Disappointment for a huge fan!

Best movie of this year hands down!

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

To be fair to the cast...... it wasn't totally their fault! The script was one of the worst dramas ever produced, as for comedy. It was lacking any sort of charismatic charm. The band's music were trainwrecks, except the (probably unintentional) Spanish? version of Duran Duran's Hungry like the Wolf. Ana Claudia Talancón contributed to the poor excuse of a supporting cast, all the focus was on Antonio (John Leguizamo) who failed to deliver a strong cocky young Antonio (although once again poor script). John Leguizamo is getting a little too old for this kind of part. Overall, i wouldn't even eat chocolate and watch this movie for inspiration.

I just saw the film. I rented it on Netflix. John Leguizamo has never looked better. Or younger. He's always amazing, no matter what he does, whether it's his own stand-up comedy or Shakespeare. It was nice to see him branch out even further into the realm of music playing a Mexican musician who moves to LA to fulfill his dream. Overall, I thought the film was an excellent first effort by writer/director Renee Chabria. She did the Latin music industry a great service by exposing all those wonderful musicians. The film is ultimately about music and one's devotion to that gift, so I appreciated the impressive diversity of the musicians featured (Zoe, Ely Guerra, Jumbo, Jose Jose). Once you realize it's all about the music, you forgive that the convenient love-story falls short of compelling. Elizabeth Pena is refreshing as Mirabela, and I hope to see Ana Claudia Talancon in future roles. There should really be a soundtrack for this film.

Oh, dear. This movie is unintentionally one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. If it weren't so serious about itself, I'd put it in Christopher Guest territory. But unfortunately, this movie takes itself SO seriously that it can't see how flawed it is, both cinematically and practically. The one scene that had my boyfriend and I rolling on the floor was the band practice with Antonio's first band. One minute the boys backing him up are in their own band, "on the way up." The next thing you know, they've let this Antonio kid come in and take over. In what we must assume is their FIRST practice, sweet, sincere Antonio turns into a complete asshole, actually SHOVING his brand new guitar player because he doesn't like the way the guy plays! Egos fly, it nearly comes to fisticuffs, but the "manager" steps in with a Brady Bunch speech and Antonio and his new guitar player shake and make up. None of this would EVER happen in a band. Never. Unless, of course, the band is comprised of retarded monkeys in heat. Then, it might happen.This is just one of about a million cookie cutter clichés in the movie. Each and every scene in this movie is a "Ye Olde Shoppe" version of reality: of Mexican culture, of young love, of fear and uncertainty, of the desire to put something meaningful into the world, and all the other "human conditions." It's completely unbelievable, and what little charm it might have had is completely destroyed by the extremely limiting script, which tries to tell too many stories without an ounce of continuity or building of relationships. Just like we never get to see Superman actually transform, we never get to see any of these characters develop, or fall in love. They simply state their "suenos" to the camera, step into a phone booth, and emerge transformed. Example: the big contest is three days away. In three days, Antonio finds a band, the band fires him, he finds another band, convinces his reluctant neighbor (a single mom with two kids) to join up, learns some original material, and then shows up at the audition just as they're supposed to go on, and then they get up their and play like they've been together seven years and have just emerged from having a nice quiet beer in the green room. Never happen.A lot of the music was really great, though. But a lot of it was, again, stereotypes of music genres sung by Latinos, seemingly to prove to the world that Mexicans can be hip to rap, garage rock, cock rock, funk, and math rock. The overstating of it through clichés made it feel like a propaganda poster, and slightly offended my boyfriend, a rockabilly band front-man who also happens to be Mexican. He didn't know he had anything to prove.

When film credits don't include the writer/s names, problems can be expected. This little candy-coated attempt to explore how 'dreams really do come true' is more a music video than a full fledged film, a project where obviously the money was spent on the graphics of the opening credits and the staged musical numbers rather than on the script. This is not a bad movie: it is just predictably trite and places lines in the mouths of some very fine actors that must have been an embarrassment to speak.Antonio (John Leguizamo, with lots of hair and none of his expected comedic edge) is a Mexican immigrant who lands in Los Angeles with his grandfather's philosophy to follow that dream ('Sueño') and believes he will find his major career in his music. Reality sets in immediately as he is forced to work in his uncle's Taco Stand and play his guitar and sing in sleazy deadbeat nightclubs. He meets a customer Nina (Ana Claudia Talancón) who dreams of becoming a veterinarian but is committed to caring for her ailing papa (Winston J. Rocha). Despite sweet Antonio's attempts to woo her, she remains adamant that she must devote her life to caring for papa. Next door to Anthony the apartment is occupied by Mirabella (Elizabeth Peña), a newly divorced, middle-aged pudgy ex-singer who does housekeeping and laundry to support her children while she dreams of once again becoming a star vocalist: again the heart of gold Antonio befriends her, hears her sing and insists she has great talent.Antonio is encouraged by a good-hearted 'manager' Rafael (Jsu Garcia) and is paired with three other musicians to form a group El Gran Colectivo with the hesitant Mirabella as vocalist. There is the requisite Music Group Competition where against all odds the group competes out of faith and devotion to each other and the old type of music. That everyone's dream comes true is no surprise at all: the plot is so thin that the audience knows from the start how everything will resolve 'in a land where troubles melt like lemon drops...'.The idea is sweet, the message is wholesome, and the strong cast does everything it can with the treacle of a script hampering them. But unless you have an appetite for candy and can wait for the occasional surrealism of the dream sequences, this venture may just put you in sugar overload. Grady Harp