I watched “El Cantante”. I had heard that Marc Anthony was trying to make this movie like 2 years ago, and ever since then, I’ve been waiting for it. My waiting for it had nothing to do with Marc Anthony or Jennifer Lopez. It only had to do with Hector Lavoe and music.
I love Latin music. There is nothing that tops it for me. It is like a drug. It enters my ears, enters my bones, and the rhythm just forces the cells in my bonemarrow to jump to its command, and then, then I don’t have a choice, you see, I need to dance and I do it, til I can’t anymore. Sometimes theres is this hunger that enters my body and no food, no drink, no fucking, no smell can fill it, then I hear the drums in the background somewhere in the streets, I dance for 12 hours and I am back to being a normal human being. Sometimes dancing merengue, bachata, salsa is the only thing that can calm my demons.
I didn’t always like Salsa. I could dance Merengue before I could walk. That’s what I always tell my friends cause that’s the truth. I would hold on to the cushions of the sofa and dance, moving my butt covered by pampers. There are pictures. But once you learn the steps and you listen to the words in the old salsa, the words just reach in thru your trechia, like smoke, and roll around your heart and they stay there for days at a time.
With that said, I hope that now you can get a glimpse of why I wanted to watch this movie and that it is true that I don’t give a crap about the actors, but the story itself. So before going to see it I heard the critics, I read some interviews. I thought this was going to be a horrible ridiculous movie with bad continuity, no focus…etc
Thank GOD I was wrong! And that the critiques were Wrong! I sat down, I laughed, I cried, I danced in the theatre. My favorite thing was seeing the words of the song in English, so deep those words. I could see the Americans open mouthed at the meaning of the words being sung in Spanish. People say the movie focuses way to much on drugs. I disagree, you have to remember this was the 60’s the 70’s. I wonder if any of the people saying this have watched Dream Girls or Ray? There is a lot more drugs there.
I went to some websites where the most they gave it was 3 stars and it was rare. I think the reason why they give it so little credit is because they don’t understand it. This is not an American version of Hector Lavoe’s story. This is a Latin 1970’s version of the story. This is as true as it could be. This reminded me of my parents in New York in the 1970's early 80's. They say there is too much focus on the drugs...I laugh! Uhm who the FUCK was not on drugs in New York in the 1960's, 70's, and 80's?! What the hell is the matter with you people? They say that it didn't show enough of the music, well, this is not an MTV video excuse me. I liked the dialogue, what Pushi was saying in this movie scene by scene, is exactly what a latin woman would say, as a wife, and as a mother. We are supportive, we'll tell our husbands that they are better on their own that they are the best, even when they are vomiting into a toilet bowl. We'll demand our kids to stop saying, "I don't know". And we'll push our husbands way too hard, to the point where they have to yell at us. Thats the way it is. Thats all I've ever known as a latin woman.
I get the feeling that the latin critiques are not in favor of it because of Pushi. Because it is his wife’s version of the story, not theirs. All I have to say to them is that if they’ve got another version they should make the other version. There are so many ways this movie could have been done.
Yesterday, I was sooooo depressed. I tried to talk myself out of it. I tried to shake it off. It was not close to what I had been before, but it was how I usually felt at the beginning of a bad one. So today, this morning, I got myself some Yali’s coffee and put my IPOD in my ears as I drove to work. Yalis is in
By the time I got to work, my depression was gone.
It is funny how I always feel like being a scientists and being a latin carribean Domincan woman are two different lives. Most of the time I feel like the two lives are trying to tear me apart and I don’t know what to do cause I need them BOTH! I need to be both at the same time.
Today I realized they are not so apart. Yesterday, I fucked up many experiments, today the experiments worked and time flew. And it was all due to the fact that listening to Salsa brought true smiles to my face. It energized my “Chee”!
So I need to listen to salsa and move my hips once in a while so that I can do all of these crazy molecular experiments so that I can bring this world just one micrometer closer to helping with AIDS.
Maybe I should put my earphones closer to my viral cultures, see if that will ZAP the virus out of the CD4 T cells. :)
I am not a fan of Jennifer Lopez, I am indifferent to her, but I got to say, Congratulations girl you did it GOOD!
La Nostalgia girl La Nostalgia....
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