Puta Madre! The Pedro Almodovar Poll

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.

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.