Marta Gómez

For those of us who like to expand our horizon in music, check out Marta Gómez.

Just like many music fans, I discovered her by listening to her interview with Steve Inskeep on NPR. But many music fans in NY or Boston areas may have already heard of her since she went to Berklee and has played as the opening acts for Bonnie Raitt and John Mayer. She reminds me a little bit of Norah Jones and her “Come Away With Me” album (in a Latin kind of way). Her music is mainly folk with the right amount of Latin jazz and flamenco in the mix.

If you'd like to sample the songs, I'd recommend the first three songs La Finca, Eso Pido Yo, and Seis, then skip to Canta (No. 7), El Pueblo (9), and the last 4 songs of the album.

NPR Interview

Official Home Page

CD Review

Hotel Rwanda, The Aviator, Closer, Maria Full of Grace

Seen any good films lately? There are a lot to choose from during this time of year since it's the beginning of the awards season starting with The Golden Globes.

Here are the short reviews on some of the films I've seen recently. Note: The best possible rating a film can receive is four stars.

• Hotel Rwanda: I missed one of the most critical moments of the films because I was crying so hard I couldn’t see the screen. But it didn’t really matter since I only missed the scene, not its message. Don Cheadle delivered “the performance” of his career as Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who rescued over a thousand Tutsis refugees during the massacre by the Hutu militia . 4 stars
  

• The Aviator: I normally refer to a movie as a movie or a film but while watching “The Aviator” the term “cinema” came to mind. This isn’t just a cinema but a triumph of a cinema by Martin Scorsese. This epic story of Howard Hughes is elegantly shot and delicately detailed in every scene. “The Aviator” is so flawless as a cinema it makes Dicaprio look like Charles Foster Kane. 4 stars

• Closer: A brutally honest story of the four very unlikable and dishonest characters who are extremely shallow and occupied only by their own feelings. It's hard to like a movie when you hate the characters but "Closer" has led me to an honest and enlightening conversation with a female friend right after seeing the film. 3 stars

• Maria Full of Grace: I've heard of the story of people working as mules (smuggling drugs by hidden the packages inside their bodies) before but never saw how it done until I've seen this film. Catalina Sandino Moreno is excellent as Maria Alvarez, a 17 year-old Columbian who is forced by poverty to work as a mule. You see how the characters keep trying to fix their problems by making all the wrong decisions and you can't help but be afraid for them for the bad consequences you see coming. 3 ½ stars