The Five Biggest Latin Movie Stars of 2009 This year is chock-full of great movies to look forward to, from huge summer blockbusters like Star Trek and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, to year-end stuff like The Wolfman and James Cameron's 3-D Avatar and. Even better news: many of the most eagerly awaited flicks feature Latino actors in prominent roles. Here are my picks for who will rise to the top:
Benicio del Toro: Benny will open and help close 2009 with three huge movies that could get him his third and fourth Oscar nominations: The two-part Che biopic, coming January 24 and November's The Wolf Man. Because the Che flicks were briefly released as one 4/12 hour movie in December, Benicio will be eligible for his third Oscar nomination for his uncanny transformation into the revolucionario. In November, the boricua undergoes a transformation of another kind: he'll be the hairy comic-book hero who goes back to his ancestral home in England only to get bitten by the wrong kind of wolf, in this dramatic remake.
Michelle Rodriguez: She gets plenty of attention for her arrests and indeterminate s*xuality, but I love seeing Michelle do what she does best: be an badass babe onscreen. Have you seen that Fast & Furious trailer featuring the Domini-rican actress hijacking an 18-wheeler? About time somebody souped up this fading franchise by bringing back the old crew, with Michelle at the center (out April 3). Also look for her in Avatar (December 18), the 3-D sci-fi thriller by Titanic-drector James Cameron, who according to reports, has basically reinvented digital filmmaking with the film.
Zoe Saldana: Get ready to see the hardworking, underrated Zoe finally hit the A-list this year. The Dominican actress is playing in the year's two most anticipated movies: Star Trek (May 8), in which she plays Uhuru and has a hot affair with Capt. Kirk, and Avatar, in which she plays a member of a tribe in a planet that humans invade—and falls for the the humans' leader. We all know what happened to the actors who played the lead couple in Titanic: instant stardom.
Javier Bardem: He already has an Oscar, so what's next? How about pissing off your girlfriend Penelope Cruz by signing on to do a movie when you'd promised to take time off? But then again, you couldn't blame the Spanish actor for wanting to work with hot Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, whose Babel was nominated for an Oscar in 2006. He may just direct Javier to another golden boy with Biutiful, a Spanish-language drama about a man involved in shady dealings, who is confronted by a boyhood friend-turned-cop (out in December).
Jennifer Lopez: Her impending divorce from Marc Anthony (you don't think they're actually NOT over, do you?) means JLo will dominate tabloids this year and, call me cynical, but what better time for her to stage a big-screen comeback (and make us forget the hot mess that was El Cantante? The Nuyorican legend-in-the-making will star in December's The Governess, playing a thief who poses as a nanny to get close to a wealthy man she is trying to bilk. And then they fall in love, of course.
Posted By: Devon Marshall
Sunday, June 7th 2009 at 3:11PM
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