Selena

Plot synopsis:
The film begins on February 26, 1995, with American Tejano music singer Selena (Jennifer Lopez) performing to a sold out concert at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. Flashing back to Corpus Christi, Texas in 1961, a young Abraham Quintanilla Jr. (Edward James Olmos) and his band, Los Dinos, are rejected for an audition by the restaurant owner due to their Mexican-American ancestry. Crushed, Abraham gives up his music career.
In the 1980s, Abraham is now married to Marcella (Constance Marie) and has three children, A.B. Quintanilla (Jacob Vargas), Suzette Quintanilla (Jackie Guerra), and Selena. One day Selena finds her father playing music and sings along. Enchanted by her voice, Abraham decides to start a band with Selena as lead vocalist, A.B. on bass, and Suzette on drums, despite Suzette's protests that "girls don't play drums". He names the band Selena y Los Dinos. The band performs often at the Mexican restaurant the family opens, and receive a positive reception from the diners. Eventually, the business goes bankrupt, and the family moves to Corpus Christi.
The actions moves ahead to 1989, where Selena y Los Dinos are playing a concert at a fair. Abraham is shocked when Selena peels off her jacket and performs in a beaded bra. He confronts Selena on the band's bus, but she points out that her mother helped her make it, and that other fashionable female musicians such as Madonna and Janet Jackson are wearing bustiers too. Abraham relents, and Selena begins to design more and more of her band's attire.
When the band needs a new guitarist, A.B. recommends Chris Pérez (Jon Seda), and auditions him to his father. However, Abraham is hesitant to hire Chris because of his tough-guy, heavy metal image, but A.B. points out that "It's just musician stuff". Abraham agrees to hire Chris if he will cut his hair. Suzette and Deborah re-style his hair and Chris joins the band. The touring band stops off at a roadside diner, where Suzette hears a radio announcement that "Como la Flor" has reached number one on the music charts. The band and family celebrate. Selena and Chris begin to have romantic feelings for each other. Selena's mother is supportive, but Abraham angrily fires Chris when he finds them hugging on the tour bus. Selena tearfully objects, but a furious Abraham threatens to disband the group if she continues to see him.
Chris and Selena continue to see each other behind Abraham's back. Selena tires of having to hide their love, and goes to Chris' hotel room. She persuades him to elope, saying it's the only way her father will ever leave them alone. They marry secretly on April 2, 1992. The happy couple rides home in Selena's convertible, but a radio station announces their marriage and plays "Como La Flor" in celebration. Selena and Chris decide to hide out for a day so Abraham will have time to cool off. Selena goes home to explain to her father, and Abraham agrees to accept their relationship. The Quintanillas welcome Chris to their family and rehire him to the band.
Selena plays a concert in San Antonio, watched by executives from her Latin music label. The producers talk to Abraham about her soaring popularity and phenomenal record sales, and ask if she's ready to crossover into the English-speaking market.
In January 1994, Selena decides to fulfill another of her dreams and opens Selena Etc., a clothing boutique that will feature her designs, and hires Yolanda Saldívar (Lupe Ontiveros), the president of her fan club, to manage the boutique. Later, Selena is thrilled to win the Grammy Award for Best Mexican American Album.
Back home, Selena learns from her father that Yolanda has been stealing money from the fan club. On March 9, 1995, Selena and her father, along with Suzette, confront Yolanda about the missing funds at a meeting. Yolanda denies this and says she would never take anything from Selena. Selena, angry and hurt by Yolanda's betrayal, asks her how she could do this to her, and to her fans. Yolanda pleads for time to return the boutique's financial records and claims she can prove that she has done nothing wrong. Selena and Chris discuss the prospect of starting their family when the crossover tour is finished. The future seems bright with promise.
On March 31, after arguing over the missing financial documents, Selena is murdered by Yolanda at a Corpus Christi motel. Yolanda is arrested after a nine-and-a-half-hour standoff with the police. As Selena's family, friends, and fans mourn her tragic death, a montage of the real Selena photographs and videos play during a candlelight vigil, and the film ends with a freeze-frame of a smiling Selena with the caption "SELENA QUINTANILLA-PEREZ: 1971-1995."

Tags: tragedy, romantic, murder, flashback

Review:
The supporting cast that includes Edward James Olmos, Jon Seda and Constance Marie are all very good too.I loved the way the soundtrack was used in the film and it brings a lot of energy to the story.
The cinematography is quite good but I did not like the 3 split screen.Even though we know the tragic fate of Selena, this film reminds us that it's more important to live a big life than a long life.
Selena had everything going for her, a good family, whom she was very close with, a great husband, loads of fans and of course her music career that kept getting stronger.
It tells you the whole story of Selena's life, from when she was just a young girl, to her meeting guitarist Chis Perez and secretly getting married to him,  we see her singing at sold-out concerts, all the wonderful fans she had and not only that but we find out that Selena was planning to have kids and she was just about to release her first English language album, all until she was she was terribly murdered.
I thought the end of the movie, where there was real footage of the real Selena, was beautifully done and it was great to see clips of the real Selena singing at her concerts, meeting her fans and just having fun with her family, friends and husband.I thought the whole cast in the movie were great, Jennifer Lopez played Selena really well and deserved any award she received or got nominated for.
The rest of the cast including, Edward James Olmos, who played Selena's father and Jon Seda, who played Selena's husband Chris Perez did really well too.After watching the movie and hearing Selena, (Jennifer Lopez was lip-synching to Selena's voice.
Jennifer Lopez proved that she was a high-class actress with this true story of the Tejano Superstar whose life was cut short by a disgruntled employee.
But even if this movie wasn't based on a real singing superstar, it would have been great to watch anyway.Jennifer Lopez is stunning in every way as Selena.
Their relationship is so real because they were friends first...friends who fell in love.Ms. Lopez also does a great job lip-synching Selena's songs, and the ending will bring tears to your eyes.
It even goes so far as to make you wonder about the Beatles, even Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven.I admit I was a bit nervous when I rented the movie because I was worried that a sub-standard job may have been done to capture the short life of this young woman.
In fact, the characters were so real, I forgot several times that I was watching a movie and thought I was sitting with these people laughing with them and sharing in their joy and in their pain.
To play the villain in order to help raise awareness of the life of a fabulous soul would be very difficult indeed.The beautiful candle-light vigils shown at the end of the film made me regret very much having not lived in Texas and been part of them at the time.
It is innocent and honest and you kind of think to yourself that SELENA feels like a TV movie although the acting is solid.
Jennifer Lopez, Edward Olmos and the rest of the ensemble cast do a marvelous job in bringing the close-knit Quintanilla family to life.
Jennifer Lopez did perfect and so did the people that played her family and friends throughout the movie, if you havent watched this movie yet, u should!
after watching the film, i have now downloaded about 26 songs of selena's and bought the movie for myself.i absolutely loved this movie from beginning to end.
if jennifer portrayed her correctly, the real selena must have been..(besides and outstanding singer) a truly wonderful human being.the tribute at the end is amazing.
i love how the movie was focused of the celebration of her life and how much she accomplished in a short amount of time and not her tragic death.
It is scary to think of what Selena would have become had she simply not been killed.The movie focuses on Selena's rise to fame as a crossover Tejano music star, more popular south of the border than in the United States, but becoming famous in both lands nonetheless.
Other than Selena (Jennifer Lopez), the movie centers around her family, her husband Chris Perez (a very competent Jon Seda), and her strong-but-loving father, Abraham (Edward James Olmos in what is easily the best performance of his career).Lopez checked her attitude at the door for this film, and plays Selena with reverence.
The scenes between father and daughter transcended fame and showed the normalcy of Quintanilla family life as the backdrop for the spiraling fame that threw them into chaos, such as when Selena had planned to tell her father about her sudden marriage but the radio had beaten her to it.As we all know, Selena was tragically murdered by her fan club president, a woman I will not name so as not to give her any more fame (I urge others to do this as well).
SELENA (1997) ***1/2Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Edward James Olmos, Jon Seda, Constance Marie, and Jacob Vargas Written and directed by Gregory Nava   127 minutes    Rated PG (for mild language and sensuality) By Blake French:	I am not a fan of Selena Quintanilla, and I still loved Gregory Nava's "Selena." It was a respectable movie on its own level; the film would have worked even if there never was a professional celebrity singer of the same name.
This is one of the better biography movies to come down the road in some time.The film stars the talented Jennifer Lopez as the famous singer in the title roll.
Some days, the kids did not want to practice their instruments and music abilities, but discipline is what makes things work.The film begins an emotional journey into the life of the Quintanilla's.
Jennifer Lopez is so much better playing a character like Selena Quintanilla than some of the varied characters she has been in the past.
The movie Selena starts with her at a young age and ends with the day she dies.
In the movie they also incorporated the use of the real Selena's voice when they show her making her music and in her concerts--I thought that was a brilliant idea.
If you are a big fan of Jennifer Lopez," My Family", you will love her dancing, singing and her great performance as Selena Quintanilla-Perez.
Selena is encouraged to sing by her father and is a natural super star because everyone in her family was musically inclined and her our mother was able to teach her some great dancing steps.
...and for those who have not yet discovered the talent of Selena, the young Tejano singer whose life and career were cut drastically short.I was one of many people who remembered Selena in 1995, unfortunately I did not know of her until she was murdered.
The movie has funny scenes like when Selena and her band's bus, "Big Bertha" gets stuck in the middle of the desert and two cholos in a Low Rider stop by to help pull them out of the ditch, but unfortunately, they take the bumper right off the bus!
Selena was the last person I have seen with that kind of unique charisma and talent, a real star, someone who had paid her dues playing gigs on the road with her family when she was very young.
Other than minor details like that, it was an amazing movie and I think that if Selena was able to see it, she would be very proud of the job J.Lo and the other talented actors did to portray her life.
The relationship between Selena and Chris Perez (her eventual husband) doesn't come across particularly well since there's very little chemistry between Lopez and Jon Seda, who played Perez in the movie.
But other than that, I don't think someone who watches the film without knowing anything about Selena will come away with any real understanding of why so many people were so devastated when she was murdered..
It was like last year or maybe the year before I caught it on the television here.I don't really know much about her life, except from what I remembered from the radio that I learned that she was being killed by one of the members of her fan club.Jennifer Lopez as Selena...she almost fits so perfectly as what I imagined the real Selena to be.I guess I am thankful I caught this biopic back then because it gave me at least an idea towards Selena's life before her fame and her mark as a singer.
When I heard who she was and that she had a movie on her life starring Jennifer Lopez, it really got me interested.
I am so entertained by the magnificent performance of Jennifer Lopez and all the cast members, and I cry each time as I have to witness the death of Selena.
This movie is tastefully done and I recommend it to anyone who loves Selena, good music, and those who have tender hearts.
But, after seeing the movie, I became a great fan of her music, her voice, her talent in every respect, and her dignity and grace as a human being.
This movie is great and any Selena fan should buy it because it shows how her family struggled to become successful, how she met her future husband (Chris Perez) and sadly her murder by her fan club president (Yolanda Saldivar) and their is also a tribute 2 the "Real" Selena at the end of the movie and all audio used is from the "Real' Selena and this movie really breaks your heart,U will laugh, cry and enjoy this movie at the same time.
I recommend that you purchase this movie because it not only shows us what we lost when Selena was gunned down but it also shows how she opened doors for many latino artists of this generation and it also shows why the late great Selena Quintanilla-Perez was loved and liked by millions of her fans and everyone that enjoyed her music!
In conclusion, if you are a die-hard fan of Jennifer Lopez or like Selena's music, I highly recommend this excellent biopic of one of the greatest Tejano singers of all time.
I enjoyed the music in the movie (Which i understand was J.Lo lip-synching to the real Selena) and the end footage of the real Selana was nice.
Edward James Olmos, does a frightening, almost doppelganger like performance as Selena's father.The biopic does a good job telling the story of one of the most important Mexican American artist of all time..
When I saw the movie for the first time I don't think I listened to Selena's music.
The movie Selena is "A story of a girl who had the spirit to believe in a dream and the courage to make it come true." Selena Quintanilla was a singer, songwriter, actress, and fashion designer.
Jennifer Lopez, who plays Selena in this film, reminded the world of the loss of a loved hero, friend, and role model, who never forgot her roots.
There was a few controversies involving the movie, where Lopez was a Puerto Rican from New York, and the real Selena was a Mexican-American from Texas.
(No name spoiler here, but you already know.) In the good ol' days in Corpus Christi, young Selena (Rebecca Lee Meza) was raised well by her father, Abraham (Edward James Olmos) who was in a failed band called the Dinos with two other friends back in the 50's.
During the movie, we get to see everything in a condensed, but fast, pace of 127 minutes, the relationship involving her family including mama Marcela (George Lopez's Constance Marie), her romantic relationship between the rock-and-roll guitar player, Chris Perez (Jon Seda), her music (done by the real Selena, not Lopez) and yes, we do get to meet Yolanda herself, with a lot of character developing.
I think this is overall a good movie if your a Selena fan like me you will like it,I just wish it got more to the nitty gritty.
Jennifer Lopez does her best job in this movie I think this is her best film.
I am giving this movie 9/10 because it is truly amazing Go Jennifer Lopez Go Selena.
Jennifer Lopez did a great job as playing Selena.
I loved Jennifer Lopez playing Selena i thought she portrayed her extremely well.Selena is the true story of Selena the singer and her life until the moment where she dies.Not many people actually realize how good this movie is.
Also it will show kids in the future just who Selena was and all about her music.I loved the fact that her singing was in the movie and it wasn't Jennifer Lopez because then we can feel the atmosphere that Selena set.If you are to watch this movie all i am going to say is that a box of tissues is a must!.
I just love the acting, Jennifer Lopez shines like a true star in this film.
I think Jennifer Lopez portrayed Selena very well(besides it being the last movie she looked healthy in).
At times it feels almost epic, at other times like a very good movie-of-the-week (with a large scale budget).It's greatest asset is without a doubt the earnest performance of Edward James Olmos as Selena's father, Abraham Quintanilla, and Jennifer Lopez' who does an impressive re-creation of a much-loved (and sadly missed) legend.
The movie uses Selena's own music/voice, which provides for a 'real' experience.The concert scenes with the large crowds are so moving.
And Jennifer does a great job of lip synching in the movie(and we all know she's got a lot of practice at that!
To anyone who loved Selena or just would like to learn about her, go rent or buy this movie.
The movie was heartfelt, realistic (Selena did come to life!) and I loved all the characters, especially Abraham Quintanilla (Edward James Olmos), Marcela (Constance Marie) and Chris (Jon Seda), who all contributed to bringing Selena's spirit and music to life.
I don't care if people though that because Jennifer Lopez was Puerto Rican, she shouldn't have been playing a person of Mexican lineage, but she did a wonderful job to bring Selena's music and spirit back to life.
I was so impressed by Jennifer Lopezs Performance in this movie she was really outstanding, she played the role with real heart and it really moved me.
Jennifer Lopez (played Selena) wasn't as popular as she is now, and I believe this movie helped *in part* to launch her career.
Don't get me wrong!I like Jennifer Lopez and I think she is the only actress good enough to bring the essence of Selena Perez to the big screen.The soundtrack and photography are superb!Yet the filmakers have failed to tell the whole story and attempt to make any sense of Selena's untimely death!Perhaps the family of Selena agreed to be so open and candid about her life on the condition that her involvement with Yolanda Saldivar(who ultimately kills her) be downplayed and desensationalized!Of course this approach is understandable-but it dosen't provide any answers!I guess the best way to appreciate the movie is to watch it AFTER viewing an E or A&E biography of her life!These biographical accounts have pretty well examined how Yolanda worked her way into Selena's confidance and succeeds in blinding her to how dangerous she was!It still leaves the disturbing question of "what?" and "how?" it all really occured!
Jennifer Lopez and Edward James Olmos did superb jobs as Selena and Abraham Quintanilla, respectively!
Jennifer Lopez, does an excellent job in Playing the beautiful Selena Quantilla Perez.
I am one of those people who hadn't heard of Selena until after her death; and I didn't know too much about Jenifer Lopez until this movie was released.
I remember seeing interviews with Lopez promoting the movie, and thinking "this woman's going to be HUGE." She's certainly proven her star quality, but unfortunately her talent has not lived up to her work in this film, nor to the talent of Selena.
Also, the fact that Selena's family was so integral in the making of this movie should put to rest all the whining about Lopez's casting, accent, and looks (it isn't about who "looks" like Selena, but who could become Selena); as well as the film's portrayal of Mexican-Americans.
Jennifer Lopez plays the part of Selena so well.
Although I enjoy music a great deal, I must admit that prior to seeing the movie 'Selena', I knew almost nothing of her life or death.
It's a good movie that tells about Selena's life and about her tragic end.
I really didn't know anything about Selena's life, I just barely heard of it on the TV,  it said that she was a great singer and that she was murdered by somebody who worked with her.
Right after I saw this movie I went right out and bought Selena's "Dreaming of You" CD (I bought Jennifer Lopez's "On the Six" CD as well).
If your a fan of Selena or Jennifer Lopez then you should love this movie!.
I thought Selena was a great movie, Jennifer Lopez gives her best performance ever in this movie.
I must admit, I was not a fan of Selena or Jennifer Lopez before seeing this movie.
As of this movie, Lopez is a singer in real life which kind of compares it that way.
Jennifer Lopez does a wonderful job portraying the character of Selena.
Jennifer Lopez who played Selena has only recently begun to get credit for her singing and acting talents, but it was already evident in this film.