Puta Madre! The Pedro Almodovar Poll

I remember Volver feeling like a step back after Bad Education and Talk to Her, but not a huge one.

it's good, a little light, and definitely mining the Academy vein. Too long though, and that reveal isn't given its due.

i watched 'the flower of my secret' tnight, odd one; i liked it but w some reservations

I've wondered how audiences would accept Talk to Her's premise in 2019; I own it but haven't watched it in years.

I gave it to a friend for her birthday recently, knowing nothing about it besides Almodovar. She was... a little perplexed

I just had a copy lying around and thought that was the one that won an Oscar, and how much safer can you get?

I watched "Talk to Her" for the first time maybe 6 years ago and HAAAAATED it

I should prob rewatch it but I found it p repugnant and lacking all of the verve and flourish that I loved

Almodovar is ... not my favorite director.

The eighties films remain wonderful entertainments, and his late '90s comeback was cool. I don't fault straight critics for not realizing that his genuine affection for female performers rests on a homosexual's idea of feminine comportment, filtered through decades of telenovelas and Joan Crawford flicks.

Don't fault this gay critic (sic) for his genuine affection for Bad Education over anything else he's seen by Almodovar.

gay critic (sick)

Went to see Pain & Glory / Dolor y Gloria last night and really liked it. Amazingly this was the first of his films I've ever seen. Pleased and surprised to spot/hear Rosalía in it very briefly.

The only thing I disliked were the graphics. I loved the set of difficult conversations between son and mother. Really powerful.

Do you mean the computer animated interlude describing Salvador's ailments early on? I couldn't help but laugh at that, as well as with it.

Yep, the later bits with his mother were good. There were several very emotional scenes that worked really well for me, especially revolving around the 'Addiction' performance. I liked the relatively quiet restraint of it all, even in those moments.

Yeah that interlude.

I liked the calculated restraint of 'addiction'. More in the prep for it than the actual performance as shown.

has this gotten US distro yet?

I rewatched Broken Embraces yesterday and it's even better than I remember, imo his best

*not yesterday, recently- along with many others

It plays at a local Miami fest the first week of October.

Yeah, this is really good. And it might finally get people to take late depressed Almodovar seriously, that is, everything after Volver. I agree, Broken Embraces might be his best.

I watched Live Flesh last night, which more than any other of his I've seen felt like a precursor to Broken Embraces.

ah we're getting Pain & Glory in October! fantastic

Just finished a wee run of four of his latter films at the local independent cinema over the last month (All About My Mother, Talk To Her, Volver, The Skin I Live In) that tied in with his 70th birthday and the release of Pain & Glory, which I saw just before these. I also saw Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown on Mubi last week.

I liked them all, but Volver was probably my favourite. All About My Mother won in terms of pure emotion and was the one that made me cry in the cinema. Talk To Her pitched the weird, dark comedy aspects perfectly. I really enjoyed The Skin I Live In, but something about it didn't quite work for me. Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown was funny, but felt a bit messy and light (?) in direct comparison to all those later films - it was really interesting to see the development from there through All About My Mother and into the 2000's though.

Right now I'd vote for Volver from what I've seen if this poll reran.

Check out Broken Embraces, imo his best & oft overlooked

I watched The Skin I'm In again last night, and, well, nope: still a stiff. I prefer my Pedro with jokes and camp; when he's serious, his films linger on the unpleasantness (confining women, rape, etc). This seems to happen every couple decades. In the nineties he beached himself between High Heels and All About My Mother with dreary melodramas where the resin's drained from the tree.

Anyway, the new one makes its South Florida debut next week at a festival.

Yeah, The Skin I'm In seems extremely unpleasant to me as well.

I dug it but Broken Embraces is much less schticky, p much just a straight noir, very compelling

Antonio Banderas is warm and wary and watchful in a way he's never been; he deserves the acclaim. His scene with the ex-lover is poignant. Otherwise, I can't explain the acclaim for this second-tier Almodovar other than critics are suckers for films about films.

are you referring to Pain and Glory?

yeah

This; plus the borrowing from Taste of Cherry in the last shot.

just got out of P&G, really enjoyed it. wasn't like rapturously engaged or crying thru the closing credits - just engaged and interested and sympathetic the whole way. i appreciated the loose-threadyness of it - "loose" in something like the way "messy" is used as a compliment. the ex-lover scene was the high point for sure but there was a lot of great stuff.

xp Whoa!

Seeing this in a week

Really liked it. Circuitous and laconic and reflective. Not the sort of career spanning, packed with references to prior films sort of movie I was expecting, but a very good Almodóvar movie, probably his best since Broken Embraces in 2009.

This is pedantic but the ending doesn't borrow from Taste of Cherry - that would be like if the final dolly back to reveal the movie set also revealed Almodóvar himself at work, coaching Banderas. Kiarostami's appearance at the end of Taste of Cherry, where we see them making the movie we've just watched, is different than this more common film-within-a-film thing going on here.

It's nice to have another Almodóvar movie where he just sort of takes his time and it's not plot beat after plot beat. Oddly, in this way it reminded me most of I'm So Excited!!, which isn't really good otherwise.

I disagree: the last 45 minutes consisted of his minder, lover, and Alberto expressing their gratitude toward him, hence my relief when his mom said, "You were a disappointment."

the biggest laugh of the movie

with a less charismatic and self-effacing actor/performance, I probably would've found the Autofiction 101 irritating. but I enjoyed watching Banderas call into his own Q&A high on heroin wearing gigantic sunglasses. he's really funny in this, I found the character endearing enough to hang.

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/04/pedro-almodovar-quarantine-1202223408/

Thanks, an interesting read. Let me know if you happen to spot the Spanish version anywhere.

Sorry, even the most cursory google would suffice to find it: https://www.eldiario.es/autores/pedro_almodovar/

I'd got an email the other week that Pain & Glory was being added to Mubi on 19th June, but it didn't mention that it's actually part of a deal with Pathé that is going to add a whole bunch of Almodóvar films (and other stuff of course):

https://www.screendaily.com/news/mubi-strikes-uk-ireland-content-deal-with-pathe-exclusive/5150678.article

The Almodóvar titles mentioned...

All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999)
Bad Education (Pedro Almodóvar, 2004)
I’m So Excited (Pedro Almodóvar, 2013)
Live Flesh (Pedro Almodóvar, 1997)
Los Abrazos Rotos (Pedro Almodóvar, 2009)
Pain & Glory (Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)
Talk To Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)
The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar, 2011)
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down (Pedro Almodóvar, 1989)
Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, 2006)

A good few I've not seen, so excellent news for me.

Pedro Almodóvar,Tilda Swinton, El Deseo , #LaVozHumana . Primer día de rodaje. pic.twitter.com/84ZQVmW9d5

— Agustín Almodóvar oficial (@AgustinAlmo) July 16, 2020

👍

Yep!

Going to be his first English-language production, apparently.

I dunno about the rest of you but I am Tilda Swinton-ed out. Still, good to see Almodovar back at work.

That picture makes me so fucking happy

saw some of What Have I Done to Deserve This? when it came out. It is the only film I have ever walked out on. I think it had more to do with the person I was watching it with than the film.

have been going through his films again, love Matador and The Law of Desire. Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is a little more unapproachable but still seems like a classic

i saw Pain and Glory for the first time tonight… after a long unintentional hiatus from watching any recent Almodovar movies (now to be corrected)

goddamn. such a beautiful thing he created! and Banderas. stunning.

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.