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LOCKED Is Intense and Entertaining A talk with the Director

We caught up with the director of LOCKED David Yarovesky (Brightburn, Nightbooks), just before we screened the film with no spoilers. The film took nineteen days to shoot. Watch our quick interview. Synopsis: No escape. No …

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At a Screening of Dog Man the Movie

It was an enjoyable screening with two of the grandsons. The five year old said it was happy and sad at the same time. And he loved it! The twelve year old who has read …

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Unstoppable Streaming on Prime Video

Unstoppable is the inspiring true story of Anthony Robles (Jharrel Jerome) who was born with one leg but whose indomitable spirit and unbreakable resolve empowered him to defy the odds and pursue his dreams. With the …

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Sonic the Hedgehog 3 The Speed to the BoxOffice

“Sonic 3 will beat out Mufasa, for sure!” — JimmityCritic (12) Sonic the Hedgehog 3, what a fun evening with the grandkids it was. When you have a 12, 10 and 5 year-old clap their hands at the end …

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Mufasa: The Lion King the Prequel

Mufasa: The Lion King was entertaining and the production value was amazing to watch. Set in Africa, all-new film blends live-action filmmaking techniques with photoreal computer-generated imagery.  My 12 year-old grandson thought it was one …

LOCKED Is Intense and Entertaining A talk with the DirectorAt a Screening of Dog Man the MovieUnstoppable Streaming on Prime VideoSonic the Hedgehog 3 The Speed to the BoxOfficeMufasa: The Lion King the Prequel

Gina Rodriguez: Still Going For It!

Se Fija! loves to keep an eye out for the up-and-comers, and the lovely young Latina actress Gina Rodriguez is definitely one of the kids to keep an eye on.

You’ll probably remember her best for her strong supporting role in Carmen Marron’s Go For It! that’s just come out on DVD. (She got an Imagen Award nomination for that) She also appeared on three episodes of Army Wives last year, and guest-starred in an episode of ABC’s Happy Endings. And now our colleagues over at CBS’ Soap Opera In Depth tell us that Gina’s slated to join the cast of the daytime drama The Bold and the Beautiful. She’ll appear in the recurring role of Beverly, a friend of Dayzee’s from the homeless shelter (Dayzee’s time on the streets is a big mystery, y’see, and Read the rest of this entry »

Our First FREE GIVE-AWAY!

Spanish-born, California-bred animator Lorelay Bove was one of the principle designers and animators on Disney’s all-new Winnie the Pooh. You’ll be learning more about her soon, but in the meantime, we’re giving away a FREE COPY of the new Pooh, courtesy of Disney, and it’s ONLY AVAILABLE TO SeFRIDAY! SUBSCRIBERS. All you have to do is subscribe by MIDNIGHT, TUESDAY OCTOBER 25th.

Just click HERE and sign-up.

The four faces of Miami on TV this season

…and what they tell us about America’s view of Latinos in general

There’s no question that Latinos are all over the tube this season, with bigger and better days to come…but just how “integrated” are Latino faces and culture into the American psyche? Sometimes it seems like we’re all rubbing elbows and other body parts in workplaces, movie theaters, and concert venues, as well as in TV casts and crews. And other times the two cultures seem a million miles apart.

With the recent renewal of The Glades for a third season, one strange indicator of that dual identify came to light. There are four different series currently in production that feature Miami as a hometown or home base (there are five, in fact, but Charlie’s Angels is already cancelled and didn’t have much time to define itself). But the views of Miami as a unique place–and the inclusion of Latinos in the foreground or the background–vary wildly on the programs…as wildly as America’s own self-image of Latino life in this country. Read the rest of this entry »

NBC Makes it Unanimous

All four networks now have “Latino-centric” pilots in development

If you look across the new and continuing TV series on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC–in the cast, on the crew, in arcs or as guest stars–you can see one happy fact: there are many Latinos in front and behind the camera, in more than thirty shows; more than ever before. At the same time, you can see something that’s equally unhappy: there’s not a single program anywhere in sight that has a Latino as Latino in the starring role, or that focuses on Latino family or culture. Not a one.

But that may be about to change. We’ve Read the rest of this entry »

Adam Irigoyen is on his Way

Listen in on Se Fija!’s exclusive interview with the Disney Channel’s latest Latino sensation–a bright kid with a big vision and the talent to make it happen

It’s not hard to see what the Disney Channel saw in Adam Irigoyen. Spend just a few minutes with him, and you can’t keep from smiling. There’s energy there–not surprising for a talented kid who’s already a TV star and doing fan-magazine cover shots at the age of 14. But there’s a focus in Adam, too, and a sense of potential–of just getting started–that’s impossible to ignore.

Se Fija! had a chance to sit down with Adam recently–the week that Season 2 of Shake It Up! aired its one-hour premiere on Disney. We caught him during a one-week hiatus on the show, in his on-the-set classroom with his teacher looking on. “I’m home schooled,” he explained, “So I can do my school from anywhere, but I have a schoolteacher and room upstairs from the set–all of us do. So I’m finishing high school…I kind’a have to, considering my parents.” Read the rest of this entry »

“Charlie’s Angels” cancelled (but you could see it coming)

Elizabeth Peña and the Invisible “Angels”

Word has just come down: ABC has cancelled the unfortunate (in so many ways) remake of Charlie’s Angels. It’s not exactly the surprise: it opened to lukewarm ratings and has been skidding down hill ever since; one week-to-week decline was 20%, and that was after the initial fall-off. But if you were one of the folks keeping an eye on ABC’s public face the last few weeks, you could tell they lost faith in the production almost immediately. And–as it frequently the case–it was all about Read the rest of this entry »

Kenneth Castillo: Absolutely Independent

Kenneth Castillo, Independent FilmmakerSe Fija! has a private encounter with a busy and brilliant young writer/director/producer

It was a rare day in Los Angeles–a day after a real rain, when the sky was scrubbed clean and there was an extraordinary and rare clarity to the air. For a few minutes that day, Se Fija’s publisher Angela Ortíz had a chance to sit down and talk one-on-one with Kenneth Castillo, the independent writer/producer/director.

Kenneth has built an impressive portfolio over the last decade or more. In 2000 he and his now-wife Karla Ojeda formed a film production company called Valor Productions; their first project was The Misadventures of Cholo Chaplin, a re-framing of the Charlie Chaplin silent shorts of the 1920’s and 30’s set in the Mexicano world of the Day of the Dead. Some of the Cholo episodes screened at film festivals across the country, and one appeared at the 2007 Cannes film festival and won the Imagen Award for the Best Theatrical Short Film the next year. Since 2008, Kenneth has written and directed four feature films, a series of “urban Latino” films under the group Read the rest of this entry »

“Tower Heist:” the start of something good (for Michael Peña and the rest of us)?

The positive buzz for Brett Ratner’s new comedy-heist picture, Tower Heist, is getting stronger and stronger. Not only did Universal try (and fail) to make it the centerpiece for a new plan to simultaneously release the film in theaters and on Video On Demand, but it continues to pump out new (and admittedly pretty funny) trailers for the film, even though its premiere is still a couple of weeks away (November 4, actually).

Michael Peña, in his second semi-comedic turn this year—after super-serious appearances in Battle L.A. and The Lincoln Lawyers, and a much lighter role in 30 minutes or Less—is one of the many leading men populating this testosterone-heavy premise, right up there and on the poster with the likes of Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Read the rest of this entry »

Good news for Nestor: The CW orders a full season of “Ringer”

Is this Mario’s fault?

There are ratings, there are raw numbers…and then there are demographics. And Sarah Michelle Geller’s new twin-within-a-twin-within-a-murder-mystery suspense series Ringer may have demos—and another swift network failure—to thank for today’s announcement: the CW has just ordered a full season.

Exactly why is a bit of a puzzle, but it’s certainly good news for Latino actor Nestor Carbonell, playing the FBI agent obsessed with one of the twins (the stripper, not the fashion icon). Now he’ll get to chase one version or another of SMG for the whole season, though his character has yet to uncover the key secret of the show thus far: that Sara-the-Stripper-in-witness-protection has taken the place of Sarah-the-fashion-icon-who-maybe-killed-herself. Read the rest of this entry »

Melissa de Sousa is part of the (extended) family in BET’s “Reed Between the Lines,” premiering this week

You’ll probably recognize Melissa de Sousa when you see her—in fact, you’ll probably recognize almost everybody in the cast of Reed Between the Lines, the newest weekly sitcom from BET. She’s been a part of half a dozen TV series and even more movies since she was a teenager, including The Street, One on One, and Second Time Around, and she’s done guest shots on everything from Ghost Whisperer to Castle. She was even in the extremely cool and sexy web series The Bannen Way a couple of years back. Her film credits are pretty cool, too: Miss Congeniality, Lockdown, and The Best man, that earned her a NAACP Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Best of all, Melissa—of Panamanian descent, by the way—is a Latina playing an actual Latina (not nearly enough Read the rest of this entry »

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