In 1965, Robert “Rabbit” Jaramillo and his friends were on the cusp of becoming rock ‘n’ roll royalty.
Their Eastside quartet, Cannibal and the Headhunters, had a spring smash with “Land of 1,000 Dances.” The hypnotic tune with a memorable “nah na na na nah” chorus earned them appearances on TV music variety programs like “American Bandstand.” They played at concerts with chart toppers like the Temptations, the Righteous Brothers, Marvin Gaye and the Rolling Stones. The vocal group’s tightly choreographed performances impressed the Beatles, who asked them to be an opening act for their second U.S. tour that summer.
The Headhunters returned to L.A. in August with the Fab Four to play two shows at the Hollywood Bowl just weeks after the Watts riots. Jaramillo danced with such energy that his pants ripped while he and the others scooted across the stage on their behinds, drawing delighted shrieks from the hometown crowd.
“We were the act, the act!” Jaramillo told the Times in 2015. “Didn’t make no difference what color you are. We’re here, we’d perform, and we’d do our best to show ‘em a good time.”
When the Beatles run ended a few nights later, the Headhunters went back on the road through the fall with another popular British Invasion act, the Animals.
But Jaramillo and his friends never recorded another hit, and he left the group two years later.
“He wanted to keep going, but he needed to make money for his family,” said his daughter, Julie Trujillo. “He always had regret about that.”
Jaramillo died Aug. 8 of congestive heart failure in Pueblo, Colo. He was 78.
After leaving the band, he slunk into such musical obscurity that when Tom Waldman began to research what became his 1998 book “Land of a Thousand Dances: Chicano Rock ‘n’ Roll from Southern California,” the word was that the former Headhunter was already dead. Instead, Waldman found him in Pueblo, where Jaramillo had moved in the late 1970s to continue his post-Headhunters career as a railroad signal maintainer.
His still-strong tenor was reserved for belting gospel songs at the Pentecostal church he attended.
The book sparked renewed interest in the Eastside’s 1960s Chicano rock scene, and Jaramillo reunited with bandmates to perform for a few more years before adoring crowds. As the last surviving Headhunter, he appeared in documentaries and radio interviews for the rest of his life to recount that magical summer of 1965 when four Mexican Americans from L.A. proved to the world they could shine next to some of the biggest rock groups of all time.
Born in the Northern California city of Colusa to Mexican immigrants, Jaramillo and his family moved to Boyle Heights when he was young. He grew up in an era when young Mexican Americans on the Eastside were absorbing genres from across Los Angeles — doo-wop from South L.A., surf rock from the coast, the tight harmonies and lovelorn lyrics of Mexican trios — to create a distinct genre later on called Chicano rock or brown-eyed soul. While attending Lincoln High, Jaramillo, his brother Joe and their friend Richard Lopez started a group called Bobby and the Classics, practicing their moves inside what used to be a chicken coop in the Jaramillos’ backyard.
With the addition of Frankie Garcia as lead singer, Bobby and the Classics renamed themselves the Headhunters after a shrunken head that Jaramillo hung on the rearview mirror of his ’49 Chevy. Their stage personas were based on their neighborhood nicknames: Cannibal for Garcia, Scar for Lopez, YoYo for Joe. Robert was Rabbit because of his large front teeth.
The teens quickly became local favorites, performing at church halls and auditoriums. A local producer recorded “Land of 1,000 Dances” with members of car clubs singing along and clapping in the studio to re-create the verve of an Eastside party. It topped out at No. 30 on the Billboard charts, which Jaramillo found out while picking peaches in Northern California with his brother and Lopez to help their family’s finances.
“We get a call — ‘You guy’s gotta come back! The record’s a hit!,” Jaramillo recounted decades later in a documentary. “‘We gotta go to this ‘Hullabaloo’ show!’ We made enough money to get our sorry butts back home.”
Eastside Chicano rock group Cannibal and The Headhunters perform on the NBC TV music show ‘Hullabaloo’ in March 1965 in New York City, New York. Robert “Rabbit” Jaramillo is second from right.
Their rollicking appearance on the nationally syndicated program was what members claimed caught the attention of Paul McCartney, who supposedly told Beatles manager Brian Epstein he wanted the “Nah Nah boys” to open for them.
“I remember asking him how big of a deal that was, and Dad said, ‘I never knew anything about the Beatles,’” Trujillo said. “To him, all he cared about was that he was singing.”
Trujillo said her father shared anecdotes over the years about the Headhunters’ short stint in the spotlight: the time he and Ringo Starr sneaked away from chaperones to get high, or when Cher sat on Jaramillo’s lap while the two took a crowded taxi somewhere.
“I do remember my dad saying that their manager screwed them a bit, that they weren’t getting any money and the guys just had to start careers,” Trujillo said. “But we didn’t see him as a famous person. We just saw him as Dad.”
The performing itch returned to Jaramillo when he retired from the Santa Fe railroad in the 1990s and moved back to Southern California. Gregory Esparza joined the Jaramillo brothers and Lopez in 1999 to take the place of Garcia, who had died three years earlier. Esparza said those Headhunters never performed much publicly because of a copyright dispute over the name, but he remembered rehearsing with the original members “hundreds” of times.
“It was about reliving what they had at such a young age — reaching the top of the mountain at faster-than-light speed,” said Esparza, who’d go on to front another legendary Eastside Chicano rock group, Thee Midniters. “Getting that recognition really meant a lot to them.”
He recalled a festival in San Bernardino where the promoter told the group that they wouldn’t get paid if they identified themselves as the Headhunters. “So Rabbit goes on stage, gets a big smile and said, ‘You all know who we are!’ and everyone cheered.”
Health issues brought Jaramillo back to Colorado in the mid-2000s, but singing never left his life. He was inducted into the Chicano Music Hall of Fame during a 2017 ceremony at Su Teatro in Denver, drawing roars from the audience when he went onstage with his cane only to toss it aside and dance to the Headhunters’ signature song. Fellow congregants at Jaramillo’s longtime church, Good Shepherd Fellowship in Pueblo, regularly asked him to perform Christian songs — a favorite was “My Tribute” by gospel pioneer Andraé Crouch. He also loved to do karaoke with his grandson Daniel Hernandez, preferring oldies like “Daddy’s Home” and “Sixteen Candles.”
“No one knew who he was, and he never said who he was,” said Hernandez, a Phoenix resident who grew up in East L.A. but spent time with Jaramillo in his later years. “But after he sang, we would always have people buying us beers and telling him, ‘Hey, you’re a great singer!’”
Jaramillo is survived by two brothers; eight children; 15 grandchildren; and 17 great-grandchildren. Services were held at Good Shepherd Fellowship and ended with his casket being wheeled out to “Land of 1,000 Dances.”
Arrest documents for former Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez were released Friday and detail his alleged role in a gambling operation.Lopez was arrested on June 5 and faces charges of one count of racketeering and one count of conspiracy to commit racketeering. The affidavit includes a screen grab of a text message Lopez sent to co-defendant Ying “Kate” Zhang in September 2019. Investigators describe Zhang, a Chinese-born realtor, as “an investor and co-business owner” in the illegal enterprise.Lopez wrote in a text message, “Kate, nothing to worry. No matter what the outcome is, when I win, we start the first internet amusement cafe in Osceola County. You will be safe and not have to worry about anything because I will be your sheriff.”According to the affidavit, Lopez introduced Zhang to Krishna Deokaran in August 2019 at the Player’s Club in Leesburg. Investigators describe Deokaran as being at the helm of the operation, owning casinos in Lake County and the Eclipse Social Club. Zhang has not been arrested, and a source told WESH 2 Investigates she is believed to have fled the country.When Deokaran suggested opening a gambling business near the Osceola Sheriff’s Office on State Road 192, investigators say Lopez replied, “No, that can’t work because it’s too close for comfort.” Eventually, investigators say Lopez connected Deokaran with what would become the Eclipse site, later texting, “We did a raid. I shut the place down. It’s ours.”After the casino opened at this location in Kissimmee, an anonymous tip led investigators to discover the TikTok page openly advertising slot machines and fish tables.In proffer interviews with investigators, Deokaran admitted paying Lopez cash each time they met — anywhere from $10,000 to $35,000 — totaling between $600,000 and $700,000. The payments, prosecutors allege, were for securing the site, alerting the operation of possible task force investigations and keeping deputies away.Deokaran has forfeited nearly $1 million in Osceola and Orange counties after raids shut down his illegal casinos, but he has not been arrested.Court records show Deokaran’s admissions came as part of a proffer agreement, in which defendants may receive reduced charges or a plea deal in exchange for cooperation. Jose Rivas, a defense attorney not representing anyone in this case, said, “Well, it’s the big fish when it comes because he’s running the organization. But at the same time, what the government is really after is the public official which is Marcos Lopez.”The affidavit reveals Deokaran cooperated with investigators during proffer interviews. Rivas explained, “A proffer is what we call a snitch session. You know, pretty much in more formal terms. It’s when someone provides what we call substantial assistance.”The affidavit calls the former sheriff a “protector and beneficiary of the illicit operation,” and says he: played a multifaceted role in the expansion and protection of the enterprisejoined for political campaign contributions and personal payment pledged to use his anticipated elected sheriff’s title to shield the enterprise from law enforcement scrutiny recruited new members, secured leases for new locationsOfficials were tipped off in September of 2022 that the Eclipse Social Club in Kissimmee was operating as a casino with Las Vegas-style machines, the affidavit says. In July 2023, an agent went undercover into the establishment where people had to ring a bell and get through security and a locked door to enter. Lopez’s defense team of attorneys, Mary Ibrahim and Migdalia Perez, sent WESH 2 Investigates the following statement:”In light of the release of the Arrest Affidavit, the Lopez Defense team wishes to remind the public and press the importance of the legal principle of the presumption of innocence.It is the cornerstone of our justice system. These are unchallenged accusations, not a conviction. We urge the public and the press to respect the legal process and allow it to proceed without prejudice. It is vital that we uphold the rights of all involved and refrain from speculation that could jeopardize a fair outcome. We ask for patience while the legal process runs its course.”See the full documents below. Background Lopez was accused of engaging in the gambling operation for campaign contributions and personal payments. In total, investigators said the organization generated over $21.6 million in illicit proceeds.Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Lopez from his position as sheriff and appointed an interim sheriff, Christopher Blackmon.His bond was set at $1 million, and he pleaded not guilty to the charges.One week after Lopez was booked into the Lake County Jail, WESH 2 Investigates learned a multi-agency raid in 2024 shut down the casino at the center of the state’s racketeering case.On June 23, Robin Severance Lopez, the suspended sheriff’s estranged wife, was arrested. She is charged with conspiracy to use investment proceeds from racketeering. Marcos Lopez bonded out of jail on June 26. He has pleaded not guilty.Lopez’s defense team of attorneys Mary Ibrahim and Migdalia Perez sent WESH 2 Investigates the following statement:”In light of the release of the Arrest Affidavit, the Lopez Defense team wishes to remind the public and press the importance of the legal principle of the presumption of innocence.It is the cornerstone of our justice system. These are unchallenged accusations, not a conviction. We urge the public and the press to respect the legal process and allow it to proceed without prejudice. It is vital that we uphold the rights of all involved and refrain from speculation that could jeopardize a fair outcome. We ask for patience while the legal process runs its course.”Arrest docsTimeline
Arrest documents for former Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez were released Friday and detail his alleged role in a gambling operation.
Lopez was arrested on June 5 and faces charges of one count of racketeering and one count of conspiracy to commit racketeering.
The affidavit includes a screen grab of a text message Lopez sent to co-defendant Ying “Kate” Zhang in September 2019. Investigators describe Zhang, a Chinese-born realtor, as “an investor and co-business owner” in the illegal enterprise.
Lopez wrote in a text message, “Kate, nothing to worry. No matter what the outcome is, when I win, we start the first internet amusement cafe in Osceola County. You will be safe and not have to worry about anything because I will be your sheriff.”
According to the affidavit, Lopez introduced Zhang to Krishna Deokaran in August 2019 at the Player’s Club in Leesburg. Investigators describe Deokaran as being at the helm of the operation, owning casinos in Lake County and the Eclipse Social Club. Zhang has not been arrested, and a source told WESH 2 Investigates she is believed to have fled the country.
When Deokaran suggested opening a gambling business near the Osceola Sheriff’s Office on State Road 192, investigators say Lopez replied, “No, that can’t work because it’s too close for comfort.”
Eventually, investigators say Lopez connected Deokaran with what would become the Eclipse site, later texting, “We did a raid. I shut the place down. It’s ours.”
After the casino opened at this location in Kissimmee, an anonymous tip led investigators to discover the TikTok page openly advertising slot machines and fish tables.
In proffer interviews with investigators, Deokaran admitted paying Lopez cash each time they met — anywhere from $10,000 to $35,000 — totaling between $600,000 and $700,000.
The payments, prosecutors allege, were for securing the site, alerting the operation of possible task force investigations and keeping deputies away.
Deokaran has forfeited nearly $1 million in Osceola and Orange counties after raids shut down his illegal casinos, but he has not been arrested.
Court records show Deokaran’s admissions came as part of a proffer agreement, in which defendants may receive reduced charges or a plea deal in exchange for cooperation.
Jose Rivas, a defense attorney not representing anyone in this case, said, “Well, it’s the big fish when it comes because he’s running the organization. But at the same time, what the government is really after is the public official which is Marcos Lopez.”
The affidavit reveals Deokaran cooperated with investigators during proffer interviews. Rivas explained, “A proffer is what we call a snitch session. You know, pretty much in more formal terms. It’s when someone provides what we call substantial assistance.”
The affidavit calls the former sheriff a “protector and beneficiary of the illicit operation,” and says he:
played a multifaceted role in the expansion and protection of the enterprise
joined for political campaign contributions and personal payment
pledged to use his anticipated elected sheriff’s title to shield the enterprise from law enforcement scrutiny
recruited new members, secured leases for new locations
WESH 2 News
Arrest docs detail former Osceola Sheriff Marcos Lopez’s alleged role in gambling operation
Officials were tipped off in September of 2022 that the Eclipse Social Club in Kissimmee was operating as a casino with Las Vegas-style machines, the affidavit says.
In July 2023, an agent went undercover into the establishment where people had to ring a bell and get through security and a locked door to enter.
Lopez’s defense team of attorneys, Mary Ibrahim and Migdalia Perez, sent WESH 2 Investigates the following statement:
“In light of the release of the Arrest Affidavit, the Lopez Defense team wishes to remind the public and press the importance of the legal principle of the presumption of innocence.
It is the cornerstone of our justice system. These are unchallenged accusations, not a conviction. We urge the public and the press to respect the legal process and allow it to proceed without prejudice. It is vital that we uphold the rights of all involved and refrain from speculation that could jeopardize a fair outcome. We ask for patience while the legal process runs its course.”
See the full documents below.
Background
Lopez was accused of engaging in the gambling operation for campaign contributions and personal payments.
In total, investigators said the organization generated over $21.6 million in illicit proceeds.
Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Lopez from his position as sheriff and appointed an interim sheriff, Christopher Blackmon.
His bond was set at $1 million, and he pleaded not guilty to the charges.
One week after Lopez was booked into the Lake County Jail, WESH 2 Investigates learned a multi-agency raid in 2024 shut down the casino at the center of the state’s racketeering case.
On June 23, Robin Severance Lopez, the suspended sheriff’s estranged wife, was arrested.
She is charged with conspiracy to use investment proceeds from racketeering.
Marcos Lopez bonded out of jail on June 26. He has pleaded not guilty.
Lopez’s defense team of attorneys Mary Ibrahim and Migdalia Perez sent WESH 2 Investigates the following statement:
“In light of the release of the Arrest Affidavit, the Lopez Defense team wishes to remind the public and press the importance of the legal principle of the presumption of innocence.
It is the cornerstone of our justice system. These are unchallenged accusations, not a conviction. We urge the public and the press to respect the legal process and allow it to proceed without prejudice. It is vital that we uphold the rights of all involved and refrain from speculation that could jeopardize a fair outcome. We ask for patience while the legal process runs its course.”
Though your pre-retirement income alone isn’t enough to determine if you’ll retire comfortably, it certainly plays a role. For example, if you’re earning a middle-class salary, the amount you allocate toward your nest egg is much lower than someone earning millions a year.
In 2024, a middle-class income would be in the $50,000 to $150,000 range. If you’re in this bracket, you might wonder how your savings stack up against the rest of the pack. So, we interviewed a 62-year-old retiree who considers himself middle-class to see how much he’s saved up for his golden years. Since he prefers to remain anonymous, we will refer to him as Lopez.
“Before retiring, I earned an average middle-class income of around $72,000 yearly. It wasn’t an insanely high salary by any means, but it was enough to cover my expenses and put a little aside for monthly savings,” Lopez said.
He shared that his income mainly came from his full-time job as a sales representative and some side hustles like selling secondhand items on eBay.
Savings, Investment Choices and Asset Allocation
Lopez’s savings are a mix of different accounts.
“I have an emergency fund that I’ve built up over the years, which currently sits at around $9,500, and I have most of it stashed away in my Ally High-Yield Savings Account,” he said.
Besides ensuring he has enough set aside for rainy days, Lopez also diligently contributed to his 401(k) throughout his working years, and it’s now grown to about $250,000.
“A 401(k) is not my only retirement account, though. I also have some in Roth IRAs, totaling around $100,000,” he added.
Alongside these retirement accounts, Lopez has around $110,000 invested in taxable investment accounts, with Vanguard ETFs making up most of his investments.
“Overall, my retirement savings, including these accounts and some other smaller ones, amount to roughly half a million, which I’m pretty happy about since I live a frugal lifestyle and don’t spend that much each month,” he said.
Strategies for Building a Nest Egg
“Building a half-a-million nest egg wasn’t easy, but it was definitely worth it,” Lopez said.
One of the strategies he used to help him stay consistent with saving and investing was taking advantage of his employer-matching contributions.
“Plus, I automated my savings as much as possible by setting up automatic transfers from my checking account to my emergency fund and investment accounts. This way, I’m not tempted to overspend every time I get my paycheck since most of it has already been — or will be — allocated toward my retirement savings.”
“I also tried to live below my means, which wasn’t that difficult for me, to be honest, since I’m naturally a frugal person and have almost no care for materialistic things,” Lopez said.
He believes his frugality is one of the main reasons why he was able to save aggressively for retirement on a middle-class income.
Looking back, Lopez wishes he had done a few things differently to better prepare for retirement. Here are some of them:
Started saving earlier: “I didn’t start saving aggressively until I was in my mid-30s. I think if I had started even earlier, I could have taken advantage of compounding interest and built an even larger nest egg,” he said.
Worked with a financial advisor: Another thing that Lopez regrets now that he’s in his golden years is not having been more proactive about seeking out professional financial advice in his 20s and 30s. “While I did my best to educate myself about personal finance, I think working with a financial advisor earlier could have helped me optimize my savings and investment strategies,” he shared.
Built enough passive income streams: Lopez also regrets not putting enough time and energy into cultivating passive income streams that could help him make money on autopilot in retirement. While he can still build a business that generates passive income, the results take time.
Overall, though, Lopez said he’s still grateful for his accumulated savings and feels confident that he’ll enjoy a comfortable retirement lifestyle with a half-million dollars in the bank.
How Much Savings Should You Have at Retirement?
While Lopez believes he can stretch $500,000 through his golden years, it may not be possible for most Americans — especially if they live in a more expensive city like Los Angeles or New York. According to Fidelity’s guidelines, you should save 10 times your income by 67. So, assuming you make $100,000 pre-retirement, you’ll need at least $1 million saved by the time you retire.
Another popular rule of thumb to determine how big your nest egg should be is the rule of 25. First, decide how much you’ll need each year for your preferred retirement lifestyle. Then, multiply that number by 25. So, to live on $50,000 a year in retirement, you’ll need at least $1.25 million saved to achieve that goal.
While retiring a millionaire on a middle-class income may sound like a pipe dream, it’s very much doable. The key is investing and saving early to let compound interest work its magic. Use a retirement savings calculator to figure out how much you need to put away each month to retire with seven figures in the bank.
A lifetime of scarfing down sci-fi, video games, and comic books brought director Brad Peyton to the job of said lifetime: directing Jennifer Lopez in a frickin’ mech-suit movie. Signing on for Atlas, now streaming on Netflix, was an easy yes: With two big-budget Dwayne Johnson vehicles under his belt, Rampage and San Andreas, Peyton was no stranger to A-list-driven spectacle. Still, the film was an intimidating prospect for someone with a deep appreciation for mech suits, mech tanks, oversized mecha, and all the made-up classifications in between.
“I was very aware of what had come out ahead of me,” Peyton tells Polygon. The director cites James Cameron’s Aliens and Avatar as obvious but undeniable milestones in the art of on-screen mechs. He knew that the Titanfall games put pressure on any new live-action attempt, having created full immersion into the experience of mech fighting. But when he started imagining how to rethink mechs, he returned to the first piece of mecha media that really blew him away: Stuart Gordon’s Robot Jox.
Peyton can’t quite explain why Robot Jox was his holy grail, but in talking to him, it’s obvious: Like Gordon’s whiz-bang vision of the future, where Earth’s conflicts are settled by colorful mech duels, Atlas needed clear, well-defined logic that would ground the world-building, but also let him rip in the action department in a way that would delight his inner child. And at the end of the day, he needed to be original.
“My biggest thing was: I knew I had to separate from everything,” Peyton says. “I had no interest in repeating. I said, Pac Rim’s [mechs] are this big. In Avatar, they’re this big. In Titanfall, they’re this big. So mine is gonna be this big. This one might be square and blocky, so mine is gonna be circular. I come from animation. So a lot of it started with me sketching the silhouette and figuring how to make it unique and different.”
Atlas takes place in a relatively sunny future that still exists in the shadow of an impending apocalypse. Decades earlier, a rogue artificial intelligence named Harlan (Shang-Chi’s Simu Liu) fled Earth for an alien planet with the intent of one day returning to lay waste to humanity. When scientists discover Harlan’s whereabouts, Terran forces launch a mission to take the fight to the robot army’s doorstep. Leading the charge: Atlas Shepherd (Lopez), a data analyst recruited to go full Jack Ryan on Harlan’s ass. Of course, the attack doesn’t go as smoothly as the Earthlings would hope, and Atlas has to begrudgingly click into an AI-powered mech suit in order to survive an alien planet populated with androids who want her dead.
The grounded futurism of Atlas’ Earth led Peyton and his creative team to extrapolate from current military tech for the mech design. Rounded edges and exhaust pipes are lifted from F-18 planes. The interior control panels were built for theoretical functionality.
“I had to understand all the tech from the inside out,” Peyton says. “Because of my experience on San Andreas, where I had to understand how a helicopter worked intimately to tell Dwayne what buttons to press and not to press — at least when he would listen to me! — I took that experience and wanted to make a similar experience for [Lopez]. I laid it out with the art department of why there are screens in certain places, why there are holograms in other places. And then on the day, I’m giving her little wires to be like, ‘That’s what this screen is. That’s where the screen is.’ So after going through the blocking, I pulled those away, and she had to memorize where they were.”
Image: Netflix
Drawings and schematics were only half of the equation. After drafting a design, Peyton set out to make his vision come to life. Coming at it from an animation background, that meant animating various walk cycles to see if the bipedal machine could move the right way.
“The first couple of designs we had when we animated them to see how they would work — very basic animation, walk, run, walk, jog, run cycles — looked so clunky and terrible,” Peyton says. The animation team found a groove when they clarified the dynamic between man and machine. “[The mechs] are intuitive devices. The concept that I came up with was, the soldier is the brain. He doesn’t have to be super strong. He’s not like a grunt — the machine is the grunt. He is the emotional cognitive device that syncs with this thing. So it has to be able to be as fluid as a person who’s been trained in it.”
As Atlas traverses the biomes of Harlan’s base planet — from snowy tundras to swamps inspired by Peyton’s love for Return of the Jedi — the film’s hero loosens up on her “no AI” stance and forms a cognitive link with her mech’s digital interface. Like a twist on the buddy-cop movie, the two bond for survival, which presents itself as more fluid mech motions. Early on, Atlas might be bumbling around a rocky cliff. By the end, she’s running, rolling, and slapping the hell out of robot assailants with mech-fu. The early walk cycle tests came in handy for the dramatic evolution, which Peyton was able to program into an enormous soundstage gimbal rig that stood in for the mech suit. Lopez was surprisingly well suited for the demands of the mech choreography.
“Her background as a dancer is what allowed her to really gauge that quickly,” Peyton says. “As much as she looks like she’s walking, [the mech] is walking her, and she has to react like she’s walking. So that training as a dancer allowed her to step right into it.”
Image: Netflix
It also helps that Lopez routinely performs for thousands all by her lonesome on a stadium stage. Peyton says Atlas turned out to be one of the most demanding shoots of his career, simply because for six to seven weeks, it was just Lopez performing solo on a gimbal rig that would be completely painted over with plate shots, VFX environments, and bursts of other action sequences shot elsewhere. Occasionally, voice actor Gregory James Cohan would dial in to perform the dialogue of Smith, her AI companion.
All the prep work required to realize a mech with the capacity for real action, and clicking in a star who was up to control it, was in service of jolting the audience, says Peyton. The first time we see the mechs in action isn’t in an act of valor; they’re caught in an ambush, mid-flight. The carrier ship goes down — and so does Atlas, in her rig. Peyton’s imagination swirled at the possibilities, as evidenced in the finished sequence. “[The mech] would be tumbling, it would be spinning, it would be hit by debris. What would it be like to be trapped in that tin can? What would it sound like? What would it feel like? And once I get through that experience, well then, how can I up the ante? Well, what if I fall through black clouds, and I’m falling into basically a World War II dogfight, but with mechs and drones? […] That’s just the first, I don’t know, 20 seconds of a two-minute sequence.
“That’s how I design,” he says. “I want to surprise you. I want to give you something you can’t see anywhere else.”
You may have heard that Jennifer Lopez made her own autobiographical version of Cloud Atlas where she journeys through time and space to heal her heart through the redemptive power of self-love and flower petals. You may have heard that her journey includes a steampunk Flashdance homage and a Ben Affleck jump scare and that Jane Fonda leads a sort of Greek-chorus-meets–Inside Out think tank of celestial beings. And those rumors (all true) may have stirred up some questions in your soul like: why, how, who, and huh? But perhaps most importantly: What on Jane Fonda’s green earth did we do to deserve such a thing?
Now, the tone with which you ask that last question might depend on how you typically respond to the artistic stylings of one Jennifer Lynn Lopez. Do you see her as a visionary? A Hollywood septuple threat? An artist constantly reinventing herself? A star who’s outkicked her talent coverage but continues to iterate on a public persona that’s never been particularly convincing as a contemporary auteur?
Nah, not that last one—this movie rules. It is singularly weird, and should be treated as such!
This Is Me … Now: A Love Story (huge win for punctuation) makes not a lick of narrative sense, and yet it is a masterpiece—as long as the barometer for what constitutes a masterpiece is “being extremely Jennifer Lopez.” One thing I’ve always respected about J.Lo is that she is going to sell you J.Lo, whether you meant to walk into the J.Lo shop or not. Was anyone expecting a sequel to her 2002 album This Is Me … Then 22 years later? Certainly not. (Except maybe J.Lo—why else would she name her album that in the first place?) Was anyone demanding that J.Lo make a visual album? I don’t think so. (Except, again, J.Lo, who is never not saying, “I guess I’ll just have to DO IT myself,” about an artistic endeavor that is entirely and wholly about … herself.) But then Jennifer Lopez reunited with Ben Affleck, the man she dedicated This Is Me … Then to in 2002, called things off with three days before their planned wedding, then got back together with and ultimately married 20 years later. Such a reunion deserved something more than just a sequel album.
Screenshots via Prime Video
So, from the heart/soul/dreams of Jennifer Lopez comes a 55-minute-long narrative musical that Amazon paid to distribute, once again dedicated to the epic love she and Ben Affleck share. In one sense, This Is Me … Now: A Love Story is a visual album for This Is Me … Now, which also dropped on February 16. In every other sense, however, J.Lo has made a 55-minute movie about a Leo learning to love herself while singing and dancing her way through two decades of romantic misadventures. It is the most Jennifer Lopez thing Jennifer Lopez has ever done in a career that has always been fully devoted to performing at max Jennifer Lopez. It is the ultimate continuation of J.Lo telling what she sees as her hero’s journey: a mission to be understood by a society that has been inaccurately consuming her artistry and personal life for nearly three decades …
Casting yourself as the underdog with a self-funded budget of $20 million? Iconic behavior. There is no other celebrity this insistent upon reminding us that she is an artist. To be fair, though, I’ve never seen art quite like This Is Me … Now: A Love Story. It is as if Michael Scott was given an eight-figure budget to make Threat Level Midnight, or if The Room was created by a legion of astrology-obsessed musical theater nerds instead of Tommy Wiseau. Like those films, This Is Me … Now is pure camp most especially because of its creator’s sincere belief in its artistic significance. J.Lo is the FUBU of pop stars—everything she makes is for Jennifer Lopez, by Jennifer Lopez—and this celestial steampunk odysseyis no different.
I believe that Jennifer Lopez loves these 55 minutes of musical cinema she’s created, and that’s enough for me. But for anyone who’s not Jennifer Lopez, you may have some questions about the facts and figures of This Is Me … Now: A Love Story. The movie will not tell you outright why Jennifer Lopez’s robot heart is powered by flower petals, or why her character exclusively resides in terrifying futuristic homes made entirely of glass—so I’m here today to answer some common questions that may arise regarding everyone’s favorite new movie featuring both ellipses and a colon in the title.
Is this a musical? A movie? A musical movie? A movie musical?
Stunningly, This Is Me … Now: A Love Story is yet another entry into this year’s canon of films that don’t fully spell out that they’re musicals in their trailers. Sure, the This Is Me … Now trailer was scored by Jennifer Lopez’s “This Is Me … Now” song. But I kind of just assumed the movie would be that: scored. But no, Jennifer Lopez is breaking into song and dance at all times in this movie. That makes it a musical.
From the trailer, I’d also assumed this would be a feature-length film. But, again, no! It is a 55-minute movie that according to J.Lo should not be classified as a music video, yet it also isn’t nearly long enough to be feature length. So what is it? The trailer tells us it’s a “new INTIMATE, CINEMATIC, MUSICAL experience,” and you know what? I agree: Jennifer Lopez’s first self-written, self-funded, and self-starring creation certainly is a “new … experience.”
Does J.Lo play herself in this musical movie?
Let’s be absolutely clear: This Is Me … Now is autofiction. In the opening scene, we see Jennifer Lopez on the back of a motorcycle with a man who looks a lot like Ben Affleck (played, in silhouette, by Ben Affleck), which then crashes while traversing a lake, signifying the greatest heartbreak of her life. In the narrative of the film, J.Lo is reunited with that man once more after 10 years, three divorces, and a journey through time and song to find love with the most important person in her life: herself. These are not the precise details of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s sprawling love story, but they’re close …
And yet, Jennifer Lopez’s character isn’t called Jennifer Lopez. She’s called “the Artist.” We only actually learn that from the movie’s closed captioning (“[The Artist laughs]”), as the movie works very hard to never call the character by a name—y’know, like Fleabag, if Fleabag was always doing intricate chest choreography instead of speaking directly to camera.
There are certainly indicators that the Artist is supposed to be world famous like J.Lo, but we learn absolutely nothing beyond the fact that she is permanently unlucky in love. “I know what they say about me, about hopeless romantics, that we’re weak,” the Artist says in one of her many monologues to her therapist. “But I’m not weak. It takes strength to keep believing in something after you keep falling flat on your face.” Some might also say it takes strength to produce nine studio albums and over 30 feature films and co-headline the Super Bowl … but that’s a story for a different for-J.Lo-by-J.Lo production. (It’s called Halftime, and she already made it, obviously.)
This movie is about love and love only. Ultimately, the Artist’s monologue ends with the line, “I believe in soulmates and signs and hummingbirds.” Because her name is the Artist, not the Writer.
OK then, so is Ben Affleck in this movie?
Ben Affleck … is in this movie. The entire point of the movie, after all, is that every mistake J.Lo has ever made in her life—every liquor-swilling boyfriend who’s ever broken any one of her metaphorical and also quite literal (in this movie) glass houses—has been leading back to Ben Affleck. So, obviously … in this movie … Affleck plays a TV commentator named Rex Stone, wearing a Donald Trump wig and a Mrs. Doubtfire prosthetic nose, and also occasionally proselytizing the news in the background of scenes. This character makes exactly no sense, but in one scene he does manage to deliver the film’s entire thesis statement when he says, “In 2012, the no. 1 question people asked was, ‘What is love?’”
Sorry, what people? Asked who? Why is 2012 the reference point here? The answer to all of those questions is: It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters in the world is love. And if you’re wondering what the “top questions” people ask now are, according to Rex Stone, they’re: “Where my refund? Why women kill? Will I get laid? Is Europe a country? How I screenshot a Mac? Am I preg-erant? And why my poop green?”
It’s the funniest sequence of the movie, and I would bet my On the J.Lo newsletter subscription that Ben Affleck wrote that little diddy himself.
So how does this movie communicate a complicated timeline that spans 20 years, three divorces, and multiple time jump dream sequences?
In a word: bangs. Anytime we cut to J.Lo and she has bangs, we are in the present. Anytime she doesn’t have bangs, she is either in the past, in a dream, or in some version of the present (recent past) that she’s relaying to her therapist.
J.Lo’s bangs are ascritical to the plot of This Is Me … Now as the robot heart that’s powering the Artist’s metaphysical world (more on that in a minute). But because J.Lo is eternally ageless, at times we also have to rely on a basset hound puppy aging into an elder basset hound to understand that J.Lo has spent the last decade or so growing, healing, and preparing her heart to love Ben Affleck again.
What inspired Jennifer Lopez to make this movie?
Other than Ben Affleck, I have several theories: moments that occurred throughout the film that made me think, “This line/scene/image has clearly been rattling around in Jennifer Lopez’s head for a decade, so she decided to create an entire $20 million passion project around it.” They are as follows:
When she says to one of her future ex-husbands (played by the famously blond adult male Derek Hough), “You feel like home to me … but I left home for a reason.” J.Lo loves this line, you can just tell.
The movie opens with a million AI-rendered images of Jennifer Lopez depicted within the Puerto Rican folktale of Alida and Taroo … and I just know that Jennifer Lopez got one look at herself as a Greek goddess or a space explorer in December 2022 and thought, “I HAVE to get this imagery to the people.”
J.Lo learned a lot about astrology at some point, it made her realize a bunch of stuff about herself (classic Leo), and she decided to spend $20 million relaying that information to the public.
J.Lo did inner child work with a therapist. Quite literally, there is a dream sequence in this movie in which J.Lo apologizes to her younger self on the dark and dirty streets of the Bronx, and once she does, the sun comes out, and both J.Los break into song. Of course, we know it’s a dream sequence because the Artist is relaying it to her therapist, Fat Joe.
Is Fat Joe a licensed therapist?
From what I can tell, no. But he does wear a full beige outfit with all the confidence and gravitas of your richest aunt, so he’s at least believable as a therapist. Also believable? That J.Lo would try to pry personal details out of her therapist in order to bond. (“You’re such a Taurus. What sign is your wife?”)
You said we’d get back to this: Why is Jennifer Lopez’s heart powered by flower petals?
Right. After the Artist crashes on the motorcycle, signaling the greatest heartbreak of her life, we’re taken inside the Heart Factory, where an oiled-up and tank-topped Jennifer Lopez is yelling, “It’s gonna break!” I don’t know how to convince you that I’m not lying to you about the events of a J.Lo musical, but I promise I am not. There is a giant metal heart pulsing above the factory workers which has apparently reached “critical petal levels.”
That’s right. Jennifer Lopez’s heart is powered by flower petals, and the only way to save it is for Jennifer Lopez to get in a jumpsuit, walk a gangplank out to the heart, journey inside its destructing valves, and start feeding rose petals to the dwindling fire that powers it while simultaneously breaking into the song “Hearts and Flowers” (get it???) with the rest of the workers down on the factory/dance floor.
It’s not until a little later in the movie that we learn this was a dream sequence (no bangs—I should have caught it), and much later in the movie, we see the petal levels stabilize enough to repair the broken heart. So yeah, Jennifer Lopez is basically just Being John Malkovich–ing inside her own heart for like 20 years (well … earth years, robot-heart years may be measured differently), trying to save herself so she can marry Ben Affleck.
You’re telling me Jennifer Lopez’s Ben Affleck movie stages an elaborate reference to Armageddon?
That’s exactly what I’m telling you.
Are there any other dream sequences in this movie?
I’m pretty sure that any scene that doesn’t happen directly in the presence of Fat Joe himself is a dream sequence, or at the very least a recounting of a dream or memory by the Artist to her therapist, which, again, is Fat Joe. These include, but are not limited to: the aforementioned heart factory, a love addiction intervention, the shattering of a glass home via physical abuse, watching a healing round of The Way We Were on a custom monogrammed Gucci-esque couch, and, of course, a Singin’ in the Rain homage. So you might be wondering …
Is there a wedding montage in this movie?
Oh yeah, you betcha. And it’s amazing. The Artist married three men across 10 years, one song (“To Be Yours”), and several wedding dresses. The first wedding dress features two heart-shaped mesh cutouts that perfectly frame J.Lo’s crotch. Romance!
Perhaps more unexpected, however, is the couples therapy montage, wherein all three husbands sit in front of Fat Joe alongside the Artist (this feels like a psychiatric moral gray area, Fat Joe). Dialogue selections include: “I’m a piece of art in her collection,” and, “I feel like I’m just another thing in her house.”
What I wouldn’t give to be a Gucci-monogrammed sectional in J.Lo’s house! But ultimately, the Artist grows tired of all of these uninspiring men, leaves them behind in their own futuristic houses, and starts fucking around with a bunch of dummies. Her friends are forced to give her an intervention, and Fat Joe recommends joining Love Addicts Anonymous …
Is Love Addicts Anonymous a real thing?
Technically it’s called “Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous,” but yes,it is indeed a real 12-step program (though J.Lo makes sure to clarify that she is not a sex addict in her autofictional musical movie). At J.Lo’sLove Addicts Anonymous meetings, you’re led by veteran character actor Paul Raci, and you express yourself exclusively through modern dance.
A particularly rich piece of dialogue comes when Paul Raci tells the Artist, after her impromptu performance of “Broken Like Me,” that “I know you feel like no one gets you.” To which Jennifer Lopez—a woman who is in the middle of making an hour-long music video about herself—responds: “I don’t even get me.”
But that was J.Lo … then. And this is J.Lo … now. And this J.Lo … has read her birth chart.
Do you need to have a casual understanding of astrology to understand this movie?
It would certainly help! Even though the movie starts with a Puerto Rican folk tale that continues to proliferate through the movie in the form of a hummingbird (bet you didn’t see a J.Lo neck tattoo coming!), we’re really expected to come in with our own knowledge of the zodiac.
Bare minimum, knowing at least a little about all 12 astrological signs will really help color in the Zodiacal Council when it shows up …
What is a Zodiacal Council?
Oh, well it’s a collection of humanoid representations of the 12 star signs who watch over the Artist from the heavens as she fumbles her love life. They are exposition machines who say things like, “She’s smart, she’s beautiful, and she seems so strong—why does she always need to be with somebody?!” But most importantly, they are played by the likes of Keke Palmer (Scorpio), Trevor Noah (Libra), Post Malone (Leo), Sofia Vergara (Cancer), Jenifer Lewis (Gemini), and Neil deGrasse Tyson (Taurus), and, as aforementioned, they are led by Jane Fonda the Sagittarius. (Congratulations to all Sagittariuses for this iconic Monster in Law representation—and apologies to Aquariuses and Capricorns, who are straight up not represented on the Cameo Council.)
If you’re otherwise not a huge Jennifer Lopez fan, the Zodiacal Council scenes are pretty much the main reason to watch This Is Me … Now. It feels like a Super Bowl commercial in that none of these people ever filmed in the same room together, the narrative structure remains extremely thin throughout, a new person pops up with each new scene (hey look, it’s Jay Shetty!), and Post Malone is there, always seeming like he’s on the verge of performatively eating a bag of Doritos.
So did Jennifer Lopez make an hour-long, $20 million music video about being a Leo?
According to everything I learned about astrology from This Is Me … Now: A Love Story—yeah, she did. Leos are confident and assertive. Leos are enthusiastic, creative, and more self-conscious than you think. Leos are, above all else, hopeless romantics (at least according to my favorite Leo, Jennifer Lopez). And not only is Jennifer Lopez a Leo … she reunited with another Leo at the end of this movie whom she will eventually fall back in love with, marry, write an album about, and create an hour-long, absolutely bonkers, beautiful, gorgeous, perfect musical movie to accompany that album about …
And in a few weeks, This Is Me … Now: A Love Story will be followed up with The Greatest Love Story Never Told, a documentary about the making of this musical movie.
To drop a documentary about the musical you created about the album you wrote about your love story that the world has been consuming for over two decades, and to then call it “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” well, I’m just gonna say it: classic Leo. Never change, Jennifer Lopez. And if you do, please make a musical about it.
But did you cry during This Is Me … Now: A Love Story?
So kind of you to ask, and yes, of course I did. The Artist healed her own heart through the power of time and Flashdance. She learned to love herself first in order to truly love another. She went back in time and space and told her 8-year-old self that she’s sorry and she loves her. She found Ben Affleck again on a beach in front of a giant, unexplained sand statue straight out of Game of Thrones.
Attorneys for Hidden Hills socialite Rebecca Grossman have consistently maintained it was her then-lover, former Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson, who first struck two young boys in a Westlake Village crosswalk, a fatal collision for which she now stands accused of murder.
A district attorney’s investigator, called to testify at Grossman’s trial by the defense, leveled a further charge at Erickson on Thursday — alleging he was “cold plating,” or using the same license plate on two of the black Mercedes SUVs that he owns, one of which he was driving the night the boys were killed. The investigator said the practice was a felony.
But while Grossman’s defense team seized on the plating issue to paint Erickson as a lawbreaker, the lead prosecutor dismissed the revelation as a years-old red herring.
Grossman, 60, is accused of driving her white Mercedes SUV at speeds reaching 81 mph on Triunfo Canyon Road in the upscale suburban L.A. neighborhood, closely following the SUV driven by Erickson.
Prosecutors allege that on Sept. 29, 2020, she went from having cocktails with Erickson at a local restaurant to racing behind him along the street, where she struck Mark and Jacob Iskander, 11 and 8, as they made their way through a marked crosswalk behind their mother and 5-year-old brother.
Grossman is charged with two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, and one count of hit-and-run driving resulting in death.
Erickson told authorities he was driving his 2007 Mercedes at the time, and jurors have heard him deny on the witness stand having hit anyone.
Tony Buzbee, Grossman’s lead attorney, said that Erickson was actually driving his 2016 black Mercedes GL 63 AMG, and that it struck the young boys and vaulted one of them onto the hood of Grossman’s white Mercedes GLE 43. An accident reconstruction expert testifying for the defense on Thursday said that was what occurred.
Sheriff’s officials never inspected Erickson’s vehicle, according to testimony.
D.A. investigator Sergio Lopez testified that he was asked by his office to take a closer look at Erickson’s two Mercedes, and obtained license-plate captures from the 2007 and 2016 vehicles showing they had the same Nevada license plate.
“The issue with Mr. Erickson is using the same license for two vehicles,” Lopez said when questioned by Buzbee. The investigator said such fake plates were easily obtained — he said they could be bought on Etsy.
Mark, left, and Jacob Iskander.
(Iskander family)
Lopez testified that Erickson was “cold-plating to avoid paying registration on the 2016 model.”
Prosecutor Jamie Castro called Lopez’s testimony a red herring. Lopez confirmed that Erickson’s alleged cold-plating had occurred long before the 2020 incident.
“It has nothing to do with the collision?” Castro asked.
“Correct,” Lopez replied.
Buzbee then jumped up and asked, “Where is Scott Erickson?”
“No idea,” Lopez said.
A lawyer representing Erickson could not immediately be reached for comment.
Jurors on Thursday also heard from a teenager who was playing tennis in Westlake Village on the night of the collision. Dorsa Khoddami recounted hearing “alarming” sounds from a nearby roadway, followed by a sudden hush.
“I pieced together it was a car accident,” Khoddami testified, describing how she and her mother, a physician, dashed from the tennis courts to the accident scene.
She said they arrived to find Nancy Iskander, the boys’ mother, shoeless. The teen testified that she attempted to hand the woman some shoes they had retrieved from the street.
“She started screaming, ‘Those are my son’s shoes!’ And I immediately put them back,” said Khoddami, who was 16 at the time. “My mom described it as a war zone.”
Buzbee asked Khoddami whether she had heard two impacts, which could reinforce the defense argument that Erickson’s vehicle had struck the children first.
Khoddami testified that she’d heard an “alarming and loud” sound and then “another sound occurred,” and then “everyone paused.”
Authorities found Grossman about three-tenths of a mile from the crosswalk after a fuel cut-off safety system caused her vehicle to grind to a halt. She told a responding deputy, as well as a 911 operator, that she did not know what had happened.
The prosecution has said Grossman was not as ignorant to the night’s events as she claimed, pointing to a text that a friend testified Grossman had sent her in June 2022, nearly two years after the boys’ deaths, in which she said she’d seen Nancy Iskander — who was wearing inline skates — falling and had turned her head in the woman’s direction for a brief second or two.
An expert witness, however, bolstered the defense’s argument that Grossman was unaware of any impacts. William Broadhead, an engineering expert on car airbags and restraints, told jurors Thursday that drivers are stunned by the force of an airbag when it deploys.
Defense lawyers wanted to trigger an airbag inside the courtroom as a demonstration for jurors, a move that was rejected by L.A. County Superior Court Judge Joseph Brandolino, who said it could be shown on video. The judge did say he would allow the controlled firing of a seat-belt pretensioner, which automatically tightens the belt in a collision, but safety monitors for the Sheriff’s Department nixed that idea.
“It stuns you. … It is confusing if you don’t know you’re in an accident,” said Broadhead, describing the punch of the Mercedes dashboard and knee airbags and the noise of the belt pretensioner. “You don’t know if it is a bomb or a sniper.”
The witness said he would not expect that striking a pedestrian would cause the bags to inflate. Grossman’s “airbags fired defectively,” he concluded.
The prosecution and defense sparred over the source of Grossman’s bruises, which Broadhead said were a result of being injured by an airbag.
Prosecutor Castro confronted him with a series of text messages the Hidden Hills woman had sent to a masseuse 10 days before the accident. The messages included photos and said, “Next time don’t massage too hard. You need to lighten up. I have bruises.”
Buzbee, Grossman’s attorney, belittled the testimony, saying,”We just learned something here: Nicole has strong hands.”
He said images showed bruises on his client’s face, arm and chest that were not there before the night of the collision.
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