Puta Madre! The Pedro Almodovar Poll

Broken Embraces was engaging but somewhat anticlimactic.

What is the best movie to see Rossy de Palma in?

all the early ones.

Really enjoyed Broken Embraces but sort of struggled to defend it to the (not impressed) friend I'd seen it with

Has anyone seen Kika? It looks really quirky/awesome/etc (plus Rossy de Palma!) but I'm worried I'd find this whole lolrapey thing really really uncomfortable

I saw it a looooooooong time ago, can't really remember squat.

Feeling really uncomfortable is not always/usually a bad thing.

His worst nineties film: mannered and clammy.

yea hte lolrapey stuff is uncomfortable, in not a good way imo

I suppose the vagaries of international casting demanded that Peter Coyote get cast in a non-English role

I saw Kika and Bitter Moon back to back in spring '94 and thought that Jeremy Irons was finally getting competition in the masochistic lech department.

i watched dark habits, not great but g-ddamn look at this poster

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/Entre_Tinieblas.jpg

I'm kind of obsessed with the trailer for The Skin I Live In

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GO9Nd92B5k

And singer Buika is in the movie

Buika--Afro-Spanish Singer (Who's more than just one of NPR's "50 Great Voices")

Anyone watched The Skin I'm In yet? I'm dubious.

*Skin I Live In

Nope, and I haven't read the book its adapted from either a Thierry Jonquet novel.

i'm kind of mixed on this dude, but the new one looks pretty intriguing.

I liked it. Nice and twisted.

It's awesome. Totally, utterly unique.

so 'tie me up! tie me down!' is pretty hilarious/terrible, huh?

was good & compelling imo

I do miss the Almodovar movies in which Antonio Banderas was ravished by men.

have sat through a lot of this guy's movies and don't get the appeal

Almodovar invented Antonio Banderas, homosexuality, makeup, nuns, screwball comedy, and Caetano Veloso.

is he known for comedy? everything I've seen has been pretty much straight melodrama

facepalm

Have you seen Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown or What Have I Done To Deserve This?

i guess tbf he really has more melodrama than comedy to his name at this point

why are you guys acting as if melodrama and comedy are mutually exclusive?

let's see, I have seen:

Volver
Talk to Her
All About My Mother
Kika (I think...? This might have been the one where I fell asleep in the theater)

AAMM has some laugh out loud moments.

Kika is horrid.

Conclusion: you're missing out.

but even the most dramatic of these are pretty funny in places? and the comedies rely on seriousness to a degree. maybe arch just does not connect at all to certain sensibilities?

x-post

shakey you should check out live flesh! and bad education. i think those two are my favorites. love 'women on the verge' too.

I'll admit that I'm biased because I understand the Spanish and chuckle at how well he reproduces the vulgar inside jokes between family members (at which Volver excelled).

is there a thread on 'the skin i live in'?

thought it was amaaazing, triggered a revulsion/phobic response i didn't even know i had

There is a thread; I'll find it.

I found it dreadful: his worst since the mid nineties.

Watched it last night and thought it was fantastic. I'm not an enormous Almodovar fan, though.

i managed to find whiney's terribly unfindable thread on it: PEDRO_o Almodo_Ovar: The Skin I'm In , but there was another one, right? i just watched it and i'm not entirely sure what i thought, but "revulsion/phobic response i didn't even know i had" is certainly right. i can't think of much else that had that kind of gnawing implicit horror for me.

I found it mostly hilarious.

spanish govt saying almodovar dead

never mind, hoax, sorry!

*unfollows HoaxRIPsEspanol*

i thought the skin I live in was great.

is anyone... aheh... excited about the new one

mentally grouped it w/ the coens new 1, both look p bad imo

Stupid, gross, and lightweight, I'm So Excited is his best since Talk to Her.

65yo

http://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-almodovar-65

I'm not sure how much money I'd have paid Antonio Banderas to remain at the peak of his age and beauty in Law of Desire.

i would contribute to that kickstarter

throw in lube money too

agreed, suuuuper lovely film.

I don't know what to think of Parallel Mothers yet. Once again a contemporary film dawdles at least 20 minutes beyond its appointed time. An almost 10-min sequence in which Penelope Cruz learns the paternity of her child could've been done with title cards or dispatched with sharp editing.

Then there's the Franco stuff, introduced and re-introduced late in the picture stuff. I'm trying to figure out if it works or is merely exploitative.

Still, despite its lugubriousness (has he forgotten how to write jokes?), his best film since Volver. He loves the cult of motherhood, Penelope Cruz as cult leader, and the solidarity of women even when it's doing traditional things like cooking.

Then there's the Franco stuff, introduced and re-introduced late in the picture stuff. I'm trying to figure out if it works or is merely exploitative.

I don't think it's exploitative - it's Almodovar taking a stand at a time when this is an important issue in Spanish politic, tying in to the right wing drift and etc - but I don't think it works at all. It first gets brought up as a minor plot point, and I think would've worked well in that context, just a little spice of politics added in, like ppl always praise Carpenter for doing. But then it takes over the movie in the last ten minutes, with zero subtlety displayed, and ends on a quote about historical memory as if that were what the whole film had been about. It's not! Not even on a metaphorical level - ok sure Cruz keeps a secret at one point, but there's no (haha) parallel there.

I think what I liked best about it - and I'm not entirely sure Almodovar is even doing it consciously - is how it portrays older people living in the internet era. Cruz is so often on the phone, not texting or whatsapping or whatever. Every time she gives someone her phone number she actually takes out a piece of paper and writes it down instead of just calling them. And then there's the scene where she asks the kid in the phone store to transfer her data.

Was the blonde model trans? Or some famous person? Her photo session was telegraphed as Important in some way.

Crossover artist that Almodovar is, I was pleasantly surprised to see a large portion of the theatre audience I saw it with were Spanish. Lots of scornful laughter at the mother calling herself apolitical.

finally got around to this & loved it, agree w/alfred that its his best in 15 yrs or more. i thought the franco stuff worked & was threaded through the other story a little more carefully than it may appear at first glance. the ending scenes may not have been "subtle", but its almodovar we're talking about here. i was impressed.

Anyone seen the new short?

I watched Pain and Glory again, which I liked and had placed comfortably in his second-tier. I'm ready to upgrade.