New to VOD this week: WE LIKE IT LIKE THAT
Mathew Ramirez Warren’s ode to Latin boogaloo made its bow at SXSW last year. The doc also screened at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Sound + Vision, Ambulante California, Urbanworld, San Diego Latino, and In-Edit Spain and Chile, among other events. It now comes to VOD platforms, including iTunes.
If general audiences aren’t quite sure what Latin boogaloo even is, it’s understandable, given the music genre’s relatively short life, spanning the mid- to late-1960s and spawning only a few still familiar crossover hits. Originating within New York City’s teenage Puerto Rican and Cuban communities, boogaloo fused a variety of music styles, from R&B and doo-wop to their parents’ mambo, while also eschewing Spanish language for English or a mixture of both. In its reflection of 1960s social upheaval and changing conceptions of American identity, boogaloo served as a bridge between an earlier immigrant generation’s traditions and the wider youth culture their offspring embraced. As a result, as argued by several participants in Ramirez Warren’s scrappy if somewhat too insider project, the genre “saved” Latin music from fading away – at least until boogaloo ran its course, or, if some are to be believed here, was deliberately destroyed in favor of the coming of more traditionally-friendly salsa.
what (not) to doc 