How deeply embedded are Latinos in Hollywood? Judging by this week’s debuts, they’re pretty much everywhere: as writers, directors, actors and entrepreneurs.
It’s an active week as the autumn season truly begins, and Latinos are a major factor:
Puerto Rican tough-guy David Joseph Martinez is in the middle of the action in the Stallone/Schwarzenegger rollercoaster Escape Plan, getting a pretty decent nationwide opening for B(minus) movie. But hey, Jim Caviezel and Vincent D’Onofrio are in it, so how back can it be?
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has had an interesting creative trajectory in the last few years: writer-producer on Big Love, and then on Glee…and now the screenwriter/adapter of Stephen King’s classic horror story Carrie. It opened Thursday to pretty strong reviews.
Adrienne Bailon (The Real, The Cheetah Girls), Michael Rivera (The Beaver, Oz) and newcomer Alicia Urizar are part of the urban romance in Ja Rule’s drama I’m in Love with a Church Girl, enjoying a limited release.
A host of accomplished Latinos are in the independent film Fight for Freedom, including Patricia De León (Magic City, Bad Ass), José María Yazpik (Beverly Hills Chihuahua), Eddie Martinez (A Better Life), and Yennifer Behrens (Sons of Anarchy). And there are more, both in front and behind the camera.
The chameleon-like Clifton Collins Jr. is never far from a movie theater near you, and this week it’s The Hellbenders, enjoying a limited theatrical release as a VOD release on Friday Oct. 18. The horror-comedy follows the Order of Hellbound Saints, populated by highly secretive and profoundly blasphemous men of God, as they battle demonic forces too terrible to be cast out by traditional Vatican-approved methods. Click here for an interview with Clifton and co-stars Clancy Brown and J.T. Petty.
Finally, Mike Mendez (director) and Greg Gieras (writer) made a pretty big splash at last year’s SXSW with this goofy, grant big-monster movie, Big Ass Spider!. Now it finally gets a little bit of notice. Greg Grunberg (Heroes) deadpans for laughs in the silliest monster movie of the season, and Lombard Boyar and Rubin Pla are along for the crazy ride. Here’s the trailer:
