The New York Times 
March 29, 1985

'CROSSOVER DREAMS,' WITH SALSA BEAT 

By Vincent Canby 

RUDY VELOZ, played by Ruben Blades, the real-life
Panamanian-born salsa star, is a handsome, talented
''New Yorican'' musician and singer, a star on New
York City's ill- paying Latino circuit. Rudy is in his
mid-30's and has just signed a recording contract that
promises to take him out of Spanish Harlem and make
his fortune in the English-speaking, American music
market. He can hardly contain his excitement, while
his longtime girlfriend, Liz (Elizabeth Pena), is
worried about what fame might do their relationship. 

Liz to Rudy, as they're walking along the Coney Island
Boardwalk at sunset, in midwinter: ''When are we going
to get married, Rudy?'' It's not something that's on
Rudy's mind at that moment - he's just bought a big,
bright yellow convertible. ''We're going to get
married,'' he says rather glumly. ''There's no
escaping it.'' 

Says Liz, ''I have nothing but you, Rudy.'' Comments
Rudy with utter sincerity, ''You're a very lucky
person.'' 

As it turns out, Liz isn't very lucky nor, for that
matter, is Rudy, but the movie that contains them is a
winner. It's ''Crossover Dreams,'' and though small
and made on a modest budget, it's a sagely funny
comedy, both heartfelt and sophisticated, a movie that
may well realize the crossover dreams that elude Rudy.

''Crossover Dreams,'' directed by Leon Ichaso and
written by him and Manuel Arce, who collaborated on
''El Super'' (1979), will be shown at the Museum of
Modern Art tonight at 8:30 as one of the initial
attractions at this year's New Directors/New Films
Festival, sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln
Center and the museum's Department of Film. 

Mr. Ichaso and Mr. Arce are sneaky film makers who
don't announce their talent in flashy ways. They allow
their movies to creep up on you, almost diffidently,
until you realize that what you've been watching is
not a random collection of ''found'' moments, but the
result of a series of carefully considered decisions
by people who know what they're doing. 

''Crossover Dreams'' is quite different from ''El
Super,'' an exceptionally moving and melancholy comedy
about a family of lower-middle-class Cuban refugees
attempting to adjust to life in Spanish Harlem. ''El
Super'' is about exile and the emotional costs of
assimilation. 

''Crossover Dreams'' has moments of pathos but it's
anything but melancholy. Its heart has the ebullient
salsa beat. Like Rudy Veloz, it appreciates the irony
of the sometimes humiliating situations he lands in,
but it never looks back in sorrow or defeat. 

In Mr. Blades, who makes his film debut as Rudy Veloz,
Mr. Ichaso and Mr. Arce have discovered a fine new
film personality, a musical performer who's also a
screen natural, the kind of actor whose presence and
intelligence register without apparent effort. 

The members of the supporting cast are almost as good,
including Miss Pena, who was very funny as the cheeky,
Americanized daughter in ''El Super''; Shawn Elliott,
whose stage work should be familiar to New York
audiences, as the best friend Rudy Veloz drops on his
rocky road to stardom; Frank Robles, as Rudy's first
manager, who is also a furniture salesman, and Tom
Signorelli, who's particularly good as one of Rudy's
first non-salsa admirers, an unlucky, part-time drug
dealer. 

''Crossover Dreams'' will be shown again at the museum
tomorrow at 1 P.M. and, I've no doubt, will eventually
go into commercial release.