Directed by Adam Shankman, American film director also credited for the 2007 remake of “Hairspray”, “Rock of Ages” -the movie, hits the theaters this weekend and is giving Diego Boneta his big break on the big screen. When asked about his experience in auditioning for the role and working with a star studded cast (that includes Alec Baldwin, Russel Brand and  Tom Cruise, among others) Diego replies: ” It was amazing, a 6 week process, I auditioned like everybody else…it ended with 3 days of migranes and a call by Adam on a Sunday. It was a crazy nerve wrecking process. The cast was so amazing….we were like a family!”.

The movie, which is the result of a casual conversation between Shankman and Cruise a couple of years ago, is a love letter to the eighties. The film’s score, which includes over 20  musical anthems such as “Pour Some Sugar On Me” and “Paradise City”, as well as some very well executed mashups, is brought to life by the cast itself. Cruise worked with Axel Rose’s former vocal coach for months, practicing an average of five hours a day to deliver the voice of the movie’s ultimate rock and roll super star: Staycee Jaxx. All the songs can be found on the movie’s soundtrack.

“Two of the biggest challenges in making this movie, were translating the play into a film , making it multidimensional and helping the cast find their own voice for their characters” states Shankman. The film, unlike the play, avoids making fun of this golden era, where “The Strip” was the heart of a movement. Some of the adjustments made to the original storyline of the play, in the movie, include Katherine Zeta-Jones’ character, which did not exist until a couple of moths prior to the shoot and the inclusion of  ”Hey Man”, a baboon that plays Stacee Jaxx’s (Tom Cruise) sidekick.

A couple of curious side notes on the movie:

• The creation of “Hey Man” as a character, was Tom Cruise’s idea,  based on  Michael Jackson’s pet “Bubbles”.
• All the female dancers for the strip club scenes where found via Youtube. The “pole specialists” were casted during 3 months.
• There is a missing scene, performed to the track “Rock You Like a Hurricane” (The Scorpions), which would have made the movie lose it’s PG-13 classification, if it was not left out.
• Sebastian Bach and Nuno Bettencourt are just two of many cameos during the movie.

“Rock of Ages” stars Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta as employees and aspiring artists that work at  Club Bourbon. The owner (Alec Baldwin) and his right hand (Russell Brand) are about to be saved by a performance from the one and only Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise).

This is a story about Rock and Roll, fun times and ultimately… pursuing your dreams.

Sophie Sheridan (Liana Hunt) is about to get married. The twenty year old wants her father to give her away. There is only one problem. She doesn’t know who her father is. Having read her mother’s diary, she discovers that there might be three possibilities and decides to invite all three of them, to the Greek island where she lives. Her mother, an independent woman named Donna (Lisa Brescia) who runs a local tavern, has no idea of the surprise that awaits her.

Based on the book by Catherine Johnson, the show’s writer and directed by Phyllida Lloyd, British director whose credits also include “The Iron Lady”; ”Mamma, Mia!” is a delightful, fun and uplifting play.

The score, an ultimate “feel good” sound bed that threads the story, delivers a simple yet fast moving plot that brings together over 20 songs, by Swedish pop sensation Abba, written by Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and in some cases Stig Anderson.  This soundtrack was released in 2008 and has now sold in excess of 6.4 million copies globally.

“Mamma Mia!” which has now become a certified worldwide hit, is a romantic comedy about coming of age and true love. It builds an atmosphere of spontaneity and nuttiness that results in a joyful night of entertainment. A must see for hopeless romantics and Abba fans.

The play opened in London thirteen years ago and has now opened in Buenos Aires. It has been seen by over 50 million people worldwide, grossed 2 billion at the box office, opened in over 325 major cities and is currently running in London, Broadway (USA), Japan, France and Argentina.

MAMMA MIA! 

• Book by Catherine Johnson.
• Directed by Phyllida Lloyd.
• Music and lyrics by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson.
• Production designed by Mark Thompson.
• Lighting by Howard Harrison.
• Sound by Andrew Bruce and Bobby Aitken.
• Musical supervisor, by Martin Koch.
• Choreography by Anthony Van Laast.
• Presented by Judy Craymer, Richard East and Mr. Ulvaeus, for Littlestar in association with Universal. At the Winter Garden, 1634 Broadway, at 50th Street.

The Latin Recording Academy (LARAS) will hold,once again, its annual Latin Grammy Awards at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, on Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. LARAS recognizes Latin and Portuguese music recorded around the world, honoring the people who dedicate their life and soul to create and perform it.

Preparations for the  Telecast ceremony begin well in advance, usually 9 months prior to the event. Throughout these nine months,  LARAS  hosts several events leading up to the  Award night. They feature new and emerging artists who are given the opportunity to demonstrate their craft in set showcases. The Academy also host events like Latin Grammy’s in  Schools and and the Latin Grammy Street Parties. 

It is thanks to these efforts and support by The Latin Recording Academy and it’s Annual Latin Grammy Awards, to the talent, that artist like Bebe have had the opportunity to emerge into mainstream recognition, and fame. 

The XIII Annual Latin Grammys will be aired live in Univision. The nominees will be announced on September 26 in Los Angeles. The XIII Annual Latin Grammy Ceremony promises to be another memorable event for the Latin music community. 

Joseph Guardiola has decided to leave the realm of Barcelona after many wins and triumphant returns, showing the world that  “FUTBOL” is very simple.

Where will PEP go next? No one knows. One thing is for sure, where he goes expect a team to win many games, battles and bring lot of smiles to fans.

The new SKIPPER will be Tito Vilanova, his confidant, eyes, and an important piece of the puzzle, one of the reasons why Barcelona became one of the greatest “futbol” squad of all times.

The question that everyone is asking is will Mourinho be next? Will Real Madrid President Fiorentino Perez  need to go crazy looking for a substitute for his man in command?  The answer is brewing and with time on our side, the “futbol” world will either be shocked or  accept to continue seeing MOU on the sidelines of The Bernabau.

Barcelona is not in the final game of the Champions is the news that the futbol world still wondering why, and the reason is simple Barcelona needs a change, not a change of coach or players, they need to change their strategy so that they are able to continue to surprise the advisories that they face every week.

Chelsea won in the aggregate and they probably played their toughest game of their life, the final will be tough, hey will either face Real Madrid or Bayern Munich, if they play Real Madrid, Chelsea needs to change its way Madrid strong offense is too much for a Chelsea team without John Terry and Miraeilles, if they face Bayern Munich they will have to play against a very discipline, strong and they will play the final game at Munich so Bayern will even be stronger.

What is next for Barcelona, they still need to play the final game of Copal del Rey against Bilbao, also they need to re-group and see what is next, will PEP continue?  Probably not, will Barcelona be as strong as today, maybe it all depends what will happen with the skipper of the team and key players that need a healthy bench with major talent to be able to go in and obtain a favorable result so that Barcelona can continue to climb the ladder to greatness. 

On March 23, 2012,  the powerful rock of Caramelos hit the stage with tears and a heavy heart that carries from now on the sorrow of the loss of one of their most important soldiers, their manager, Libero Laizzo who was kidnaped and then murdered, in Caracas,  a few hours before the band performed at the monstrous Rock Music Festival, in Mexico City.

One of the biggest cliches in Rock is “The Show must Go On”  and that is what Caramelos did exactly, with pain in their hearts , with no strength like in previous concerts that I had the honor to see and hear, and trying to bring light  to dark times, while singing all of their hits “El ultimo Polvo”, “Adios Amor”,” Sigo de Pie” and  Libero’s favorite Song  ”Veronica” .

Caramelos de Cianuro showed the world that Venezula is not going to step down and let  the criminals that brought a stain to their community, win the battle.

” ROCK N ROLL IS HERE TO STAY NO MATTER WHAT” and CARAMELOS DE CIANURO proved that cliches in music are words to live by.

Thank you Caramelo de Cianuro for your strength!  and Rest in Peace, Libero Laizzo!

“Every three days he  is able to give the world another reason why  he is the best of all times,” those words were  said by Pep Guardiola during the press conference after the game with Granada on March 20, 2012. Now if we stop to think  he plays at times 270 minutes plus every week, if is not for La Liga, is for Copa del Rey, or for the European Championship, and sometimes he travels and plays for Argentina, and every time he steps in to the pitch he shows the soccer or futbol world a reason to smile, to applaud, to yell and scream a goal like you never done before.

Messi is simply ahead of his time, I am so honored  that at my 43 I was able to see Maradona, Pele, Kruyf, Beckenbauer, Paolo Rossi, Michel Platini, Enzo Francescoli,  all great players, most of them world cup winners, but Lio  is one step ahead of the game, when he touches the ball no one is able to take it away, when he runs he is  like a freight train  that just keeps on going, he has the vision like no other player for the game of soccer or futbol, and when he scores he is able to do it gain and  again in the same game.

March 20, 2012, will go down in history, Lionel Messi broke the record of the late Cesar Rodriguez by scoring his 234th goal while wearing the Barcelona uniform, but lets face it he would probably reach 250 or more goals at the end of the league in Spain.

It has been a busy week in Austin, Texas. The SxSW Interactive, Film& Music conferences are finally over… with over 10,000 artists performing and God only knows how many registrants.  The 2012 edition, as probably been one of the most successful conferences of the last years. As fun as it was it was, it was also filled with an insane amount of rain during the first couple of days, as well as some very annoying (and long) lines for most of the venues and events. Here’s a brief recap of the highlights of each portion.

The biggest buzz coming out of the Interactive portion of the conference was probably for “Highlights”, an iOS-based application that brings people together, based on their location and info from Facebook profile.  This app let’s you know which of your friends or friend’s of friends are around the area or in the same place you are. In essence it is a very cool tool, if you can get past the privacy implications of being all the time in other people’s radars. It can certainly enhance someone’s dating life; as well as invade your personal space it the privacy settings are not improved.

Featured as a must for most attendees on the Film side was  “Bernie”, a comedic crime drama that showcases the human and idiosyncratic elements of society. Based on a true story, “Bernie” centers on Bernhardt “Bernie” Tiede (Jack Black),  a beloved local mortician with people skills to spare, who  kills a local widow and then spends months trying to cover up her murder by pretending she’s had a minor stroke. When found out, the whole town rallies to Bernie’s defense. Not necessarily a cinematographer’s opus, this film provides a witty, lighthearted and entertaining moment to the viewer.

Highlights from the SXSW Music Conference portion included new band  “Alabama Shakes”,  a fiery quintet playing country-soul,  ”Bruce Springsteen” as a key note speaker, Nacional Records‘ first showcase with some of the most buzzed about artists at the Festival (“Monsieur Perime”, “Astro” and “La Vida Boheme” ), first timers to the festival “Telebit” (Colombia) and “Vetusta Morla” (Spain); as well as the unforgettable performances by  ”Lila Downs” ,  ”Jot Dog” and “Bomba Estereo”.

Argentine Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez showed the world why he should fight for the Middleweight title, currently held by Chavez Jr.  It only took him 11 rounds to defeat Mathew “Mack The Knife” Macklin at the old boxing Mecca, the famous Madison Square Garden.

When he was asked what is next he said, “I want the belt that Chavez has right now”.  The boxing world is expecting  Julio Cesar Chavez Jr to finally give in and step in to the ring with Sergio Martinez. This could be the biggest grossing fight of 2012.

Martinez who is known to be a very fast paced and agile boxer, whose record stands at 49 wins (28 KO) 2 ties and 2 losses, will from this day forward be known as one of the best middle weight fighters in the world.

Will Chavez Jr grant Martinez the fight for the belt? Will Martinez be denied by other boxing figures the chance to fight Chavez?  The biggest question that will start brewing very soon is where will the fight take place? Could it be New York, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or somewhere else?

For the time being, Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez will have to wait and see if Chavez Jr will accept to step in to the ring and fight with Martinez, or continue hiding behind the words of his father and other officials to avoid doing so. 

In an intimate interview session held last Friday at SxSW, the Colombian singer/songwriter Juanes spoke about the early days of his career, his upcoming MTV Unplugged and working with Juan Luis Guerra.

“Music is my religion”, stated Juanes early in the interview, when asked about his passion for music. It seems that it was only yesterday, that the Colombian singer’s “A Dios Le Pido”, the first single from his sophomore album “Un Dia Normal”, opened the doors for him in Latin America. “La Camisa Negra” would later become a worldwide hit, breaking almost every market around the globe and helping this artist sell and excess of seven million albums around the world.

“Sometimes success is dangerous. It’s very easy to get lost. I was not expecting for success to happen to me”, he adds when talking about his worldwide accomplishments and current projects, “This is definitely a moment of transition in my life”. It has been a rough year for the Colombian star. His last album and tour under performed in sales and the separation from his former manager, announced late last year, resulted in all sorts of media speculation about a temporary retirement from the music scene.

Far from retirement, Juanes had been working with long time friend Juan Luis Guerra on the production of his next project. He announced the release of “La Señal”, the first single supporting this new release, early this year. “This MTV Unplugged is a great project. It came to me at the right time … The experience with Juan Luis Guerra was just amazing”, he concludes just before the interview ends.

Highlights of this interview can be seen at:

The full interview can be seen at: www.sxsw.com