Reporting Live From the Campus of Montclair State University

I'm here handling some business with my alma mater, but I just wanted to inform folks that El Cantante, the film about Hector Lavoe's life, sucked inordinate amounts of ass.

It's not that it was all bad. The music was fantastic, particularly a stripped-down version of the title song, sung by Victor Manuelle as Ruben Blades. But that was five minutes of the movie. The rest of it was a highly stylized, highly disjointed, inept version of Lavoe's life story, which unfortunately will be perceived as a vanity project for Jennifer Lopez. I think that critique is a tad unfair, but well, if THIS is the kind of movie one decides to make for their money, then this is the kind of critique that happens.

I will have more a coherent article on this in the next day or so. Meantime, go to YouTube and check out the torrent of old-school Hector Lavoe performance videos that have popped up in the last week or so. If you fans of salsa care to reminisce about Lavoe, this may be your best bet.