a six-year-old little girl, not a teenager. 

The film is enjoyable and family-friendly and the only miscalculation, in my opinion, is that the filmmakers should have kept Dora a little six-year-old girl, not a teenager. I believe that many in the young Kiddies audiences had difficulty identifying with or accepting this almost grown-up Dora in the form of Isabela Moner.  

I do not know what led the filmmakers to chose to make Dora a teenager rather than casting a little girl that is closer to the animated character. I suspect that aging Dora up was an attempt to appeal to a broader audience while at the same time not losing the Nickelodeon cartoon’s fan base by essentially keeping her in character.  Even Eugenio Derbez who co-stars in the film as mysterious explorer Alejandro Gutierrez, in a televised interview recalled bringing his little daughter to the set during filming. She was excited about meeting Dora and being disappointed upon meeting the mature 18-year-old Moner when she was expecting to see either a cartoon character or a real live Dora in the form of a little girl.

Eva Longoria, who stars as Dora’s mother Elena, is quoted in an AP story from the films’ Los Angeles premiere, “Such a positive portrayal of a young Latina who is smart and kind and brave and fearless and speaks Spanish, is a reason to celebrate.” 

A large Latino cast in leading roles is at the forefront of a major Hollywood production, that is a rarity in today’s diverse entertainment cultural climate.

Michael Peña, who stars as Dora’s father in the film, told Variety, “ It’s a reason to do this kind of movie. Number one, it’s going to be a fun movie and people are going to like it, but number two, 24 years ago when I started acting, this would have never happened. There was no big-budget movie that I know of that any Latin person was even starring in. It’s cool that this is just kind of normal now in a way but for me, it’s especially satisfying.”

Along with Moner, Longoria, Pena, and Derbez, Dora also stars Danny Trejo as Boots, Jeff Wahlberg as Dora’s famous cousin Diego, and the voice performance of Benicio del Toro as Swiper.  Eugenio Derbez also serves as Executive Producer. 

Dora can still rake in a steady stream of box-office ticket sales as the film’s favorable buzz and social media presence builds with audiences over the final weeks of the remaining summer blockbuster playing time.

Netflix’s Gabriel Iglesias Comedy Mr. Iglesias Renewed for a Second Season

Mr. Iglesias has been renewed for a second season.  Comedian Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias stars as a good-natured high school history teacher who tries to help the gifted misfit students at his high school Alma Mater.  The comedy show features a diverse and inclusive cast including Jacob Vargas, Sherri Shepard, Maggie Geha, Cree Cicchino, Fabrizio Zacharee Guido, Oscar Nunez, and Richard Grant.

Mr. Iglesias has been a critical hit and received a positive response from Netflix subscribers. The school featured in the series, Wilson High, is based on a real high school of the same name in Long Beach, California that Iglesias attended and graduated from in 1994.  Iglesias is currently on a nationwide comedy concert tour and has signed on to voice a leading character in the animated feature Blazing Samurai. Mr. Iglesias, created by Kevin Hench, is also co-executive produced by Luisa Leschin.

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