Rating: 
Summary: pretty good film
Review: this film hits home if you had a hands on old school grandmother who was direct about things. there are alot of Complex issues at work through the film.the film deals with various issues&doesn't water down any thing.it's a decent film.
Rating: 
Summary: I can't believe I made it thru the whole film, awake!!!
Review: This film is enough to put anyone to sleep. On;y the gorgeous Melonie Diaz(who plays an ugly duckiling here), and the Grandmother's odd behavior keep ones attention. The charcter Victor Vargas has no personality, and yo can't really get into his charecter, because he doesn't have one. Like I said the Grandmother's odd demeaner and the fat sister make this film interesting. Worth one watch, if you have absolutely nothing better to do or watch. Personlly I'd rather watch TBN!
Rating: 
Summary: Like being a fly on a hot, sticky wall.
Review: This movie is nothing short of brilliant. I felt like an intruder, a ghost in the midst of these people's lives. What I really love about this film is that no one is trying for an Ivy League Scholarship, trying to make the basketball team or fighting drug addiction. This is just a normal week in the lives of a family in the Lower East Side. It is far funnier than I had expected and, yet, it touched my deeply. The acting is so real (performed largly by non-professionals) that it felt nothing like normal Hollywood tripe. Great film.
Rating:
Summary: Misconceptions galore
Review: This this is not a love story by and large, it's a fictional tale about the realities in the life of Victor Vargas. That fact is illustrated by the title. Although the cover and back description as well as other reviews point out the romantic subplot it's really about how he gets along with his family and friends. What makes this interesting to me is that I don't live in his reality and I don't have a guardian who only speaks fractured English and doesn't know about laws concerning minors. The misunderstandings and generation/culture gap in this film could tear them apart, but it doesn't by God's grace. It was interesting to me, but it felt a little empty due to the fact that this is fiction acting as a picture of these peoples' everyday life situation so when it ends you're not sure that any progress has been made, only that risk was taken on Victor's part to seal his relationship the girl. What impact has this had on his relationship with his family, this film doesn't know. It feels like every relationship in this movie is still in it's infancy. It's like Peter Sollett, the director felt that simply showing real situations would be enough to be compelling and entertaining and whole. 'Raising Victor Vargas' may be the first two things, but it doesn't seem complete. I just hope that he's learned something from this film which borrowed liberally from his approach on his award-winning short film "Five feet high and Rising." The short film worked better because it didn't really need to feel like it was a whole because it was short, but it was filled up with so many compelling relationships and elements and truth and reality that it was easy to forget that you were watching something fictional. In this feature you know that it's supposed to be fictional, however it doesn't provide you with the payoffs that good fiction bring in terms of character development, payoff, and closure.
Rating: 
Summary: The Personal Lives of Urban Hispanic Youth
Review: Victor Vargas (Victor Rasuk) is a teenager from Manhattan's Lower East Side. He lives with his grandmother (Altagracia Guzman), his little brother Nino (Silvestre Rasuk) and his sister Vicki (Krystal Rodriguez). He's a nice guy. He likes to impress his friends and dole out dating advice to his younger brother. He likes a young woman from the neighborhood named Judy (Judy Marte). Judy is aloof, jaded by all the men who hit on her constantly, and not interested in having a boyfriend. But Victor is persistent and does his best to be a gentleman towards her. Judy finally consents to being Victor's woman, mostly so she can tell her other suitors that she is spoken for. As she spends more time with Victor, Judy comes to like his earnest charm and considers the possibility of having a real relationship. Meanwhile, Victor's grandmother, a woman in her 70's who grew up on a farm in the Dominican Republic, is at her wits end. Her grandchildren are essentially good kids, but Nino, her favorite, is growing up and Victor has become an independent young man, and Grandma simply doesn't know how to handle the situation. Victor has to make peace with his grandmother and help her understand that they all need each other in spite of their differences."Raising Victor Vargas" reminds me of the "cinema verite" style of filmmaking that became fashionable in the 1960's. The film shows us a realistic slice of life and at times has a strong documentary flavor. The film's young cast is wonderful. Victor Vargas is a charismatic and sympathetic young man who makes the audience hope that he is understood by his grandmother and succeeds with his girlfriend. Writer and director Peter Sollett makes everyday events in the lives of these young Hispanic Americans interesting and poignant. Their flirtations, fears, petty squabbles, and family difficulties take on a significance not normally associated with such mundanities, perhaps because we see them so up close that their impact is amplified. "Raising Victor Vargas" does an impressive job of focusing our attention on life's details and providing a glimpse of an urban youth culture with which many of us are not familiar. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: may be i am missing the story
Review: Well fortunately or unfortunately I have seen many movies especially with low budget and some of them are classics but all of them have a strong story line. I never found the story line in this movie - again that may be my fault. Putting together certain incidences in chronological fashion does not make up a movie. there must be a strong underlying cohesiveness of these incidences and that is what is lacking. The acting is good and so is the camera work. I do not mean to say that this is a bad movie or anything just that Victor Vargas never makes any impression on anybody other than Judy. the panoramic camera work is quite impressive especially when iut shows the massive city sky line with the poorer quarters. In the same line or tone recently another movie was made called "Y Tu Mama tambien" which just blew me off. both deal with gypsy minds and flying characters but the level of acting is so different.
The story line (or no story line) is about a poor family where the grandma deals with three grandkids and their minor love affairs in the midst of the dim and bustle of the city.
Rating:
Summary: The Anti-Beckam
Review: Why are people so shocked that they liked this movie? What we have here is a simple coming-of-age story that treats its characters with such honesty that it has the force of revelation. Set in the predominantly Dominican and Puerto Rican Lower East Side of New York City, acted by non-professional kids from that neighborhood, Victor Vargas often has a documentary feel. But don't be fooled. This gem is the result of untold hours of polishing. The story moves at its own pace and seemingly randomly, yet every second of the film is building toward a climax as unforced and poignant as first love. The way Victor Vargas treats culture makes it the opposite of Bend It Like Beckham, another independent film that is doing well across the country. In Beckham, culture is the basis for facile jokes, strained conflict and stereotypes. In Victor Vargas, it is an invisible force that informs the characters but doesn't overwhelm their humanity. To anyone who enjoyed Beckham, I challenge you not to enjoy Victor Vargas ten times more.
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