[Si] TV

With the success of last year’s surprise hit Ugly Betty mainstream networks and big budget studios are rushing to add more sabor to their casts. As a result 2007’s fall TV season and film releases are robust with actors that look and act like you. Here’s [Sí] Entertainment’s list of who to keep an eye on. 

FLICK U:
In The Good Night when waking life fails to satisfy an ex-pop star (Martin Freeman), he chooses instead to live out his life while he sleeps. Having Penelope Cruz as the woman of his dreams definitely makes his dormant lifestyle hotter than usual. We see a sleeping pill ad campaign in la española’s future and many dreams mojados for many men. (10/5)  

Set in the Brooklyn club scene of the ’80s, We Own the Night, stars Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix and Eva Mendes. This one’s worth checking out just to see if Eva can redeem scary ’80s fashion (leotards, etc.) with her undeniable sexiness.  (10/12)

Benicio Del Toro stars opposite Halle Berry as a heroin addict struggling to get sober and put his life back together in Things We Lost in the Fire. Coño, Benicio, another heart-wrenching role? Is art imitating life or are you addicted to depressing roles, too? Let’s hope for the latter.  (10/26)

A collection of some of today’s most talented Latino actors—including Javier Bardem, John Leguizamo, Benjamin Bratt and Catalina Sandino Moreno—bring silver screen life to Love in the Time of Cholera, based on the famous novel by Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez. Hmm, romance meets infectious disease? Only Latinos could make that story work! (11/6)

Leaving dead bodies in his wake, Javier Bardem taps into his inner Scarface in No Country For Old Men. While Bardem’s character, Chigurh, chases down $2 million worth of drug money, a Texan sheriff, (Tommy Lee Jones) is hot on his trail—the trail of baba left from that pinche Castilian lisp! (11/9)

Michael Peña throws on his fatigues and heads for Afghanistan to learn some tough life lessons in Lions for Lambs, a wartime drama co-starring Tom Cruise, Meryll Streep, and Robert Redford. A star-studded cast just might help our favorite Chicano actor get his first Oscar nod. (11/9)
 
City of God’s breakout star, Alice Braga, partners up with Will Smith in I Am Legend, an apocalyptic action/drama that takes place in the future. Mr. Smith should consider himself lucky—getting stuck with a Brazilian beauty like Braga is definitely not the end of the world but the beginning of a Carnival in the sack! (12/4)

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN—if you blink you might miss these actors in their cameos:
Jordi Molla in Elizabeth: The Golden Age; Carlos Mencia yucking it up in The Heartbreak Kid; Hector Elizondo in the Vietnam vet drama Music Within; John Ortiz in the ‘70s Harlem crime drama, American Gangster; Alice Braga in the border drama, Crossing Over; Mayte Garcia in Tom Hanks’ latest, Charlie Wilson’s War. 
 

EL BOOB TUBE:
Latin pop star—and Charytin’s son—Shalim and X-Men’s Dania Ramirez swoop into the cast of NBC’s Heroes as Alejandro and Maya, a brother and sister team with hidden powers. It’s like a grown-up Dora and Diego with superhuman strengths. Go, Shalim! Go! (Mondays, 9 PM)

Jimmy Smits stars as Alex Vega in Cane, the new CBS drama that chronicles the sexy but dangerous world that surrounds the Duque family’s sugar cane and rum empire. Hector Elizondo, Nestor Carbonell and Rita Moreno also star. Light a candle, say a prayer to your Santo and hope this makes it longer than Kingpin! (Tuesdays, 10 PM)

Brazilian beauty Gisele Bundchen and her comrade racecar champ Helio Castroneves join the contestants for the new season of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. Maybe the samba in their sangre will put all the others to shame! (Mon./Tues./Wed., 8 PM)
 
Dominican actress Lourdes Benedicto plays Alicia, a successful female executive, as part of the all-woman cast on ABC’s Cashmere Mafia, the sassy new project from Sex in the City creator, Darren Star. Our bet’s on her being a Samantha-meets-Miranda, with a mangú twist—oh and with a lot less whore. (Tuesdays, 9 PM, 11/27)

Grindhouse’s Freddy Rodriguez trades guts and gore for the glitz and glam of the fashion world when he joins the Ugly Betty cast as Gio, a recurring guest star. Watching his cute little Puerto Rock patoot in Prada will be heaven for the eyes. (Thursdays, 9 PM)