Tag Archive: Monique Gabriela Curnen

Friday, December 20

Two to choose from on CBS and they may be the only new programming on the nets, Monique Gabriela Curnen guest stars on Hawaii Five-O at 9P and Marisa Ramirez in Blue Bloods at 10P, but there are a couple of fun movies to choose from, too: Rosario Dawson at her adventurous best in The Rundown at 9P on Spike, and Selena Gomez, among others, lending her voice to Hotel Transylvania, available for your viewing pleasure at 7:25P on Starz.

Photos: Monique Gabriela Curnen, Rosario Dawson and Dwayne Johnson

Monique Gabriela Curnen

The networks may be sleeping for the summer, but Latinos in powerful roles are all over cable, including Constance Marie in a new season of Switched at Birth (8P, ABC Family) followed by Jake T. Austin and Cierra Ramirez on Jennifer Lopez’ The Fosters at 9P, also on ABC Family…opposite Carlos Gómez and Kiele Sanchez on The Glades (9P, A&E), then after, A Martinez is continuing his arc in a new episode of Longmire and guest stars, Monique Gabriela Curnen and Christiann Castellanos (10P, also on A&E).

Photo: David Lambert, Cierra Ramirez, Jake T. Austin, Teri Polo, Sherri Saum, Maia Mitchell

New “Dexter,” “Homeland,” “Shake It Up” and “Mentalist” this Sunday

It’s not Christmas quite yet, at least not in Dexter’s Florida, Homeland’s DC, The Mentalist’s shiny version of California or Shake It Up’s world. Adam Irigoyen and Bella Thorne star in a brand new episode of Shake It Up––on the Disney Channel at 8:30P (and a million times thereafter). David Zayas, Lauren Vélez, Aimee Garcia and guest star Nestor Serrano on Dexter at 9P on Showtime; Morena Baccarin and her fellows have some serious ‘splainin’ to do on Homeland at 10P on Showtime, and at the same time Monique Gabriela Curnen continued her arc on The Mentalist, 10P on CBS.

“End of Watch” Makes it Back to the Big Screen, Plus New Releases

There’s a fair amount of Oscar buzz around Michael Peña, Jake Gyllenhaal, and the behind-the-camera creators of End of Watch, the cop-drama that made a small splash in theaters earlier this year. That’s why it’s reappearing at a few multiplexes around the country one more time before the end of the year. The film also stars, America Ferrera and Natalie Martinez. Check your local listings, and check it out one more time (or even again!)

Daniella Pineda in Edward Burns’ The Fitzgerald Family Christmas. A film about adult siblings dealing with the desire of their estranged father to return home for Christmas after walking out on his family 20 years ago. Family rifts emerge, and Christmas brings a mixed bag of complicated emotions and dynamics.

Monique Gabriela Curnen in Happy New Year, which tells the story of a Marine who returns home to face his fiercest battle–himself. In limited release.

In Playing for Keeps, Katia Gomez (The Ledge) plays Lupe in Gerard Butler’s comedy about a former sports star who’s fallen on hard times. And starts coaching his son’s soccer team and comedy pursuits. In theaters near you.

Monique Gabriela Curnen joins “The Mentalist”

Monique Gabriela Curnen

Monique Gabriela Curnen is one of those Latinas (of Puerto Rican and German descent) who’s been working hard and often in Hollywood for years, and still hasn’t quite achieved the recognition she deserved.

Oh, you recognize her face. She’s been in everything from The Dark Knight (where she played one of Gotham’s apparently extremely rare Latinos) to the hugely under-appreciated cop drama The Unusuals back in 2009. She plays Latino characters almost as often as Anglos, including her arc as “Amelia Dominguez” on Sons of Anarchy or “Xiomara Garcia” in three separate episodes of CSI. And she splits her time between TV and film as well, with significant roles in Contagion, The Good Doctor, and the upcoming Mr. Sophistication with Gina Torres. 

Now, according to Entertainment Weekly, Monique will be joining The Mentalist on a regular basis, as “Tamsin Wade,” a strict agent who works in the gang division of the CBI. That makes for a nice change of pace; The Mentalist is often noted for being placed in a mythical California where there seem to be almost no Latinos at all, and Curnen’s inclusion in multiple episodes will mark the series’ first continuing Latina actress as it reaches its 100th episode.

Meanwhile, Monique keeps working. She continues to appear in a wide variety of shorts; she was part of Roland Emmerich’s thriller Dark Horse, and she has no less than three feature films in post-production right now. If you’d like to see some of her work, you can catch a rebroadcast of The Dark Knight on TNT Friday Nov. 30 at 8P, or her appearance in an episode of Law & Order: SVU on USA, Saturday December 1 at 10P. Or just for fun, here she is in a short (and hot!) scene with Jeremy Renner from the The Unusuals (it’s true: the currently hot-as-a-pistol Renner first came to notice on The Unusuals, even as he was making The Hurt Locker, with The Town, The Avengers and The Bourne Legacy still in the future).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lib4jT_82UY

Latinos at the Movies, Summer 2012 Blockbuster Edition: a long, dry season

A report from midsummer: a dozen blockbusters already here or on their way…and not a Latino lead or significant supporting character to be seen.

There’s been a lot of talk about the number of Latinos on TV arriving in the fall of 2012…but at the same time we’ve missed a different and far less positive story that’s already well underway: the almost complete absence of Latinos in lead roles in any of 2012’s summer blockbusters.

Think about the big-big movies you’ve already seen, mega-hit and flop alike: The Avengers, Dark Shadows, Battleship, Men in Black 3, Snow White and the Huntsman, Prometheus. Then think about the ones still to come: The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises, Brave, Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Bourne Legacy, Total Recall. None of these summer blockbusters for 2012–not one–have Latinos in significant roles–not in the lead, not even in a large supporting role with the exception of Martin Sheen  as uncle Ben in The Amazing Spider-Man.

Sure, you can comb through the cast lists on imdb and see a few Latinos buried in there (for instance, Nestor Carbonell as the mayor of Gotham in Dark Knight Rises, or Jesse Garcia and Walter Perez as S.H.I.E.L.D. techs and pilots in The Avengers), but–with no offense to the actors–these are way, way down the cast list.  And those few hard-to-find names are all you’ll find, no matter how hard you look.

That’s not to say Latinos are entirely invisible in theaters this summer. We’ve already seen What to Expect When You’re Expecting, with Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, and Rodrigo Santoro in May, though, honestly, it came and went so quickly it was barely noticed. Yvette Yates did a fine job in the small independent, El Gringo, and Eva Mendes, Cierra Ramirez and Eugenio Derbez, among others, gave very sweet performances in Girl in Progress as well, but Girl–like every other theatrical release in may–was smashed by The Avengers, with the longest legs in history. It was a full month before people stopped going back to see that superhero epic for the fourth or fifth time, and every film released in for weeks after its premier, from romcom to actioner, was lost in the tidal wave. Besides, these films–good or bad, well-received, or panned–were small films, meant to fill in the breathless weeks between blockbusters, and the point is those blockbusters were totally lacking in Latino talent. Read the rest of this entry »

One Scary-Romantic Tuesday: Latinos in Thrillers and Romantic Comedies, Good and Bad, on DVD this Week

If you like your Latino entertainers in peril or in love…this week’s DVD releases are right up your (dark and/or dreamy) alley. Check out:

Monique Gabriela Curnen is part of the big, interstellar cast (Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, etc. etc.) in last year’s truly terrifying “outbreak” movie, Contagion. You’ll recognize Monique as part of the cast from last year’s Lie to Me and a recurring forensic-type on this year’s CSI.

Guillermo del Toro is technically just the co-producer and screenwriter on last year’s very scary Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, but his name was bigger than the director’s on the poster, and his influence as advisor/overseer/visionary is all over this moody, beautiful, slightly disturbing about not-very-nice fairies.

What does Sarah Shahi do between seasons of her USA Network series? Makes movies like I Don’t Know How She Does It, a comedy with a number of highly visible stars, like Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, and Christina Hendricks that came and went last year without a peep.

Beautiful young Alyssa Diaz has been working her way up the ladder for a few years now, especially with her supporting role in The Nine Lives of Chloe King. Now it’s time for the obligatory horror movie, and she has a doozy: Shark Night 3D, now available on DVD. The title says it all, but Alyssa’s just getting started. Watch for much more of her in 2012, including roles in the remake of the cult favorite Red Dawn. Read the rest of this entry »