775. Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios/Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

Running Time: 89 minutes
Directed By: Pedro Almodovar
Written By: Pedro Almodovar
Main Cast: Carmen Maura, Antonio Banderas, Julieta Serrano, Rossy de Palma, Maria Barranco
Click here to view the trailer

ALMODOVAR CONTINUES TO IMPRESS!

Moving right along, we come to the 797th film watched and I just can't believe that with the watching of just four more movies, I'll only have 200 remaining. It seems like only yesterday...but this is neither the time, nor the place to get into that spiel. On with the review...

This is the third Almodovar film I've seen and after loving both "Talk to Her" and "All About My Mother", I was really looking forward to this one. We begin with by meeting Ivan, a voiceover actor, who, upon the film's opening, calls his lover Pepa (Maura) and leaves her a message telling her that he's going to be leaving town and he'd like her to pack him a bag. He tells her he loves her and spouts a bunch of sweet nothings, but you can tell he's not being genuine. Then we meet Pepa, who is indeed on the verge of losing her mind, as she wants to see Ivan, find out where he's going and just talk to him. She searches high and low for him, but keeps missing him. In her frustration, she re-records her answering machine message as a direct message to him, telling him to leave a message telling her where he is and when they can see one another. It turns out, that Ivan is stepping out on Pepa and heading to Stockholm, on a vacation with his new lover, Paulina. Meanwhile, Ivan's wife has recently been released from the mental hospital, having been sent there by her infidel husband and Ivan's son, Carlos (Banderas) is trying to protect her from him, while also trying to maintain his own relationship with Marisa (de Palma). Also, there's Pepa's friend, Candela (Barranco), who comes calling for Pepa's help when she has a night of passion with a Shiite terrorist and is afraid that the cops might be after her. it turns out that the Shiite terrorists are plotting a hijack attempt...on the plane that Ivan and Paulina will be taking to Stockholm.

THE BOOK tries to downplay the farcial/screwball aspects of this film, but that's what it is, plan & simple and I loved nearly every minute of it! Sure, it's also an Almodovar film, which means it also has unique, gorgeous cinematography; top notch writing/directing, fantastic dialogue and a story that not only serves the purposes of hilarity, but is also quality stuff. I may not have liked it as much as "All About My Mother" and I definitely didn't like it as much as "Talk to Her", but it's an early work from Almodovar and it's still really, really good. However, because it's what I do, I must do a little bit of nitpicking.

One thing I wish they'd done was do something more with the idea that Pepa and Ivan were voiceover actors. Wouldn't it have been great to film a scene where Pepa and Ivan were having a conversation with each other, expressing their own feelings, while the audience saw it as, say Sterling Hayden talking to Joan Crawford? It seemed like a very Almodovar movie to film a scene like that and as soon as I saw that the two were voiceover actors, I thought immediately that there'd be a scene like that, but I was wrong. They hint at it early on, while Ivan is doing voiceover work on "Johnny Guitar", but it never really pans out. Perhaps it's something Almodovar himself even thought of and maybe even filmed, but it got cut - who knows. I'd also do some nitpicking on the writing. Granted, I just said in the above paragraph that the writing was brilliant, however, this was pretty run of the mill, screwball type stuff. Sure, the writing IS brilliant and I loved all the coincidental/mistaken identity/farce stuff, but I think I expected just a little more intricacy from Almodovar.

But, those are just nitpicky things and really, I'm fine with the film just the way it was. Apparently there was a Broadway show of this too, but it ended in early 2011. I bet that was a lot of fun and I'd have loved to experience that. I have to say though, without the vivacious Carmen Maura, they were missing a lot of the magic of the story. With a little research, I find that Maura was actually Almodovar's muse for many years and it's not hard to see why. He made her look brilliant and she was spectacular enough on her own. I have to say, I really need to see the rest of Almodovar's filmography now, because I loved these three so much, it makes me wonder how many more gems are hiding throughout his body of work. Many, I'm sure.

RATING: 8/10  Nice to see a movie hit an '8' and it's just another, last minute movie to consider, heading into the making of the TOP 20, in a few days.

MOVIES WATCHED: 797
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 204

February 9, 2014  5:10pm

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940. Todo sobre mi madre/All About My Mother (1999)

Running Time: 101 minutes
Directed By: Pedro Almodovar
Written By: Pedro Almodovar
Main Cast: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Antonia San Juan, Penelope Cruz, Candela Pena
Click here to view the trailer

A (LATE) MOTHER'S DAY TRIBUTE

So this past Sunday was Mother's Day and had I put two and two together, a little bit earlier, I would've watched "All About My Mother" then, instead of last night. Oh well, better late than never, as I take in Almodovar's 1999 tribute to mother's everywhere and women in general.

The film is going to be a little tricky to explain, as it implements the use of several characters to tell a pretty complex little story. We start with Manuela (Roth), who we see is a nurse who oversees donor organ transplants. We also learn right away that she has a son, Esteban, who is interested in becoming a writer. It is Esteban's 17th birthday and Manuela takes him out to a theater performance of "A Streetcar Named Desire". After the show, Esteban convinces Manuela to let him stand outside and wait for the star of the show, Huma Rojo (Paredes), so that he may get her autograph. Despite the rain, Manuela doesn't want to disappoint the kid on his birthday, so she obliges. When Huma finally comes out, she gets into a taxi right away and despite Esteban's knocks on the window, Huma and her girlfriend pull away. Esteban, determined to get her autograph chases down the taxi and is killed by another, oncoming car, which runs him down. Manuela is grief stricken, to say the least and decides to go to Barcelona, where Esteban's father is. Esteban had always wanted to know about his father, but due to his lifestyle choices (he's a transsexual prostitute), she'd always kept it from him. In Barcelona, Manuela meets up with old friend Agrado (another transsexual prostitute), meets Huma Rojo and meets a nun, Rosa (Cruz), whom she becomes very close with. I'll leave it at that, but lets just suffice it to say that the story is a brilliantly spun web, that just keeps on producing turn after turn.

I've got to be honest, despite loving "Talk to Her", I was a little hesitant to watch "All About My Mother", because I'd heard that "Talk to Her" was his most normal film and that all of his others were a little bit odd. Well, I guess you could categorize "All About My Mother" as a little different in it's style, but it still dealt with very human characters, getting into very human, real situations. I thought the film was almost AS good as "Talk to Her" and while I enjoyed his 2002 offering better overall, there were aspects of "Mother" that I liked better. I thought that this movie was much more complex, better written and possibly even better acted.  Cecilia Roth was an amazing discovery for me, as I'd never heard of her before and really thought she poured her heart out here. I'm left wondering what else she's been in and where I can get a hold of it. Even Penelope Cruz, who I'd never really cared for in the past, turned in a pretty decent performance. My only question is this, which I couldn't seem to find the answer to in the little research that I did after watching this one: Were the men who played women in this film, really men? or were they women? I honestly couldn't tell and I'm really talking about Agrado here.

Look, I've been saying for days now that I'm getting a little burnt out on writing these reviews and working my way toward my short term goal of 700 watched, but "All About My Mother" actually made me grateful that I've decided to keep on truckin'. It's that type of film that makes you want to watch more films, because it makes you realize that around every corner could be your next favorite movie. "All About My Mother" isn't my new favorite movie and it did have a few flaws, however, it was good enough to give me back a little more excitement, which I'll need to finish out the season and for that I am thankful. The story is top notch and while the "Talk to Her" story was a little more simple and a little better, I thought this was right up there. It also makes me realize what a magnificent filmmaker Almodovar is and really makes me excited to see more of his pictures.

RATING: 7.5/10  Really good and hopefully I can find a nice spot for it in the upcoming TOP 20 list. Almodovar may just be the directorial find of this season.

MOVIES WATCHED: 682
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 319

May 15, 2013  12:49pm

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970. Hable con ella/Talk to Her (2002)

Running Time: 112 minutes
Directed By: Pedro Almodovar
Written By: Pedro Almodovar
Main Cast: Javier Camara, Dario Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores
Click here to view the trailer

WATCH OUT FOR THAT GIANT HOLE!

Yes, that's the best subtitle I could come up with - sorry if it's too low brow.

In high school, I took Spanish, because you were forced to take a language as one of your electives (with Spanish and French being the only two choices) and I can still remember seeing a picture of Pedro Almodovar in my Spanish text book. At the time, I had no clue who he was, only what it said beside his picture. Now, looking back, I think it's kind of cool that they'd include him in the text book. I wonder if Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg show up in any English text books, in foreign countries?

"Talk to Her" revolves around four different characters. First up, there's Benigno (Camara), a male nurse at an institute specializing in coma patients. Benigno is a little confused about his own sexuality, but admits that (he thinks) he sways more in the direction of being sexually attracted to men, rather than women. Benigno's main patient is Alicia (Watling), a patient who has been in the hospital for four years, after a car accident left her in a vegetative state. Benigno stays with Alicia most days and nights, reading to her, doing her nails & hair, massaging her, bathing her and talking to her, in addition to countless other tasks. We learn through the use of back story, that Benigno may not be as homosexual as most people think, as it seems he actually knew Alicia before her arrival at the hospital. Alicia was a dancer and the dance academy where she trained was directly across the street from where Benigno lived. He used to watch her from his window and was completely infatuated with her. In fact, he was so infatuated with her, that he booked himself appointments with her father, the psychiatrist, in hopes of having an encounter with her. The other two characters in the story are Lydia (Flores), a bullfighter who gets gored & is also put into a vegetative state and admitted into the same hospital as Alicia, and her boyfriend Marco (Zuluaga), a journalist. Since he's at the hospital everyday anyway, visiting Lydia, Marco begins to strike up a friendship with Benigno.

SPOILER ALERT!

Movies have a way of really messing with you, if you think about it. Some of you may remember a while back, when I reviewed "The Celebration", I mentioned how odd it was that I actually felt sympathy for the pedophile, rapist father at the end of the film, when his family drives him away from the table. It was such an odd feeling, which is why I spoke about it and Almodovar kind of does the same thing to me again, with "Talk to Her". If any of us were to be watching the news and hear a story about a male nurse who raped and impregnated a coma patient, we would be disgusted and appalled. However, in "Talk to Her", that very same situation plays out and at the end, we're almost in tears for the Benigno character, feeling for him...at least I was. That's one of the really special things about cinema - when done right, it can totally twist your emotions, feelings, opinions and personal stances and make you totally second guess how you would normally view a situation. Did Benigno have issues? Certainly, however, the way Almodovar unfolded the story and told it to us, it wasn't that bad of a thing that he did. The sign of a truly great filmmaker, when they can literally play with your emotions and then make you wonder why you viewed something the way you did.

After the film ended, I asked myself: Should they have filmed the rape scene - between Benigno and Alicia? It only took me a moment to denounce the idea, thinking that anything they filmed would've come off as despicable and would've totally shattered our opinion of the Benigno character. I have to assume that the moment that took place between Benigno and Alicia was actually, probably a beautiful one (at least from Benigno's point of view) and I think it would be impossible to film a male nurse raping a female coma patient and make it look beautiful and touching. Instead, Almodovar tells us a short story, within the movie, about a shrinking man...must be seen to be believed, that's all I'll say.

Anyway, enough theorizing and idea slinging. The film was really great and the two hours seemed to fly by. The entire cast turned in fine performances, especially Javier Camara. The story was magnificent too; very down to earth, dealing with normal people but with a little twist, which I liked. I'm given to understand that this is Almodovar's most normal film, which is disheartening, because that leads me to believe that his other films are a little oddball-esque, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. I'll be watching "All About My Mother" soon, so we'll see how that goes. I think this would be a REALLY good film for anyone wanting to get interested in foreign films. If you're like I used to be and you don't watch a lot of foreign titles, this one is really easy to follow, really good and I think it would appeal to an audience of purely domestic moviegoers. The only thing I really didn't like about "Talk to Her" was the end. Am I really to believe that after all that's happened, now Marco and Alicia are going to have their own little part of this story? I mean, why else flash their names across the screen and elude that the end of the film is only the beginning for these two. It wasn't awful or anything, just a nitpicky thing, but I would've preferred it if they'd just tacked on ten or fifteen more minutes and did a scene with Marco and Alicia talking...about everything.

RATING: 9/10  Can't go all the way, just because, but a '9' is good too. I really can't wait to see "All About My Mother" now and see what it's like.

MOVIES WATCHED: 672
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 329

April 30, 2013  3:44pm

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