Puta Madre! The Pedro Almodovar Poll

Shamefully, I've only seen the last four. But of those: Talk to Her.

I'd have to watch Women on the Verge again. Of the recent stuff, Bad Ed over Live Flesh.

Of the recent work All About My Mother has the slight edge over Volver. Choosing from the earlier work is difficult: Women has more jokes, Law of Desire has more beautiful Banderas and St Sebastian-esque gay kitsch.

Was really surprised how good Flower of My Secret was when I finally got to watch it. It was bad-mouthed pretty badly when it came out. Anyway I think I agree with Morbs except it's probably over All About My Mother rather than Live Flesh.

The torpid Kika (with a badly dubbed Peter Coyote) is the only one of the nineties films I've seen.

That was his nadir right there.

I have serious problems with Talk to Her, from a no-I-don't-tend-to-sympathise-
with-the-rapist-and-why-would-I? kinda point of view.

For me Volver does what Almodóvar does best - lovingly represent women. Women on the Verge, for me, does the opposite of that. Too hysterical and neurotic by far.

Law of Desire is the oldest one I've seen. Feels a bit of its time.

Of the early ones, Matador is probably the best.

By the by, I'm living in Madrid at the moment and CANNOT BUY Almodóvar dvds, box sets etc anywhere. A woman in a Corte Inglés brusquely told me they didn't stock them because nobody bought them. I've spoken to several people who reckon the majority of Spaniards are somewhere between indifferent about and completely in disgust of Almodóvar's body of work. As one charming young man put it to my husband: "It's all gays and drugs - and that's not Spain."

Volver gets my vote - for sheer gorgeousness and lightness of spirit.

Not that it's likely to win, but why did you leave out Pepi, Luci, Bom?

It's kinda difficult for me to choose which one to vote. The eighties films are more hysterical and funny, but the nineties films have more depth and emotional maturity in them. I was a bit dissappointed with Talk to Her (like Zoe I couldn't really get past the rapist thing) and Bad Education (which was more like his eighties films in that it was great genre excercise but had little depth beyond that). Haven't seen Volver yet.

I think I have to go for Live Flesh, which is both an over-the-top genre film and an emotionally mature story.

Though I wish someone will vote for Labyrinth of Passion and What Have I Done to Deserve This? too, since they're among the funniest and funnest movies I've ever seen.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Vote!

I generally don't like his films, but Matador was a good one.

I watched Dark Habits last week, now I've seen all of Almodovar's feature films except Volver and Pepi, Luci, Bom. It was a weird film even for Almodovar's standards, despite some over-the-top elements (nuns taking heroin, a live tiger kept in a monastery) it felt kinda low-key and melancholic, moreso than I would've expected for an 80s Almodovar. A few great scenes there, but overall it wasn't among my favourites.

I think it would be easier to choose his worst movie, which is no doubt Kika. All the other 90s films are universally good though, that was a great decade for him.

Has anyone here seen Pepi, Luci, Bom? Is it worth watching? I'm usually kinda wary of debut films...

In my head, recently, All About My Mother and Live Flesh were tied as my favourites. Everything since those two I've had problems with, esp. Talk To Her for similar reasons as Zoe. But I saw Live Flesh again the other day and its melodrama seemed much emptier than it did in my memory. So I voted for All About My Mother, and am scared of watching it again. I remember watching it on a summer's night at the Dalston Rio and skipping out feeling like Kingsland High St was Barcelona.

Live Flesh dragged.

Good article about songwriter who had two songs in Almodovar movies

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

i'm sad that pepi, luci, bom... was left out. that's actually one of my top almodóvar movies. (those todo sobre mi madre is top for me.)

xpost yes, definitely check out pepi, luci, bom. it's kind of ridiculous, but it fits perfectly with what was going on in madrid at the time, la movida. hilarious. also, it's got alaska in it!

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! was the beginning of his nineties slump. Who picked this?!

I surprised that Women on the Verge didn't get more votes, it would have been my pick.

I think people voted for the one they saw, assuming All About My Mother is the most widely seen one. I've seen his 5 most recent and AAMM is the weakest for my money, but still quite good. Volver, La Mala Educación, Talk to Her, Live Flesh all GREAT

What makes you think AMMM is the most widely seen? Volver was on at my local multiplex for ages and seemed by far biggest platform release so far, and got a huge boost when Penelope Cruz was nominated for an Oscar in it.

wau... am I only seeing half this thread? where does zoe outline why she dislikes talk to her?

Wednesday, 4 February 2009 17:08

weird, I logged out and it showed up

bizarre

Have any of our European friends seen Abrazos Rotos yet? It doesn't come out in the US till December :/ Such a long lag time!

just watched the charlie rose interview w/ pedro & penelope cruz ~ nice that almodovar said he's more enthusiastic abt making movies than ever before

cant tell if broken embraces is gonna catch on/get distributed as much as volver

Charlie Rose comes on at 1 am over here.

old movies vs new movies

Yeah, it kind of was. No votes for Flower of My Secret.

Broken Embraces was sorta like bad de Palma.

sadly, ^this is kinda true; 'girls and suitcases' is a great title tho, and seemed more interesting than the rest of the plot

that's cuz it was women on teh verge!

hey Bad Education is maybe even better than I remembered.

so great

rented 'talk to her' last weekend but didn't get to see it :(

watched the scott walker documentary and part of 'our hitler' instead

watched what have i done to deserve this? - it's good!

seeing as ive only seen the top-3 finishers in this poll (plus broken embraces) im planning to gradually go thru the rest in the near future

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

well, yeah

I have been so into early Almodovar lately!! I've been thinking a lot abt his films w/in the specific cultural context of 90's Spain, he connections that his films have to that culture, and which parts are accurate representations and which parts are homage/satire, etc. But the problem is that I know absolutely NOTHING abt Spanish culture. I also wonder if any other Spanish directors showcased a similarly colorful camp/melodrama sensibility; I feel like there must be an entire world of films like this but I have no idea what they are.

oh my

"Pedro and his brother Agustin Almodovar are listed in the unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from the database of the fourth-biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca.

The files show the Almodovars held an offshore company from 1991-1994, managed by Mossack Fonseca. The dates coincide with the Spanish director’s first successes, Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down — which grossed €3.1 million in 1990 — and 1991’s High Heels, with earnings of €5.2 million.

In a release Monday, Agustin Almodovar took full responsibility for the offshore company as the business partner in the production company."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/pedro-almodovar-cancels-press-new-880991

According to Neil Young, he was the frontrunner to the Palm d'Or this year. Now it will probably go to someone at their artistic prime. So sad.

"Emma Suarez and Ariadna Ugarte star in the iconoclastic director’s return to the cinema of great female protagonists."

I've been watching as many Almodovar as I can get my hands on to prepare for Julietta, and the one that really impressed me was Broken Embraces. I get why it's seen as a disappointment, as in a way, it's the first one where he loses control over the film, but that might be why I loved it. I guess I think his films might be a bit too controlled for me, so when he loses control for a bit, there's so much more room to breathe.

Also, it's pretty clearly about the breakdown of his working relationship with Carmen Maura, right? The film they're making is obviously Women on the Verge - the last film he did with Maura - and then the director loses the actress, and is never the same again. There's a darkness to that, especially as it came right after Volver, where Maura 'returns' to Almodovar. But three years later he takes a second look and says 'no really, we lost out, and it can't be made right again'. I don't know, it's dark and messy in a way that speaks to me.

What did you think of I'm So Excited?

Meh? It's kinda Almodovar going back to basics, which is sorta pointless. Also because if he really wanted to make something warm and celebratory, that's pretty much what I think Volver is.

it's so frivolous but I thought it was so much fun

Same here.

I rematched What Have I Done to Deserve This? two weeks ago; it moved into Essential Almodovar.

yes i'm baffled by its low placing here -- unless it's just too early and many poll-tickers hadn't seen it?

certainly my favourite almodovar, one of my favourite films ever

What Have I Done is definitely essential Almodovar. And Maura, for that sake. But the man has made 20 films at this point, something is bound to get lost in the pile. I think What... was even missing on his box on wikipedia for a while.

It got a splendid DVD reissue a few years ago; that's the copy I checked out of the library.

Essential:

What Have I Done to Deserve This?
Law of Desire
Woman on the Verge...
All About My Mother

Good to Fine:

Matador
Bad Education
Volver
I'm So Excited

Meh:

Tie Me Up!
Live Flesh
The Flower of My Secret
The Skin I Live In

Unspeakable:

Kika
High Heels

Must Watch Again But Suspect I'll Still Dislike: Broken Embraces

I saw What Have I Done when it came out in 1984, I assume at the Scala, the legendary London rep cinema that Kubrick later got shut down for showing for (perhaps recklessly) showing A Clockwork Orange when it was withdrawn from distribution in the UK.

And loved it -- I'd only moved to London the year before and somehow it fitted exactly into what I was expecting to get from this amazing scary new city, culturally. (haha ie it was darkly funny and super-bleak…)

I was struck by its confidence: here are the tropes and tonal approaches Almodovar would use again and again; yet it's also scuzzier, blessedly, than he ever would be again.

I suspect most would put the essentials as Talk to Her, All About My Mother, Women on the Verge, Volver. Probably in that order. As in, those are the ones that would do best on critics lists, that were nominated for academy awards, etc. I'm not saying I agree with that list, but I suspect that's the consensus.

What Have I Done - first serious film (?) - Law of Desire - first gay film. Volver and Broken Embraces really a combo in my book, as meta commentary on Almodovar himself.

I'd say there's a lot of gay in What Have I Done's tonal approach.

I forgot Talk to Her, which hovers between essential and good.

He had a rough '90s; his approach calcified into self-parody and mannerism, and he couldn't find the scenarios that made him less self-conscious. It also helped that those '00s were sizable box office hits for foreign films.

My favourites are Live Flesh and The Skin I Live in - crime and horror are good genres for him to work in.

I think Volver was the last I saw -- and I don't really remember much about it. What Have I Done I remember well. Carmen Maura, but can't just be her -- she's in both.

There was a real excitement, I think, to his move away from scuzziness into the bright bold gay shapes and stylisation of later films. First, was anyone else doing anything like this? (Probably yes, but it wasn't being shown on the London art circuit -- or at least not being made such a noise about.) Second, it reflected a move out of the furtive shadows and into the bright bold open of LGBTQetc cultures, where funny and silly (and catty and cartoony) were also possibliities at last -- this was new and it felt like something was giving way, in a good way.

But I think that latter excitement now feels a bit retroactively tainted, Pink Pound triumphalism as proto-gentrification blah blah; the beginnings after all of what's begun to turn horrible in London? Not Almodovar's fault, really -- at the least, the London element isn't -- but it feels (now) like there's something a bit thoughtless about the gleeful cruelty in the mid-period stuff?

Oh well. "It's a bright, guilty world," as someone once said.

^^^not really sure if i've put this very well -- and i haven't actually rewatched any of them for ages, so it's more based on thinking "not sure i much want to" than anything in them. What I'm trying to get at is that a particular strand of excited, quasi-political pleasure -- which I very much enjoyed and took part in at the time -- seems somehow compromised now, and I'm looking a bit askance at my own (obviously tiny) (I hope tiny) role in changing London for the worse when we ("we") all thought it was getting better. I *don*'t feel this when I think about What Have I Done, which i very much do want to see again RIGHT NOW (except I'm meant to be working).

Probably I should watch all of them again and in the meantime shut up.

Got to see High Heels a couple of weeks ago as part of the retro that is doing the rounds at the BFI and I liked it quite a bit. Friend I was talking to said she loves the Telenovela quality of his work and HH had quite a lot of that.

Stopped around Volver but I'll probably catch the new one at the weekend.

There's definitely some of it that seems weird in hindsight. The many many rapes, for instance - Kika is the worst, but not the only one. The constant referring to of 'transsexuals', and the character of Lola in All About My Mother, a dying junkie transwoman who's the father of two Estebans and transmits AIDS to a young nun, and is called 'an epidemic' by the mother hero of the film. I think the transwomen are called 'men who want to be women' in the credits. He was a pioneer, but pioneers sometimes take the wrong way.

One thing really interests me, though, and that's how much he has dominated the Spanish film scene for so many years. I'm reading a book on Spanish cinema post-Franco, from 1986, and it claims Spanish cinema is better than ever, and lists all the directors that make it so, and Almodovar is not among them. He has three pages as the very last director dealt with in the book, shortly introducing his first five films. Originally, New Spanish Cinema was the poetic, allusive art films of Erice and Saura - especially Saura - but this weird punky queer stylist completely changed everything up-side-down. Today, if anyone thinks of Spanish films outside of Almodovar, it's probably the sex films of Luna and Medem, or the fantasies of del Toro (who is not Spanish, but...) and Amenabar. The art film is almost forgotten, and except for Erice, really hasn't aged that well.

That's really interesting. A huge part of the strategies in the 70's were formed by censorship, and the needs for artistic language that sidestepped the constraints of the conservative regime. And that is the same for so many other cinemas, from Taiwan in the 80's to Iran in the 90's. What happens in Iran after the regime falls? Will there be an Iranian Almodovar or Medem?

Unlike Spain, though, Iran's gotten a lot more films out post-1979.

And the public opinion of the shah and his allies is probably lower than that of the republicans, so there's not that energy to draw from in a post-regime world. And a million other differences. I'm just spitballing :)

Oddly enough I just read something this morning quoting Almodovar as saying Erice's El Sur is the greatest film to come from Spain (and distractedly thinking I ought to see that at last).Not even sure what it was -- email ad for the upcoming S&S maybe, or the BFI film site? I seem to have deleted it.

BFI are distributing a new digital print of El Sur in the UK

I would say that Saura's Cría Cuervos has aged pretty well - it's still spellbinding.

Friend I was talking to said she loves the Telenovela quality of his work and HH had quite a lot of that

this is OTM and reminds me of Juan Gabriel, whose songs had similar qualities and an appreciation for the congruences between queerness and melodrama.

BFI are distributing a new digital print of El Sur in the UK

I would say that Saura's Cría Cuervos has aged pretty well - it's still spellbinding.

Almodovar on El Sur (and other Spanish films)

Thanks, that's a good read - and a list for further watching.

thanks julio, yes it was a link to that

WHy is Kika so hated?? The rape scene is despicable, but I get the sense that's not quite the reason people hate it so much. Aside from that, I think it's really fun and Victoria Abril's insane TV host character is batshit and hilarious (also: costumed by Gaultier)

Peter Coyote was so not fun

An Almodovar poll, worst to best:

www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/the-films-of-pedro-almodovar-ranked-from-worst-to-best/P1

My favourites are Live Flesh and The Skin I Live in - crime and horror are good genres for him to work in.

― Foster Twelvetrees (Ward Fowler), Friday, September 9, 2016 1:31 PM (two months ago)

Same as. I dont really like this guys movies. Overheated melodrama isnt my thing maybe

do you like gay?

its the whiff of telenovela that bugs me

What Have I Done to Deserve This? and Broken Embraces at 18 and 17 is definitely wrong! Broken Embraces, especially, is severely underestimated. But who puts WHIDTDT lower than Kika and Dark Habits?

I saw What Have I Done to Deserve This? again a couple months ago and would place it in his top five w/out hesitation.

Well, the battle for top five is tough, but top ten, definitely! I'll also say Almodovar has made few images as touching as the one in Broken Embraces of the blind film director, clawing at the screen with the blurry picture of his lost love.

This one:

http://kronoper.dk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/2533_5.jpg

Kika and Broken Embraces are the only two of his films I shun like lepers.

:(

I get Kika, but why Broken Embraces? Except that it's dark and depressing, especially for Almodovar.

hm sry that list is wack

long profile of him in this wks nyer btw

NY MoMA retro underway, think i will go see some of the saucy '80s stuff again

https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/3611?locale=en

The only one i really hated when i saw it was Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! I'm willing to rewatch tho.

I rematched its spiffy new DVD release, still think it begins the fallow period. But – mm Antonio.

don't think i've ever seen Dark Habits, or his debut, gonna prioritize those.

no wonder PC got an Oscar nom for Volver - way to save the sleazy reveal until the very end. I have to rewatch it but I remember Broken Embraces being much better - at least less lopsided.

hope his new one makes it to the USA this year

Broken Embraces is too languorous for me. He's best when sleazy + fast.

I love the melancholy of Broken Embraces

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.

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.

THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET (1995)

the secret is that love dies when u dress like fkn paddington bear

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:lmtieqchvpjutjpqaed5tvyi/bafkreibpmwtywv7y6hf6zb5mbpjmqjf6kzpi2isehyunvzn3eyso6slpyq@jpeg

Wow, "the Room Next Door" felt like it was written by ChatGPT.

Lol yeah was disappointed by that one.

I've fallen far behind and haven't seen anything new since Dolor y Gloria/Pain & Glory.

Just haven't been able to work up the energy to watch the new one.

As long as y'all keep in mind that Almodovar writes just as floridly in Spanish.

Yeah, one thing I enjoyed about The Room Next Door was taking in that heightened writing in English. The odd artificiality is all part of the package. The movie didn't really get under my skin, but it was lovely to look at, and could be a conversation-starter, if you wanted it to be.

Somehow completely forgot to see both Parallel Mothers and Strange Way of Life. They just sort of disappeared after I saw the trailers.

I forgot I saw Strange Way of Life.

I'm not anywhere near an Almodovar completeist. I've only seen about five, maybe six, but I do have a fondness for Volver.