The New Almodovar film has arrived to the States.

Another worthwhile addition to Almodovar cannon. The movie unfolds like a photo essay. Every shot is breathtaking in its composition. Of course, the palette is warm and sensuous.

The narrative could have been more original. There are moments when Almodovar lapses into self-referential segments. For instance, Lena’s movie repeats [...]]]>

The New Almodovar film has arrived to the States.

Another worthwhile addition to Almodovar cannon. The movie unfolds like a photo essay. Every shot is breathtaking in its composition. Of course, the palette is warm and sensuous.

The narrative could have been more original. There are moments when Almodovar lapses into self-referential segments. For instance, Lena’s movie repeats a particularly juicy scene from Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios. Not as poignant as Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother), not as corruscating as Habla con Ella (Talk to Her), not as dark as Mala Educacion (Bad Education). But it’s a good-looking maddening slithering tale.

Los Abrazos Rotos is the story of a wannabe actress and the man she has charged with the responsibility of making that dream come true. Lena admires b-movie film director Harry Caine and she hopes to carry his next piece.  While making the movie, Lena and Harry weave a tangled of sex, lies, and videotape. No joke, all the elements are there.

Who lurks behind the camera? Why, Lena’s aging ricachon husband, Ernesto. Ernesto’s adolescent son, who worships Caine and follows Lena on set like a neglected actor’s toddler, has been filming the unsuspecting lovers on his dilapidated camera. And, Ernesto has been watching his son’s behind-the-scenes dailies of the lovers’ brazen flirtations and stolen embraces.  Although the lens follows Caine and Lena’s melodramatic triumphs and toils, it is Ernesto’s story that I love most. Talk of about cruel  fates. He worships Lena but she uses him like a damp rag and then carelessly discards. But not before he gets his revenge.

Hell hath no fury like a cucolk in heat!

NY Times Review : A.O. Scott’s reserved but gallant hello to the movie

It is the exploration of perennial themes that makes the AMC tv show Mad Men so appealing. It is set in the 1960s, it is [...]]]> It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the most hedonistic age, it was the most conservative age. Every generation has its progressives and regressives.

It is the exploration of perennial themes that makes the AMC tv show Mad Men so appealing. It is set in the 1960s, it is set in the 1990s. We like to cast frames around things to compensate for our insufficient grasp of complexities. But, Matt Weiner, the man from whose brain the show sprung, refuses to give easy characterization of the decade and its people. Nearly every character on Mad Men is a mystery. And, though, we might like to draw sharp contrast between 1960s society and ourselves, the show deftly avoids stereotipical “60s” bait.

Maybe in the 60s people were bound by social conventions and suffered in silence over their respective spleens and ours is in an age of heedless obsessive openess. But hiding in the closet or getting on stage in the end amounts to the same thing.

Sterling Cooper resident ad designer Salvatore hides his homosexuality ‘neath a veneer of intellectual schtick and artistic posturing. The Queer as Folk dude is a staple at stuffy dicky shops. Instead of hiding out we now take off our clothes to mask emotional turmoil.

I will probably only be adding a speck on the mountain of bon mots that bloggers and papers have dropped about MM. We have been lying in a pool of anticipatory drool for the third season. Vulture, the NYmag.com culture blog, has shot off at least 105 posts mentioning Mad Men.

I recently stumbled on Mad Men some two weeks ago and have been watching it with glee (sans commercials online).

The show is lovingly photographed with artful transitions where possible though I’ve noticed a predilection to jump cut in the SterlingCooper office. The flashbacks which could have been a narrative hole and disruptive to the viewer’s engagement with Don Draper’s current life are more like a dimple in the sequence because they have clever transitions that make then feel plausible. Like in Season 2 Episode 11 when Anna ( the real Mrs. Draper) puts a bag of clothes on Draper’s stomach and walks out of the room. When she comes back in the room they are several years back celebrating Christmas together and Don announces that he will ask Betty to marry him. Nicely done.

The writing is minimalist and incisive. ‘Every woman is a Marilyn or a Jackie but Marilyn really is a Joan, not the other way around.’ Joan to whom Christina Hendricks has generously loaned her expressive eye-lashes and frame is a character that could easily be a stereotype: a 1960s woman with generous bossom who sleeps around. But Joan is also an intelligent, respected professional.

Since I posted “Watching TV or Amusing Ourselves to Death” I have found two reasons to watch tv again: re-runs of the Golden Girls and Mad Men baby.

I have just reread the original text [...]]]> I am tittered by the news that Tim Burton will regale us with his rendition of Alice in Wonderland. When I was little my favorite sequence was the tea party which in the Disney version was the unbirthday party. “A very happy unbirthday. To me? To you. To me!..”

I have just reread the original text in English and the nonsense logic that befuddles the Mad Hatter is so funny and relatable. He was accused of murdering the Time and after this quarrel, “he won’t do a think I ask,” the Hatter laments. Time won’t let him move the clock and so he is stuck at tea time every day, every hour, and every minute.

I am looking forward to the anthropomorphic flowers. The Red Queen already looks vicious, and John Depp as the Mad Hatter is right on.

Sometimes I feel that Time mocks me. It´s true that at times I insist on beating him (I can be cruel, it´s true) or even kill him with idle occupation. When I treat him like a friend I can stuff everything I like between dawn and dusk. He is a jolly companion; he chuckles at your stumbles yet breaks your fall…

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/06/first-look-tim-burton-takes-alice-to-weird-wild-wonderland/

I rented Last Chance Chuck…because I love Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman has given me some of my longest laughing bouts in my life (Watch Meet the Parents and he will service you as well!) Horrible disappointment. Particularly irritating was the montages that signify “passage of time.” No, no, no please. Sometimes just [...]]]> Movies: the Montage