PARAMOUNT'S 'NACHO' TASTY TO HISPANICS, PLUS REVIEW ROUNDUP AND B.O. ANALYSIS (WSJ, NYT, LAT, VAR)

By Stephen Saito

While the Jack Black starrer "Nacho Libre" is getting mostly positive notices from newspaper critics, the Wall Street Journal gives its thumbs up to the film's marketing campaign towards Hispanics. In the article about how Paramount has tried to woo the Hispanic audience (which according to the MPAA is approximately 25 million), the Journal writes:

To help navigate unfamiliar terrain, Paramount hired a consultant in Hispanic marketing, HM Communications. They focused mainly on the Mexican-American market (around two-thirds of U.S. Hispanics are of Mexican heritage). Indeed, one of the "don'ts" of Hispanic marketing is treating the market as homogeneous, say marketing experts.

Paramount took [co-star Ana] de la Reguera on a tour of cities with big Mexican-American populations -- without bringing Jack Black along. Ms. de la Reguera's status as a Mexican soap star drew large, enthusiastic crowds in places like San Antonio and Dallas.

In picking marketing partners to work with, [producer Julia] Pistor says the studio avoided stereotypes like tie-ins with the American fast-food chain Taco Bell.

Producers of the film were also concerned that the casting of Black as a Mexican wrestler might be offensive to Hispanics, but as the Journal writes, they decided it was a safe move after a quick script fix:

Ms. Pistor says the filmmakers did a quick survey of friends and discovered that Mr. Black was a popular figure in the Latino community after his role in the hit comedy "The School of Rock." There was another challenge: The character Nacho, out of shape and blundering, could be offensive to Latinos, who commonly complain that Hollywood portrays them in an unflattering light. "Too often when a Hispanic is on screen, it's a cookie-cutter stereotype," says Mr. Valdez.

With that in mind, the producers decided to make Nacho a "guero" (slang for "white boy"). In one scene, he explains that his mother was a Swedish missionary, his father a Mexican deacon. "They tried to convert each other but got married instead," he says.

Apparently, critics are pleased with their efforts.

The New York Times' Manohla Dargis writes:

"Nacho Libre" marks a nice step forward for Jared Hess, who has started to shake some of the tics - the obsessively symmetrical setups, the menagerie of user-friendly geeks - that gave "Napoleon Dynamite" the flavor of an American Gothic pastiche, David Byrne's "True Stories" as recycled for the Sundance generation. He still leans too heavily on bad grooming and body fat for giggles and can carelessly slide into cruelty. But perhaps because he's operating outside his country and perhaps, as a consequence, his comfort zone, he doesn't seem as eager to sell his characters out for a laugh. And, in any event, I'm not sure that Jack Black or at least Nacho would let him. To be honest, it's the sweetness here that kills. If the whole thing weren't so gloriously nonsensical it just might make you cry.

The Los Angeles Times' Carina Chocano writes:

What's rare to see, and what ultimately makes "Nacho Libre" so enjoyable, is the story of an underdog who's allowed to remain a humble clown all the way to becoming a hero.

Meanwhile, Variety is calling this the summer's most competitive weekend with no clear winner among 'Nacho,' Universal's 'The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,' Warner Bros' Sandra Bullock-Keanu Reeves romance 'The Lake House,' Fox's sequel 'Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties' and a second week for Disney/Pixar's 'Cars.'

PARAMOUNT'S 'NACHO' TASTY TO HISPANICS, PLUS REVIEW ROUNDUP AND B.O. ANALYSIS (WSJ, NYT, LAT, VAR)

By Stephen Saito

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