How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer
by Georgina Garcia Riedel
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Actor: America Ferrera, Elizabeth Pena, Lucy Gallardo, Rick Najera, Steven BauerDirector: Georgina Garcia Riedel
Brand: MAYA ENTERTAINMENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Spanish (Unknown); Spanish (Subtitled); Spanish (Original Language); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 128 minutes
Published: 2008-08-01
DVD Release Date: 2008-08-12
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Maya Entertainment
Product features:
- In the summer heat of a small Arizona border town, sparks start to fly for three Garcia girls. America Ferrera (Ugly Betty) plays 17-year-old Blanca, who discovers romance, love, and lust for the first time with the new bad boy in town. Her divorced mother Lolita (Elizabeth Pe a, Rush Hour), seems to have hit a dry spell until the husband of one of her customers pays a visit. Meanwhile, Blanca s g
DVD Reviews of How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer
DVD Review: Love and Cars
Summary: 4 Stars
Sexuality comes in all ages.
Georgina Garcia Riedel directed this independent movie, a movie inspired by her own grandmother. It's a well-written and finely-acted thinking woman's movie.
This movie is about a three-generational Mexican-American family in Somerton, Arizona (SW of Yuma), a small town in which rumors spread quicker than sand storms. These three women go through different phases of awareness in their lives in one hot and dusty southern Arizona summer.
Men play a subordinate role in this film. Machismo is curtailed by leaving out gratuitous violence, abuse and sex. People who want to see lustful sex scene or violent domestic scenes need not look further as you won't find it here. The men who show tenderness toward the women contradict the other macho men. Whenever Riedel wants to change the viewer's attention she goes back to a park scene of five townsmen who appear to have plenty of time just to sit and talk about their old love/sex lives while women in this movie struggle in every scene with men. And cars. Cars in this movie are the connection between men and women.
The women in this movie just want love. Free spirit Blanca (America Ferrera) wants it, Controlling,embittered and lonely divorcee Lolita (Elizabeth Pena) fights it, and Independent Nana (Lucy Gallardo) finds it again. It is Lolita who is the most critical of love. She doesn't seem to understand her mother or her own daughter who seem curious about love. She gets love, too, but refuses to acknowledge it.
Sex. Love. Cars. If cars didn't have a role in this movie perhaps this movie would be boring...
I thoroughly enjoyed Nana in this movie and her struggles with her self-awareness. Buying an old car in the beginning of this movie opened up independence for her, despite her daughter's disappointment that it's just a "hunka junk."
"Why does Nana need a car? She's got us" says Lolita to her daughter.
"Maybe she's lonely," replies Blanca. Lolita can not accept the idea that her elderly mother doesn't rely on her all the time, has a life of her own, or even feels love for another man. Nana and Blanca instead bond more because of their shared experiences of love, and Nana listens to Blanca's advice. In the end, however, all three women learn from each other.
Although Nana can't drive, her widowed gardener Don Pedro (affectionately performed by Jorge Cervera) shows her how. It is during the silent driving lessons around town that a sweet and caring relationship develops between these two characters. Pedro is no longer "just" the dirty gardener, but a loving and patient man. This sweetness tugs at the heartstrings.
"The car's just old, like us. It just got too excited!" Pedro tells Nana when the car breaks down during a driving session.
There are some touching scenes in this movie regardless of poor camera shots and most have little dialogue. In one scene (27-29 minutes) we see Lolita come home after a shift at her butchershop and collapse on the couch. A Spanish love song plays in the background. She smokes her cigarette, listens to the music, the camera slowly zooms toward her face and then we see a tear starts to flow down her right cheek. And in another quiet scene (52 minutes) we see Nana in the bathtub washing herself slowly, and thinking surely of her younger days. Then there's a semi-erotic bedroom scene with Lolita at 1:25 hours. All scenes were tenderly done.
This movie is has its flaws. Scenes jump around between the three women as the story develops, just as suspense builds up between the women and men. Sometimes the camera angle of this production was awkward at times. Sometimes it pans too fast so you see a blurry sky shot. Othertimes you see headless bodies talk. And then sometimes quiet shots take too long and you get bored of that one scene. But the premise of this story was strong enough to overcome these flaws.
The climax is gentle and the reason it appears slow is that there is no background music that prepares the viewer for suspense. The fact that there are no violins, drums or loud trumpets in the background allow the movie goer to think better; "for creative effect" we are told. It works.
Although the DVD cover describes this as a "comedy," it's more of a thinking woman's movie, a sensitive family movie with comedic moments but with plenty of overtones involving fear, loneliness and passion. Although this movie is by and for Latinas, the theme of this film resonates in all women.
4.5 stars. Bravissimo.
Description of How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer
Studio: Maya Entertainment Grp Release Date: 08/12/2008 Run time: 128 minutes Rating: RBestsellers in DVD
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