Selena (1997)
Directed by Gregory Nava
In this biographical drama, Selena Quintanilla is born into a musical Mexican-American family in Texas. Her father, Abraham, realizes that his young daughter is talented and begins performing with her at small venues. She finds success and falls for her guitarist, Chris Perez, who draws the ire of her father. Seeking mainstream stardom, Selena begins recording an English-language album which, tragically, she would never complete.
3 connections found
View:
3 connections, in both directions
What critics compared Selena to
The performances are also remarkable, with Lopez giving a career-best performance, her first in two decades to live up to the promise of Selena and Out of Sight, and Wu matching her, their characters’ relationship tender but hiding some spite underneath.
I love Jennifer Lopez in a way that you can only love her if you were a ten-year-old Latina who walked from seeing Selena in theaters directly into the local CD store (remember CDs?) and begged your Mom for the soundtrack.
Lopez’s filmography is admittedly checkered, with highs like Selena and Out of Sight and lows like Jersey Girl and Gigli.
Back in 1997 and '98, J-Lo proved her acting chops with stellar back to back performances in "Selena" and "Out of Sight," but then sort of lost her way among various rom-coms, thrillers and such.
In case you have missed Lopez in Selena or Out of Sight , Hustlers proves to the audience that she is more than just “Jenny from the Block.”
It’s been a while since Selena , so long that perhaps we’ve all forgotten, holy shit, she can act .
The rest of the vocal performances are fine, although some are barely recognizable -- Jennifer Lopez ("Selena," "Out of Sight") as Z's coworker and Dan Aykroyd ("The Blues Brothers," "Ghostbusters") as a snobbish, but friendly wasp (or make that WASP) -- and Sharon Stone's ("Basic Instinct," "Casino") take on Princess Bala could have used a bit more conviction to make that character jump off the screen a bit more.
Since her “breakout performances” in 1997’s Selena and Steven Soderbergh’s romance-action-thriller Out of Sight (1998), Jennifer Lopez has mostly acted in much-less-good romances, action movies or romance-action movies (Gigli remains a stain on the CV).
She may be an actress of limited range, but her work includes solid movies like “Selena” and “Out of Sight.”
Lopez has never been better than she was in "Selena," "Out of Sight" and "The Cell."
Eighteen years ago, the Bronx native received a Golden Globe nomination for playing the title role in Selena, but the acting chops she displayed in that iconic movie are nowhere to be found in her latest trio of films: The Back-Up Plan, What to Expect When You’re Expecting and now The Boy Next Door.
Indeed, there was a time when Jennifer Lopez was all Selena and Anaconda.