There are about 43 million Hispanics in the United States, and more than half of them speak Spanish frequently. Of course, there are nearly 300 million people total in the country, so for Hollywood, there may not be enough of an audience for movies centered on Hispanic characters, especially if the predominant language of those movies is Spanish. But thanks to the hype surrounding the Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo Del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu, and the prideful excitement of actress Salma Hayek, Latin American cinema is superficially hot right now. Never mind that Spanish-language imports and homegrown indies marketed toward Latinos are not particularly big money-makers, the studios are presently interested in focusing on the "untapped" Latin market.

We've already witnessed partnerships between Lionsgate and Panamax, and between Warner Bros. and Cuaron's Esperanto Filmoj. Now Hayek is setting up another Latino division called Ventanazul; this one will be at MGM. The difference seems to be that neither Hayek or MGM is specifically interested in targeting Hispanic Americans. Instead, they plan to produce and distribute between two and four films with a Latino focus that are geared toward a wide, mainstream audience. I'm not sure how big they hope to be, but they'll have to do better than last year's Quinceañera, which had a lot of mainstream appeal and which was relatively successful considering its budget, but which still only made a couple million dollars. Hayek's last film hit, Frida, did much better, and her television success with Ugly Betty is huge, but neither one is specifically Latin-themed. So we'll have to see if a wide audience is accepting enough of Hispanic-centric movies to make the division work. It is especially interesting that MGM made this deal while Hayek is currently working on a Spanish-language project for Warner Bros.

Quinceañera and Brothers of the Head -- two very different indie films, each directed by two directors, who happen to also be long-term gay partners -- opened in wide release last weekend. So LA Weekly's Chuck Wilson had a great idea: Why not get the directors of each film to see the other one, and then bring them all together to talk about their films and what it's like being gay partners making a movie together?

The answers to the latter question are pretty much what you'd expect: It's a lot like the experience of a straight couple making a film together -- shocking but true. Yes, gay couples and straight couples really aren't that different when it comes to the basic dynamics. Nonetheless, the interview was a clever idea, and the end result is pretty fun to read. As for which of the two films the directors would recommend you go see? Both, naturally.

American independent cinema frequently introduces us to customs and traditions we might not see otherwise. Films about unfamiliar wedding ceremonies, ethnic neighborhoods and religious ceremonies are given exposure year after year, thanks mostly to audiences who want to see something new or different. Sure, the films may often be the result of minority filmmakers representing their backgrounds for all to see, but it is the common moviegoers who curiously accept and enable these cultural showcases.

Now we have Quinceañera, which skips the representative filmmaker and fittingly shows us a community from a detached perspective -- our perspective, and the filmmakers'. Written and directed by two white guys (Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland), the film looks at the coming of age of a young Mexican-American girl, and of her L.A. neighborhood, Echo Park, from clearly an outsider's point of view.

When I'm in the mood to get good and depressed, I just take a look at the weekend box office numbers. There are few things more guaranteed to send me into the depths of despair than seeing how many people lined up to see the latest Tyler Perry flick or Adam Sandler comedy (and I use that term very loosely when applied to Sandler, who ranks just marginally below David Spade on my list of people I wish would never, ever make another movie). I swear, every time I see Sandler on the screen, I just want to hurt him -- and I'm a peace-loving, non-violent person under ordinary circumstances. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice person in real life, and he's probably a blast at parties, but I'd rather get my gums scraped without numbing medication than sit through his films. Perplexingly, though, his tend to do okay at the box office, so apparently a lot of people actually like him.

Sandler's latest effort, Click, about a man who buys a remote with the power to affect reality, dominated the top weekend box office slot, with an estimated take of $40 million. The film is going to need some good word-of-mouth to get past its budget of $70 million and into the black, but I expect it will make it over the hump. Jack Black vehicle Nacho Libre, in theaters for 10 days now, has raked in $52.7 million off a relatively small $35 million budget, already putting the flick in the black for Paramount and pretty much guaranteeing we'll be seeing more of Black in the future. For some reason, Black doesn't tend to irritate me nearly so much as Sandler, but neither do I find him particularly appealing. I think what it comes down to for me is that Sandler's roles often have this streak of meanness running through the surface comedy, which I really dislike. Black, on the other hand, tends to have this innocence and naivete about him that's just charming, even when he's running around in tights.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you asked yourself, "How in the world did I get here? More importantly, is it at all possible to escape and still manage to live a somewhat normal life?" I shouldn't even need to ask this question because, at one point or another, I'm sure all of you have been in one of those uncomfortable places -- suffocated by the fear and intensity of the situation at hand. What do I do? Where do I go? How will I survive? Is the pizza place still open?

Yes, it sucks -- you're in over your head. Somewhere along the way, be it on purpose or by mistake, everything got away from you. Suddenly, life is caving in and all you're capable of is acknowledging the fact that, well, you're f*cked. Most of the time, it's our curiosity that gets the best of us. We wonder, we ponder, we use our imagination to invent the perfect scenario. Only problem is, there's no such thing as the perfect scenario -- just risk. And if you decide to take that risk, be prepared to battle. If not, you'll drown. That's life.

All of the following films feature characters who are in over their head, caught up in situations that felt right early on, but soon realized things would get a whole lot harder before that light at the end of the tunnel became visible. I've always said that life is like a game of poker -- the guy sitting next to you always wins. However, watching them win helps you to appreciate what matters most. Welcome to this week's Trailer Park:

The sun went down on Sundance without festival audience fave and jury winner Quinceañera finding distribution, but it didn't take long for the film to get picked up in the opening days of the European Film Market at the Berlinale. According to indieWIRE, Celluloid Dreams, which last year handled 40 Shades of Blue and Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know, acquired Quinceañera for an undisclosed sum.

Cinematical reviewed Quinceañera during Sundance, and also interviewed directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland.

UPDATE: Cinematical just heard from director Wash Westmoreland, who confirmed that Celluloid Dreams are handling foreign sales for Quinceañera and are "knocking out territories left and right". American rights for the film, says Westmoreland, are "still up in the air, but we have some great possibilities".

Our friends over at Indiewire conducted their first ever poll of critics and journalists at Sundance, and found that the group of 50 critics they interviewed (which, we must point out, did not include anyone from Cinematical - should we be offended?) voted overwhelmingly for Ryan Fleck's Half Nelson as their fave dramatic film. Indiewire's story doesn't specify the scientific validity of their polling method, or how it was conducted. Was it a poll conducted by impartial, official pollsters? Or was it more the type of poll where you ask everyone you meet over many drinks at a Sundance party which film they liked the best, and then trust your half-fogged memory to keep accurate track of the results?

At any rate, according to their results, the runner-up, Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's Quinceañera, which won both the Sundance jury and audience prizes, and the other runner up, Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep, each received less than half the votes Indiewire  tallied for Half Nelson. The results Indiewire posted don't give us hard numbers, but if we remember our grade school math correctly, we can estimate that Half Nelson probably received somewhere around 25 votes, with Quinceañera and The Science of Sleep splitting the rest.

We're saying a fond farewell to the tall snow-covered mountains of Park City and now that we're leaving we thought we'd set you off with one final Cinematical @ Sundance roundtable.  In the finale, we finally managed to pull Kim Voynar away from the screening rooms and on to the couch for a word about some award-winning films.  The other regulars are there as well, breaking down the final few days of the Festival.  Now, time to get out of the hills, and back to the real world.

Rundown
02:00 - Alpha Dog
05:05 - The Science of Sleep
06:50 - The Secret Life of Words
08:25 - Sherrybaby
10:00 - Sundance Awards
13:27 - Quinceanera
16:32 - 13 (tzameti)
18:15 - Jury and audience votes lining up
22:07 - Right at Your Door
24:45 - TV Junkie
26:45 - Into Great Silence
28:24 - Eve and the Firehorse
29:07 - Final Sundance thoughts

Format
QT MPEG4 (3ivx), 40:23, 183 MB

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