Watch Dreaming of Julia For Free

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Good movie but grossly overrated

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Cheers to Letvia and Juan for the care taken to depict Holguin,Cuba of 1958. It is quite a thrill to see the incredible city of Holguin in a movie. The city, perhaps 100,000 strong in 1958, has grown substantially since then. Today, you can still fly direct to Holguin from Miami. Well , maybe not you but I can. :)Armin and Tete, characters in this story, are my aunt and uncle and, yes, they were in Holguin in 1958 the year i was born (in Holguin). Armin and Tete are alive and well and living in Hialeah, Florida. [email protected]. 11/21/2012 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5020153/

Although some may call it a "Cuban Cinema Paradiso", the movie is closer to a How Green Was My Valley, a memory film mourning for a lost innocence. The film smartly avoids falling into a political trap of taking sides (pro-Castro? anti-Castro?, focusing instead in the human frailty of the characters and the importance of family. Filled with good acting, in particular from Mexican actress Diana Bracho, who plays Keitel's wife. A masterpiece, filled with references to classic movies, from CASABLANCA to Chaplin's CITY LIGHTS. Gael Garcia Bernal plays a small role which is critical for the dramatic payoff of the story. TV director Georg Stanford Brown, in a rare return to acting (remember THE ROOKIES?), plays a homeless bum who acts as Greek chorus, superbly. It is a pity that this movie, originally titled DREAMING OF JULIA, has been released in the States by THINKfilm with the atrocious title of CUBAN BLOOD, which has nothing to do with the movie.

Cuban Blood is one of those sleeper films that has a lot to say about life in a very traditional way. I actually watched it while sailing around Cuba on a western Caribbean cruise. It details the life of an 11 year old boy in a small town in Cuba in 1958 and 1959 during the revolution. Not much time is spent on the revolution until the very end, when the Socialist regime came and took the property of the boy's father. The majority of the film is the boy's coming of age and the relationships that arise in a small town where everyone knows everyone else. There are some powerful scenes that everyone can relate to. A class A film with fine acting and directing. This is a film that tells a story with no special effects or grand schemes or real twists. It is a film about people and their lives, their mistakes, and their triumphs. A good film worth watching several times annually.

If you're expecting to learn something about History and the Cuban Revolution, this is not the movie you want to see. The movie focuses on the life of a boy and how the events of the revolution affect his wealthy family. Since the events of the revolution are unexplained it could give the sense to the viewer that what happened is not complex. There are subtle criticisms of both Batista and Fidel but they are also left unexplained. The US role is not even mentioned. For those that don't know Cuban History, there is different versions of what happened in Cuba (Cubans have one version and Cuban-Americans have another). Rating5 - 1 for NOT making the movie in Spanish - 1 for NOT making the movie in Cuba - 1 for the mistakes in acting or directing - 1 for simplistic storyline - 1 for the lack of historical background and explanation + 1 for Harvey Keitel's talent + 1 for Gael Garcia's talent + 1 for having Gael as a Revolutionary + 1 for original story + 1 for having well rounded characters and not making it a Good vs. Evil= 5Some of the historic events that are recognized by the great majority of historians that can help as background:Batista was a dictator that used torture and widely spread violence to protect his regime and the wealth of the elites. - Fidel Castro had the support of the great majority of Cubans at the time of the Revolution - The revolutionary government did execute about 400 of Batista's close allies. - The revolutionary government did expropriate all the belongings of the wealthy class in the name of the general wealth being.