The Austrians and Germans aren't digging American women these days, with Paris Hilton getting pelted with trash at an Austrian soiree, and now J-Lo under attack by the Berlin Film Festival attendees.
US actress Jennifer Lopez (R) and her husband Marc Anthony (L) arrive at the start of the party for the film Bordertown, at the Spindler und Klatt club, in Berlin, Thursday. EPA/JENS KALAENE
Jennifer Lopez defended her new movie, "Bordertown," against a screaming group of reporters at the Berlin Film Festival today, who were not showing the Puerto Rican hottie the proverbial love. The critics were annoyed by her alleged "ludicrous plot turns and wooden dialogue" according to Deborah Cole in Berlin for the Agence France-Presse
The film is directed by Gregory Nava, and features Lopez as a journalist risking her life to report on the savage killings of more than 300 Mexican women since 1993 in the city of Juarez.
Most victims were women working in 'maquiladoras', the foreign-owned factories that sprang up on the border post NAFTA free trade agreement.
Though noble in subject matter and despite the good intentions of the filmmakers, the reporters at the world premiere "roared at the subtle-as-a-sledgehammer dramaturgy and greeted the ending with loud boos," reported the Agence France-Presse.
At a press conference, a tearful Lopez, 37, insisted she "was proud of the movie," which she also produced.
"It's been a very emotional thing for me from the moment that I found out this was going on," she said of the murders.
"When Greg came to me with the project I immediately became very passionate about it and said that I would do it and I would help him get it made. I really felt like it came to me for a reason."
Lopez said she had worked closely with Nava on the script, one of the many pitfalls of the project.
"This isn't free trade, this is the slave trade!" Lopez's character shouts in one of her sloganeering lines.
The critics noted the bilingual dialogue was flawed as one of the poor factory workers suddenly begins speaking perfect American English, and Lopez's character takes over as editor-in-chief of a Mexican newspaper with her admittedly bad Spanish.
Agence France-Presse noted that the plot had "crater-sized holes," and savaged the actors including Antonio Banderas, who "hammed it up to the scorn of the notoriously tough Berlinale crowd."
J-Lo was not expected to win any Golden or Silver Bear Prizes at the festival, yet Lopez did accept an award late yesterday from human rights organization Amnesty International for drawing attention to the plight of the women in Juarez with her film.
Agence France-Presse noted that Mexican-American director Nava said he had received death threats while making the picture.
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