The Imagen Awards will celebrate its 25th anniversary on August 15th in Los Angeles. These image awards were created specifically to “honor positive portrayals of Latinos and Latino cultures in entertainment.”  This year some of our favorite genre Latinos are nominated. Sadly, the TV show LOST is no more and Wizards of Waverly Place will only go on for one more season so we have major losses of Latinos in genre productions. The cancellation of Flash Forward (not nominated here) also had us lose Sonya Walger (Dr. Olivia Benford). We also never got to see the rest of the Gina Torres (Felicia Wedeck) story in Flash Forward. Here are the relevant categories, with genre shows in red.

Best Primetime Television Program or Movie-of-the-Week:
One Hot Summer (Lifetime Movie Network)
Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
Lost (ABC)
Cold Case (CBS)

Best Actor/Television:
Jorge Garcia, Lost (ABC)
Nestor Carbonell, Lost (ABC)
Danny Pino, Cold Case (CBS)
Ricardo Antonio Chavira, Desperate Housewives (ABC)

Best Actress/Television:
Sofía Vergara, Modern Family (ABC)
América Ferrera, Ugly Betty (ABC)
Alana de la Garza, Law & Order (NBC)
Selena Gómez, Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie (Disney Channel)
Caitlin Sánchez, Dora the Explorer (Nickelodeon)

Best Supporting Actress/Television:
María Canals-Barrera, Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie (Disney Channel)
Paola Turbay, The Secret Life of the American Teenager (ABC Family)
Naya Rivera, Glee (FOX)
Aubrey Plaza, Parks and Recreation (NBC)

Best Children’s Programming:
Dora The Explorer (Nickelodeon)
Handy Manny (Disney Channel)
Nick News with Linda Ellerbee (Nickelodeon)
The Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie (Disney Channel)

Best Actress/Feature Film:
Ana de la Reguera, Backyard (Maya Entertainment)
Lisa Vidal, Dark Mirror (Cut Glass Prods.)
América Ferrera, Our Family Wedding (Fox Searchlight)
América Ferrera, The Dry Land (Maya Entertainment)

See all the categories and nominees at the Imagen Awards Website. Let’s hope our genre shows represent! I’m especially rooting for LOST, as I also mourn.

UPDATE:  The only genre winner was Maria Canals Barrera for Best Supporting Actress/Television, Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie (Disney Channel) . Here are the rest of the winners for 2010.

Variety advert funded by LotS fans

Recently Karen Méndez of IBG Inc. contacted me about the Legend of the Seeker renewal campaign. She is co-organizing efforts to bring about season 3 of this ABC series based on Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth book series. I personally love the show; it is beautifully filmed in New Zealand and has an excellent cast. It would be a shame to see it cancelled after only two seasons. Check it out if you like fantasy epics like me. The Save Our Seeker campaign gathered enough funds for advertising in top industry magazines Variety and The Hollywood Reporter- a feat that any TV show follower who’s been in a fan-driven movement can appreciate. The campaign is now bent on making sure as many public libraries as possible have the Legend of the Seeker DVDs. Their DVD campaign will end on May 30, so donate now. If you’re already a fan, there’s no confession necessary.

Here’s what Méndez said:

To date, we’ve published the two ads. There’s also a wide range of other campaigns in conjunction from fans coming together trying to do anything and everything to save our seeker. We email and snail mail to various networks, as well as ABC/Disney. We also have significant ‘Legend of the Seeker’ related items sent in, along with the letters.

One of the biggest boosts we at “Save Our Seeker” have had has been the support of Terry Goodkind, best selling author of the ‘Sword of Truth’ book series which the show is based on. He has graciously offered to collaborate with the “Save Our Seeker” campaign and we are currently working with him to launch a new campaign in the next day or so.

The season finale is [this] week and we hope to change our current situation to an announcement of ‘Legend of the Seeker’ being picked up for a third season.

All of us Legend of the Seeker fans wish the campaign every success. We’d love to continue the adventures of Seeker Richard Cypher, Mother Confessor Kahlan, Mord Sith Cara, and Wizard of the First Order Zeddicus. Find a way to support the campaign- its website SaveOurSeeker.com has several ideas on how to do this.

Valerie leaves the house on her own in this episode (and must seek comfort)

Note: As usual, minor episode spoilers, major series spoilers if you haven’t seen the previous episodes.

This blogger is more than satisfied with V’s fourth and final episode of 2009. We got more action, more technology, more Morena Baccarin, and finally more of our other chica Latina Lourdes Benedicto as Valerie Stevens! Even some humor! Bliss all around!

The Visitors practice what they preached when they first came by opening healing centers around the world. It is especially interesting to note how quickly they find perfect locations to open these centers, at least in New York City. They must have Sleeper Agents in the real estate business! They offer the best diagnostics ever, fast healing and a preventative “vitamin supplement” which of course is met with suspicion by the Resistance. The rest of the world seems OK with it as evidenced by the Centers’ months-long waiting lists. Unfortunately the Visitors have not developed the cure to the common cold (oh Anna, you’re so funny when you try human humor).

The Resistance investigates the “vitamin supplement” by following leads to a V-lab which kind of looks like the Fringe lab in terms of creepy things, sans the crazy old guy and the cow. During this whole episode the Resistance shows its strengths and weaknesses, and although everyone has their own agenda it seems that they work well together. The only one who seems to be a loose cannon is Georgie. In my head I keep referring to them as the Mini-Resistance because they are only four people, at times even less.

Our chica Lourdes’ character Valerie gets a personality! (sort of) and we discover more about her: the work she does, her work ethic, and her health issues. Turns out she will have an important role in the V/human saga after all. But I fear her character is being set up to die so her importance may be fleeting.

Chad Decker, a.k.a. The Only Reporter in New York does a story on the Healing Centers and he gets some startling news on his own health. Chad is another character that needs more development. For example, I want to know how he’s handling his fame.

Meanwhile, up on the mothership, Anna investigates the murder of valuable Sleeper Agent Wash Dale Maddox at the hand of the 5th column. The sentence for the traitor? To be skinned. Why exactly this is a punishment struck me as odd, since they all have artificial skin that in theory should be removable. Well apparently being skinned alive is a punishment worse than death. And there goes my theory of why the Vs never show their true form on the ships- I thought they didn’t want to risk any human guests seeing them.

Besides managing the media, we also see Anna managing her fellow Visitors’ opinions what with the whole 5th column rumors going around. We see exactly how she uses the Bliss we had heard about previously. Anna’s position is much higher than expedition leader. (As a side note, the Bliss reminded me of the Russian sci-fi novel Prisoners of Power -or the cooler movie adaptation The Inhabited Island- where citizens are controlled by a similar method only via radio waves.)

Teenager Tyler becomes less annoying, mostly because you know he’s gonna get it for being such a whiny brat. Even his mom ignores him, ha! Also I am more lenient towards him today because in his scenes we got to see some more above-the head-shots (which I really like) and the ship’s propulsion system (pure computer-generated magic). Speaking of special effects, I still cannot forgive the terrible green screen. Please fix that by March, dear ABC! Yes, March… we have to wait until March to get the next installment of the series. Will the Visitors march in March?? Sorry, couldn’t resist!

It’s going to be a long wait because of several cliffhangers, especially the final one. As Anna says at the end, this is only the beginning.

I has a visa now!

[NOTE: Minor spoilers for this episode, and big spoilers for episodes 1 and 2]

With the third episode of V, I can confirm that the series is going in the right direction. My doubts from Episode One have abated and now I’m brainwashed by the Visitors. I only have two requests: Fix that sub par green screen and kill off the teenager! Just kidding! His story just became less annoying interesting in this episode.

Episode Three begins with news of a credible death threat to the Vs, now that they have their visas and are able to move about New York City. The FBI is sent to protect the Vs on their first visiting day and since we know that the FBI has such a limited pool of agents (bit of sarcasm there) they have Agent Erica help out. She ends up discovering the Visitor surveillance technology, which is pretty cool stuff. Actually we see a lot more alien technology in this episode and get a look at their written language. Apparently they like to label everything like good space aliens. We also learn about Visitor culture; they are “connected” somehow but can be disconnected from something called the Bliss. This is very Odo from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Or Borg perhaps. OR, closer to human teachings, Nirvana. It was only briefly mentioned so we can’t tell the nature of this Blissful state yet.

There is more talk of forming the Resistance movement, and previous episodes’ whispers of an alien against alien rebellion are better explained. The V non-human resistance group is called the Fifth Column and has a leader we have yet to meet. Or maybe we met him and don’t know yet! Every episode of V has proven chock-full of big reveals and I’m loving it.

Our main chica Anna, played by Morena Baccarin, has a disturbing yet hilarious scene where she tries to fake human empathy. We get a look at how she practices her appearances to get the best public opinion possible. Her main job on this episode was to counter the negative publicity generated by those protestors who were affected by the Visitor arrival. All those earthquakes in Episode One created panic and killed several hundred humans (I didn’t catch the exact number) and one woman in particular had a sad story about her dead husband. This widow, Mary Faulkner, had become the voice of the protestors and Anna did her best to make an example of Mary’s story, spinning it as much as possible as she did the death threat story from the beginning to get good Visitor PR. And yes we got creepy Anna stares.

As for our other chica Latina, Lourdes Benedicto (of part Dominican heritage), I am still waiting for her Valerie role to become something other than a girlfriend background story to elicit sympathy for the Ryan Nichols character.

As an interesting note, Diego Gutiérrez co-wrote this episode with Christine Roum.  Not sure what heritage Gutiérrez has, but since he has worked on so many projects from Argentina, I’m guessing Argentinean.

Next week is the fourth and final episode of V for 2009! This is a terrible way to cut up a series, but hopefully ABC will rebroadcast the show so others can watch and catch V fever- and the rest of us don’t forget about it by the time it comes back.

I will answer all your fashion questions today

[NOTE: Minor spoilers, especially if you haven’t seen the first episode.  In that case, big spoilers!]

Episode Two of the V series- the one that should have been shown with the pilot- definitely made more sense than the pilot episode. Events were better paced, and if something happened too fast (like establishing Earth-Visitor diplomatic relations), it was explained early on that sleeper Visitors have been on Earth for at least seven years. Presumably during this time they have been infiltrating every influential organization on Earth including governments.

Characters are fleshed out more and additional characters are introduced.  Still no military though.  Maybe I question the lack of military power because I am so used to the mostly military human organizations in series like Stargate and Star Trek.  In this episode we also see more people protesting. The writers are making us paranoid just like FBI agent Erica is; since Visitors can look and act like humans, now we don’t know who to trust.

Unfortunately this episode had a lot of teenager Tyler and his buddy Brandon. I say unfortunately because I can tell that they will be the most annoying characters, the ones who act stupidly and need others to rescue them.  Tyler for example ignores his mom’s advice and gets more involved with the cute Visitor Lisa. Since I doubt Tyler is going away any time soon, I hope they make his character grow up and fast. Or die. Meanwhile on the New York mothership, we see more of the Visitors intent on crushing any “new” rebellion, implying that they had fought this battle before- perhaps on Earth, perhaps on another planet.

As for Anna, we get a glimpse of her holographic wardrobe, and all us women who can’t figure out what to wear in the morning are instantly jealous. We also wonder how lizard-Anna is hiding under the human skin of skinny Anna. Besides the “very important” wardrobe scene we see Anna thanking different nations for their diplomatic ties in different languages and watching a Visitor television debate with reporter Chad. I really like the way Morena uses more facial muscles than anything else to convey emotion. It seems that non-sleeper Visitors are much less emotional than those that have been living on Earth, so Morena makes every twitch count.

No garish red and black for me

Tonight the much-anticipated series V (Visitors) aired on ABC. This is a remake of the 1983 series about alien visitors to then-current-day Earth which I remember with a mix of excitement, disgust and fear as a child. The Pilot started off with the Visitors causing panic and mini-earthquakes. Spaceships hover over major cities blocking the sun and causing mass houseplant extinction. Just kidding.

People begin to calm down when Anna, played by Morena Baccarin, shows up and says everything is fine. Anna is the alien leader. Her story is that the Visitors need water and minerals abundant on Earth and will in exchange provide technology and universal healthcare. They even have a motto: “We are of peace, always.” Plus, every Visitor is humanoid and very attractive. As we all know, pretty people tend to be more successful at providing a good first impression (their shuttle craft, on the other hand, are butt-ugly).

Anna selects a reporter for a one-on-one interview based on the perception that said reporter will ask softball questions; in fact, she demands it with a beautiful yet evil smile. But hey, she’ll provide universal health care so who cares? Sign me up to become a “Peace Ambassador”- humans who learn about the aliens and pass along their awesomeness.

Morena’s acting was excellent. She does emotionless and calculating very well, like she did for the Stargate SG-1 series. It is refreshing to see a strong female leader, and this blogger is doubly happy to see a Latina in the role.

As a Pilot, my opinion is that it could have been better. ABC should have broadcast two hours to really get people interested. As it was, most people already knew the show’s premise from the 80’s series, and needed more to get them hooked. The timeline seemed rushed, with people deciding all too quickly to accept the Alien visitors, even visiting their ship (which is beautiful, by the way). Even being allowed to visit the ship so soon by the authorities  was ludicrous.  I saw very little military presence beside a fighter pilot and I found this highly illogical.  There seem to be very few people surrounding such a historical event, and there wasn’t a real sense of awe produced by extraterrestrials coming to Earth you get from films like District 9 and Independence Day. Perhaps the humanoid aspect of the aliens had much to do with that, but still.  (Remember the wonder the 4400 produced? And they were just humans.) Where was the sense of excitement and fear? In more people going to church? There are other lacunae I won’t mention because of potential spoilers, and I hope to get them explained as the show develops.  The topics covered are solid and interesting and I would like to see more. Media manipulation, humanity in crisis, beauty/attractiveness as a weapon of acceptance, terrorism, betrayal… I’ll be watching.

Astronaut Paula multitasks teaching with annoying her coworkers

Did you get a chance to watch Defying Gravity this summer on ABC? If not, you missed out on a gem cut short before its time. ABC aired eight episodes of this show and hasn’t decided whether or not to air the remaining five. This is a shame, because while this series is definitely sci-fi and us geeks could revel in its space station beauty and solar system CGI, it also has suspense and romance that could appeal to a wider audience. I’m not sure how well publicized this show was, but considering how I am always on the lookout for new sci-fi shows, Defying Gravity caught me off guard and I didn’t hear about it until a few episodes into the first season.

So here’s the story: It is the year 2052, humans have been to Mars, and the next great multinational exploration mission is aboard spaceship Antares. For six years, it will travel around our solar system visiting several planets for research purposes. I like this premise because it seems realistic that humans will be able to space-travel close to Earth this century (here’s hoping). There is a team of eight astronauts that all have well-hidden emotional baggage, so there is drama amongst the crew and the Mission Control staff back on Earth. The mission itself has its own secrets unbeknownst even to most team members.

Paula Garcés, of Colombian heritage, plays Paula Morales, a former schoolteacher from Texas. She is the payload specialist on the Antares. Fluent in English, Spanish and Ameslan, she is also a shuttle pilot and documents the trip for the whole planet. For example, she carries a video camera around and interviews the other astronauts, then relays the videos to school children. Most of the time she speaks in English, but she also speaks in Spanish making me wonder if she’s talking to English-speaking students studying Spanish, Spanish speaking students studying English, or bilingual students. This may or may not be related to the steady growth of Latino minority groups in the United States. Whatever the reason, it is nice to hear Spanish in space. Never mind that Paula tends to annoy the other astronauts with all her questions.

Paula is very religious and isn’t afraid to display her faith to the crew. She consults her bible whenever she gets stressed out. While the character’s faith is possible, I find it hard to believe it is probable that an astronaut at her level can be so religious.  However, I would let this slide if not for Ajay Sharma, a fellow astronaut from India who is also very religious. They both relate their jobs directly to their faith and destiny. While the one black astronaut transcends ethnic stereotypes, Ajay and Paula unfortunately represent the exotic on the show.  The other characters, white and black, are distinguished by their personalities more than by their religion so it is disappointing how Paula and Ajay are introduced.  I am absolutely not saying that I want no religion or heritage on display and everybody should hide their culture. I am saying that cultural idiosyncrasies shouldn’t be as dominant as it is for these two characters. They are definitely not well-rounded roles. On the bright side, I am grateful that Paula is not the ship’s sex bomb. It is a shame we might not get more episodes because I was beginning to see a glimmer of much needed character development for Paula.

The first eight episodes of Defying Gravity are available on iTunes along with a free preview. They are also available on the ABC and CTV websites. CTV is airing the remaining episodes that ABC can’t decide on showing. As is usual in the case of great shows getting the axe, there is a Save Defying Gravity campaign you can join here and here.

UPDATE: Seems like the show was canceled, but if you’d like some resolution, here is an article interviewing its creator James Parriott.

Selena Gómez, Ricardo Montalbán (here with Esther Williams in the 1948 film “On an Island With You” ) and Lauren Vélez were were recognized at the 2009 Alma Awards ceremony

As an update to my previous post, here are my impressions of the Alma Awards. First, it was not live.  While I found this annoying in a way I loved how it shaved off show time. Usually award shows like this go on for way too long. This one was packed into two hours of nonstop acceptance speeches, video montages, and performances. The best performance was by a young singer called David Archuleta who I had never heard of before but since the tweens on Twitter were going crazy for him I looked him up and turns out he was last year’s American Idol finalist. He sang a timeless love song in español (Contigo en la Distancia- Together Across the Distance) effortlessly. Kudos to David! Shakira gave a disappointing overly sexual performace of She-Wolf. Shakira, you don’t need to do that, honey. Your talent transcends any body gyrations you can make onstage. Nelly Furtado sang Manos al aire (Hands Up) from her first album in Spanish (and I loved it). I think the only thing I really disliked about the Alma Awards was George Lopez’s sense of humor- repeatedly putting down your own people to get laughs really isn’t the best thing to do at a show that intends to transcend stereotypes. Lopez’s comments made me uncomfortable during the whole show. At least Eva Longoria was classy.

They didn’t present any winners to the “Year Behind the Scenes” category, so check the link below for the full list of Alma winners in case it was a separate ceremony. (It wasn’t up when I wrote this.) Here are some genre highlights from the awards ceremony:

• Edward James Olmos presented a special sports award to boxer Oscar de la Hoya for his boxing and philanthropy work. We all know Admiral Adama likes boxing, so he was a fitting presenter for this particular award. Before presenting it, Olmos blessed the audience and I swear was *this* close to saying “So Say We All!” Maybe not- but I like to think he wanted to!
• The gorgeous Salma Hayek, who has been in several genre films, was very gracious with her long time fans and dedicated her Anthony Quinn Award for Industry Excellence to them. Thanks Salma!
  
• When Selena Gomez (Wizards of Waverly Place) accepted her best comedy actress award she said that there were many other nominated actresses more talented than she is. Perhaps, but this girl definitely has the potential of greatness and the fact that her show focuses on a Latino-heritage family makes it a win for families who watch Disney TV. Latino kids can watch other kids like them on TV, and other ethnicities can enjoy some Disney bubblegum with a Latino flavor. That’s inspiration right there.
  
• Rita Moreno presented a special recognition of Ricardo Montalbán and his work helping other Latino actors in the industry. They had a great video montage, and his role as Khan was singled out! I had no idea how hot he was when he was young and starting out. Wow.
• Dexter’s Lauren Velez won best TV drama actress. When she got up to accept her award I did a double take because there were TWO of her! Not really; it was her twin sister. Sweet of them to be together like that.

From one boxer to another

I don’t think the Alma Awards are very accurate in actually giving out awards; I suspect they are more image awards than performance awards, and they don’t like to repeat winners. It makes sense in a way because the Alma Awards is a concept created by the National Council of La Raza, the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. In the end, I suspect the award statuettes are an excuse to get together and celebrate Latinos in the business in one big fiesta. I’m OK with that to an extent, because awards might end up going to the same batch of excellent actors year after year, and that would get old fast. What we need then are more Latinos in the industry. When we become commonplace, award shows like this will become redundant.

Winners announced on the actual show were (full list here):

• TVACTOR, COMEDY: Oscar Nunez, The Office
• TVACTRESS, COMEDY: Selena Gomez, Wizards of Waverly Place
• TV ACTOR, DRAMA: Benjamin Bratt, The Cleaner, A&E
• TV ACTRESS, DRAMA: Lauren Vélez, Dexter, SHO
• ACTOR, FILM: John Leguizamo, Nothing Like the Holidays
• ACTRESS, FILM: Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona