CA-GOV: Whitman Hit Hard On Maid Controversy in Spanish Ad

The translation via Huffington Post:

Meg Whitman says she's a different kind of Republican...

But Pete Wilson is in charge of her campaign.

Whitman attacks undocumented workers to win votes, but an undocumented woman worked in her home for nine years.

She says she'll create jobs - but wants to eliminate forty-thousand state jobs, including teachers and nurses.

Whitman says one thing in Spanish --- and something different in English.

The real Meg Whitman has no shame.

She's a two-faced woman

Ouch!

Argentina Enacts Marriage Equality!

After 15 hours of debate, the Argentine Senate passed the marriage equality bill 33-27 at 4:05am local time.

From the AP:

Same-sex civil unions have been legalized in Uruguay and some states in Mexico and Brazil. Colombia's Constitutional Court granted same-sex couples inheritance rights and allowed them to add their partners to health insurance plans. Mexico City went further, legalizing gay marriage and launching tourism campaigns to encourage foreigners to come and wed.

[...]

Gay activists in neighboring Chile hope Argentina's milestone will improve chances for a gay marriage lawcurrently in committee in their own Congress.

"Argentina's political class has provided a lesson to the rest of Latin America," said Rolando Jimenez in Santiago. "We hope our own countries and political parties will learn that the human rights of sexual minorities are undeniable."

Activists in Paraguay plan to propose a similar law to the senate in October, said Martin Viveros of the group Somosgay. And in Uruguay, gays unsatisfied with the partial rights that come through civil unions are preparing legislation that would replace references to "man and woman" with "spouse" throughout the civil code.

[...]

The president, who helped the law's chances by bringing two senators opposed to gay marriage with her on a state visit to China, spoke out from there against the Catholic Church's campaign and the tone she said some religious groups have taken.

"It's very worrisome to hear words like 'God's war' or 'the devil's project,' things that recall the times of the Inquisition," she said.

That may play well in Argentina's socially liberal capital, where many of the country's gays and lesbians live, but could be costly in the conservative provinces. Some opposition leaders accused Fernandez and her husband Nestor Kirchner, who lobbied hard for passage, of trying to gain votes in next year's presidential elections, when the former president is expected to run again.

Congratulations to Argentina! I may just have to change my travel plans for my 20th anniversary next January. We were thinking of visiting South Africa, but maybe we should return to South America instead!

hat/tip to Rex Wockner

MOVIE REVIEW: The Secret In Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos)

This year's (surprising) Oscar winner for Foreign Language Film was El Secreto de sus Ojos (The Secret in their Eyes) from Argentina.

MadProfessah and the Other Half saw this film on May 21st (my birthday), at one of my favorite art-house movie theaters, the Laemmle Playhouse 7 on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.

I like seeing foreign-language films, especially in Spanish, which I have been trying to learn, slowly, for years.

I also like mysteries, and although I knew very little about El Secreto de Sus Ojos walking in, I was aware there was some aspect of mystery and political intrigue involved.

I didn't even know it was very well-reviewed, with an average of 91% at rottentomatoes.com (97% among users) before I saw it myself and checked on the reviews after I saw the film myself.

The film is told from the perspective of Benjamin, a combination detective/prosecuting attorney in Buenos Aires who, in his retirement, is writing a book about a particular case of a murdered newlywed housewife that took place 25 years ago but was never solved.

Benjamin works closely with his boss, Irene, who he also happened to have a huge crush on but who everyone believed was "out of his league" due to her foreign education and family's upper class status.

Benjamin also works closely with his (clearly alcoholic) owlish colleague Pablo to try to solve the mystery of the murdered housewife, and their interactions are a source of some of the most poignant humor (and, later, horror) in the film. Another gripping character in the film is the husband of the murdered woman, in whose eyes Benjamin sees a love like no other, a passion which fuels his decades-long obsession with this case, despite a politically complicated resolution of the matter.

The Secret in their Eyes is a movie that you will remember long after you leave the movie theater, filled with tiny revelatory moments that sear the memory and haunt the viewer.

Running Time: 2 hours, 7 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated R for a rape scene, violent images, some graphic nudity and language.
Director: Juan José Campanella.

OVERALL GRADE: A+/A.

ACTING: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
PLOT: A+.
IMPACT: A.

MOVIE REVIEW: Broken Embraces (Los Abrazos Rotos)

The latest film from the Oscar-winning, openly gay, Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (All About My Mother, Talk To Her) is Los Abrazos Ratos (Broken Embraces). It stars Penélope Cruz as Lena and Lluis Horna as Harry Caine / Mateo Blanco.

The plot is typically complex, as Almodóvar is again playing with various genres of film here, just a few that I noticed are the film noir, the film-within-a-film device, the power of film itself, family drama and illicit love story.

The film is not emotionally resonant as some of his more recent films (Volver, Mala Educacion) but looks just as gorgeous as any of his previous movies and has the added feature of actually including an explicit parody of his breakthrough hit, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, this time called Chicas y Maletas (Girls and Suitcases).

Almodóvar has found another muse in female form with the gorgeous Penélope Cruz but unfortunately he is yet to find an equally compelling muse in male form to match his artistic connection with the young Antonio Banderas who appeared in many of the director's early works.

All in all, Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces) is an amusing diversion featuring an engrossing story which reflects Almodóvar's colorful imagination.

Running Time: 2 hours, 7 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated R for sexual content, language and some drug material.
Director: Pedro Almodóvar.

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.5/4.0).

ACTING: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
PLOT: A-.
IMPACT: B+ .

Today is National Latino AIDS Awareness Day

October 15th is National Latino AIDS Awareness Day, el Dia Nacional Latino Para La Concientizacion del SIDA.

Here's a PSA featuring a friend of mine named Freddy Ceja who is a staffer for State Senator Gil Cedillo:

Spanish-Language Version of Courage Campaign Ad

Obama Nominates First Latina To Supreme Court

President Barack Obama has chosen Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the US Supreme Court. From FirstRead:

She currently serves on the Second Circuit in New York and was appointed to that position by Bill Clinton. BUT she was appointed to her first federal court appointment by President George H.W. Bush… She checks lots of boxes: Woman. Hispanic. Empathy… While working for the famed Robert Morgenthau in the New York District Attorney's office in the early 1980s, she described herself as a "liberal.”… Also has drawn criticism for saying in 2005: “All of the legal defense funds out there they're looking for people with court of appeals experience because it is-- court of appeals is where policy is made." She tried to backtrack, but conservatives are already rallying to defeat her based on this. Other bio information: Child of parents born in Puerto Rico... Grew up speaking mostly Spanish... Raised in a public housing project in The South Bronx in the shadow of Yankee Stadium... Father died when she was 9... A diehard Yankees fan, she's credited as the judge who saved baseball, issuing an injunction that led the eventual settlement of the 1990s-era Major League Baseball strike... Described by the New York Times in the early 1980s as an incessant smoker… Divorced from Kevin Edward Noonan in 1983 after seven-year marriage (no children). She left the NY District Attorney's office a year later and went into private practice... Graduated summa cum laude in 1976 from Princeton after winning a scholarship to the school... Earned her law degree from Yale in 1979, where she edited the Law Review.

Big day for court reporters today. The Prop 8 ruling is coming down at 10am PDT from the California Supreme Court.

Ugly Betty Cast Opposes Proposition 8 (En Espanol)

REVIEW: Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)

On Valentine's Day the other half and I went and saw Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) in at the Edward's Renaissance Theaters in Alhambra. The film has been nominated for six Academy Awards (Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Makeup and Best Art Direction) and is one of the most highly regarded films of 2006. It won BAFTA Awards on Sunday February 11th for Best Costume Design, Best Hair & Makeup and Best Film Not in the English Language.

The story is set in 1944's Spain, during the civil war against Franco's fascist regime. A young child and her pregnant mother have come to visit the mountain outpost of a brutal captain in Franco's Army and wait for the birth of the girl's brother (and the captain's son). The girl's name is Ofelia and she likes to read fairy tales.... Outside the outpost lies an ancient labyrinth which Ofelia is led to explore more frequently as life becomes more and more difficult living under the same roof with the man her mother says she should call 'father' who is fighting an increasingly desperate struggle with the guerilla rebels in the surrounding hills.

Guillermo Del Toro, the director, screenwriter and producer of Pan's Labyrinth has been giving interviews to multiple media outlets. He is one of a trio of Mexican directors (Alfonso Cuarón of Children of Men and Alejandro González Iñárritu of Babel are the others) who have Oscar-nominated and widely acclaimed films in theaters right now. In one interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation with Del Toro I heard today he admits that he believes in monsters and explains that the character of Pan (El Fauno) in Pan's Labyrinth is ambiguous: it can be interpreted as both good and evil, gurdian angel and personal demon. Del Toro also says "The movie is a fable, and adult parable really between choice and disobedience, and how disobedience is the threshold of responsibility. And how it is necessary for all of us to assert disobedience, socially."

Some of the images in the film are indelibly etched on the mind's eye: the grotesquely huge frog, the creature with eyes in its palms, the beautiful thrones in the penultimate scene and the way the Faun moves throughout this amazing film.

GRADE: A-.