Customer Reviews

Shepherd's Tale [VHS]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great movie. It's a fine Christmas movie, but it's just a great movie for any time. Where I come from, this story is called "Los Pastores." It's a lovely Hispano Christmas tradition--it goes with Posadas--where the whole town goes house to house with Mary & Joseph searching for a room at the inn--and in my part of the world folks have old handwritten scripts in endless archaic Spanish. It's funny, bawdy, and it used to be put on yearly in my town.

But no one is willing to memorize the enormous scripts any more. Kids don't want to rehearse three times a week for a month before Christmas. So lots of people have never seen Los Pastores, or even heard of it.

La Pastorela is Los Pastores with the best folks imaginable for every part. This is the story of a bunch of shepherds who go off looking for the baby Jesus. They get drunk. They get lost. Linda Ronstadt as the Archangel (I think it's Michael) helps them along. They encounter the devil with all his stinky minions.

I am still searching for my copy of this movie (I did finally locate one for a friend) and I haven't seen it in a few years, so this isn't a very specific review. But it's a truly great movie, for hispano-Americans or folks who enjoy them.

The owners of this movie must be out there somewhere, and have a potential treasure on their hands...this movie is so special and so unique and has such a powerful Christmas message...I can't believe it has vanished.

You have a ready made audience for a special DVD release with just a little advertising... You have Linda Rondstat, Cheech Marin, and other well known actors you can promote, including the dude from that show my wife watches :-)

Anyway, I can't believe I have to put up with my faded and crappy home taped copy of this great movie. Get a move on and release this on DVD!!!

This classic Mexican Nativity play has it all ~ great singing, clever writing, darling kids, classic religous Nativity scenes, the conquering of eternal darkness by the Light of Christ, battles with he-who-must-not-be-named (the BIG Diablo)and Father Guido Sarducci of SNL fame.

Our ancient VHS tape which is like 17 years old barely plays any more and the quality is crud.

I would love to have a DVD of this Christmas classic. Amazon, are you listening? MOre people would LOVE this if it was available. It also features some of the very best singing in any movie ever, the solo of the actor who plays Lucifer and Linda Ronstadt's amazing vocals are especially awesome. The music itself is gorgeous.

DVD-it, please!!

Deborah J. Yost
Lincoln NE
12 December, 2008
The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

This is such a treasure. It perfectly exemplefies the crossover between traditional mexican and chicano cultures.
the Spanglish, the traditions (Gila having to take a "chaperon" along when out with a boy) so true to the culture! the music styles are so authentic. I could just go on and on bragging about the content of this movie. The producer was able to grasp the essence of this tradition "La pastorela" and add the perfect touch of chicano culture. Having been born and raised in Mexico and then moving to the USA, I have a deep appreciation for both cultures. And this is a beautiful blend. It is such a cultural heirloom for newer generations. I love it, I love it. PLEASE BRING IT BACK IN A DVD FORMAT!!!

As my subject line implies, I first saw this movie in my senior year high school Spanish class. It was hysterical! We all knew the story of Los Pastores but this quirky, crazy, funny movie (with good singing from Linda Ronstadt) put a new twist on things. I have never forgotten this movie and would LOVE to own it on DVD for Christmas this year. Please, someone release it on DVD!

movie made in the 90's but still fun to watch today. Saw it on TV back then and had wanted to buy the tape if it was available. Found it and bought an older used copy of it and it was well worth the money and the fact that it was a used copy did not make any difference. The sound was good and the movie itself did not show any effects of the age of the tape. This was the first time I bought a used movie and I would buy another if the price is right.

We all know the countless tellings of the Nativity and the birth of Jesus that have been done for film and TV throughout time immemorial, including such big screen and big budget opuses as John Huston's THE BIBLE, and George Stevens' THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD. In the main, however, not only have most of them been fairly solemn (obviously, given the subject matter), but most of them have also been done from a fairly Anglo-centric point of view. Then in 1991, writer/director Luis Valdez (of ZOOT SUIT and LA BAMBA fame), in league with the El Teatro Campesino of San Juan Bautista in central California, bought to the forefront, via PBS-TV, the Hispanic depiction in LA PASTORELA, known as THE SHEPHERD'S TALE.

The essence of the story is that a young Mexican-American girl named Gila (Karla Montana, who was in the 1988 film STAND AND DELIVER), somewhat dismayed by her family's excessive want of Christmas gifts and such, while watching a performance of the Shepherd's Tale, is knocked out in a freak accident; and in the dream she has, she and a group of Mexican peasants are led to the manger in Bethlehem by the archangel San Miguel (played by Mexican-American country-rock icon Linda Ronstadt). Along the way, of course, they are confronted by minions from the underworld, including a devil played by comedian Paul Rodriguez; and in the final sequence, Linda must take on the fallen angel Lucifer, portrayed with savage dash by Robert Beltran.

Given that Hispanic tellings of the Nativity are not easy to come by in a popular and still largely Anglo culture, it would be easy to call LA PASTORELA a masterpiece and be done with it. Due to certain limitations imposed on it, I can't go quite that far. Some of the humor is a bit forced, especially that Indian guru played by Cheech Marin (of Cheech and Chong fame); and some of the acting is a bit stiff as well. The latter holds true even for Linda, who is by her own admission not much of an actress (even after her turn as Mabel in THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE). The special effects, especially in Linda's aerial fight with Beltran, are also marginal, owing to the thin budget Valdez has to work with.

Still, though one should not expect a Spielberg-caliber result, LA PASTORELA is otherwise quite well made and ringing with authenticity, and both Linda and Karla are wisely the pivot points of it. And it does well for non-Hispanics to see how the Hispanic community tells this ageless story, because, in a time like ours when many non-Anglo cultures are being demonized in America, it can help us all to come together and see that ethnicity and skin color are only cosmetic differences, that we're really all the same.

I love, miss, and can't believe I almost forgot about this film. Its christmas time now and would love to share this film with my girlfriend who has never even herd of it. I tried to explain how important this movie was and is but I couldn't find words. I dono.. I'm chicano, and this was the first movie I saw with people who looked like me and spoke like me aswell..lol. good times.

This video is a great Christmas tradition with the best music. You will want to watch it every Christmas season. I used it as a teaching tool and found that junior high students loved it.

This was a gift for my sister and she is just excited to receive this movie. It ran well and is exactly what she wanted for her grandchildren. A whole new take on Little Drummer Boy