Hector Jimenez

Intimo
$17.98
Yolanda and Enrique offer us this true Latin American musical embrace. Although I knew of Enrique Coria's masterful guitar style, this lyrical duo with Yolanda Aranda really exceeded everything I expected. The trained voice of Yolanda takes us through zambas and huapangos with passion and subtleties. My favorite tunes are La Malag���e���a (where Yolanda shows the real pitch of her voice) and La Canci���n Mixteca. Chava Flores' Mi M���xico de Ayer is also really moving. In La Pucha con el Hombre (a great escondido in the tradition of Los Carabajal), Yolanda may not compete with my paisana Mercedes Sosa, yet her voice really shines. In summary, this is one of the best Latin American musical partnerships I heard in the last years: an homage to the everlasting Latin American musical tradition.

Obaba
$9.98
Studio: Venevision Intl Films Release Date: 05/15/2007 Run time: 107 minutes

Supervivencia
$19.95
Studio: Vanguard Cinema Release Date: 07/27/2004

Quinceanera
$9.99
In 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.