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Quinceanera by Wash Westmoreland, Richard Glatzer
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DVD Cover InformationActor: Araceli Guzman-Rico, Emily Rios, J.R. Cruz, Jesus Castanos, Listette Avila Director: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland Brand: Sony DVD: Region Code 99 Audio: Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1; Portuguese (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Published), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Published), Dolby Digital 5.1; Portuguese (Published), Dolby Digital 5.1 Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen Picture Format: 2.35:1 Running Time: 91 minutes DVD Release Date: 2007-01-09 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Studio: Sony Pictures
Movie Reviews of QuinceaneraMovie Review: Just another white bashing film Summary: 1 StarsIn this brief review, I will focus on the "gentrification" subplot of the film. Gentrification is a term used to describe the process of whites moving into to slummy ethnic neighborhood and improving it.
The film takes place in Echo Park, a section of L.A. just west of downtown (I used to live near Echo Park for 22 years). Echo Park used to be a respectable white community, that is, until hispanics started moving in during the 1960s (many of them illegals). With hispanics came the usual things they bring: gangs, graffiti, litter everywhere, declining property values, failing schools (since hispanic culture doesn't respect education the way white and Asian cultures do), etc.
The film's gentrification subplot is nothing more than an attack on whites. The two white landlords are shown as crass, superficial people who end up cancelling the lease of the protagonist hispanic family. The old hispanic man dies shortly thereafter; I suppose the jewish director was hoping the viewer would make some cause-effect relationship between the hispanic family being thrown out of their apartment by whites and the old hispanic man dying as a result of heartbreak due to being evicted from the apartment he lived in for decades. This is just a blatant attack on whites. Indicentally, jews don't consider themselves white, I am jewish and I know.
There is a scene in which the 15 year old hispanic girl pleads for a better deal on the rent of a newly renovated apartment (renovated by whites). And then she says, "everyone's the same, well..... I guess it seems that everyone who is movin in is, well, white". As if that is some curse?? When whites move in, a neighborhood improves. If hispanics have a problem with improvement, perhaps they should return to Mexico.
Summary of Quinceanera As Magdalena's (Emily Rios) 15th birthday approaches, her working class family prepares for the all-important Quincea?era - a lavish coming-of-age celebration. To help with expenses, Magdalena is forced to wear a hand-me-down party dress and abandon her dream of arriving in a Hummer limousine. But when her father discovers she's pregnant and refuses to believe the incredible truth - she's actually still a virgin - Magdalena moves in with her elderly Uncle Tomas (Chalo Gonz?lez) and black sheep cousin Carlos (Jesse Garcia). Her newfound family is soon put to the test, however, when an unexpected crisis threatens to tear them apart, and Magdalena learns what it truly means to come of age. Beyond Quincea?era at Amazon.com  More Films about Coming of Age |  The Soundtrack |  Celebrating a Quincea?era Book |
Stills from Quincea?era (click for larger image) A Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-winner, Quincea?era is a small film with a big heart. The plot unfolds at the leisurely pace of life itself, yet there's not a wasted moment in the script. The story follows the travails of young Magdalena (Emily Rios), a teen in the Mexican-American, but gentrifying, Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park. As Magdalena's 15th birthday approaches, and the festive coming-of-age quincea?era party that accompanies it, life throws her a curve ball in the form of an unexpected--and possibly miraculous--pregnancy. In disgrace, she turns to her elderly uncle Tomas and sometime gangbanger and not-quite-uncloseted gay cousin Carlos. The interactions of these unlikely family members ring completely true, with stellar performances by Dios as well as Chalo Gonz?lez as her warm Tio Tomas and Jesse Garcia as the smoldering Carlos. The portrayal of life in Echo Park is intimate and effortless, as the teens slide interchangeably between Spanish and English; crime and gang activities coexist with trendy gay couples and their fashionable remodels. And in the heart of it all, the family ties among the three lead characters prove unconventional--and unbreakable. The DVD also contains a commentary with the filmmakers and cast members, a Q&A with them, and a "making-of" featurette. --A.T. Hurley
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