Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar is basically the epitome of “acclaimed foreign auteur,” and when you think acclaimed foreign auteur, you think of movies like Amour, Michael Haneke’s heartbreakingly beautiful ode to old people having strokes. What you don’t normally think of is gay flight attendants doing elaborate song and dance numbers, which is what I’m So Excited seems to be. This might be the best 47-second movie trailer I’ve ever seen.
Penelope Cruz practicing her Sean Young impression
After the jump, watch the trailer for Pedro Almodóvar’s (Volver, Talk to Her) next film, Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces).
Broken Embraces is described as a four-way tale of amour-fou [crazy love, basically], shot in the style of ’50s American film noir at its most hard-boiled, and will mix references to works like Nicholas Ray’s “In a Lonely Place” and Vincente Minnelli’s “The Bad and the Beautiful,” with signature Almodóvar themes such as Fate, the mystery of creation, guilt, unscrupulous power, the eternal search of fathers for sons, and sons for fathers. [RopeofSilicon]
In other news, Zac Efron and Jonathan Rhys Meyers have just signed on for the sequel, Los Abrazos Jotos. (That’s right, I can make gay jokes in multiple languages. Call me ladies.)
Even though I hate some of these peoples’ movies (Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, for instance – puke) by pretty much any objective assessment, the lineup for the Cannes Film Festival in May is a film dork’s wet dream. This list isn’t finalized or complete, but here are some of the films officially rumored to be playing:
Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces, (opens in Spain on March 18 so seems a fair bet)
Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant and The Girlfriend Experience (a friend tells me the latter film will probably hit at Tribeca first)
Lars von Trier’s Antichrist
Cristian Mungiu’s Tales From the Golden Age
The Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man
Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void
Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock
The new Michael Moore documentary (possibly titled, “Bailout”)
Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen (“The Edge Of Heaven” was in our Top 20 of 2008, he’s amazing)
Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon
Ron Howard’s Angels and Demons
Jane Campion’s Bright Star
Todd Solondz’s [Editor’s note: director of Happiness, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s most underrated performance.] Forgiveness (btw, we were right about the title)
Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control (opens in the U.S. in late May, so seems perfect for the early-mid May Cannes festival)
Ken Loach’s Looking For Eric
Neil Jordan’s Ondine
Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus [Ledger's last role]
Park Chan-wook’s vampire drama Thirst
and of course Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourius Basterds if he can finish on time. [via ThePlaylist & HollywoodElsewhere]
So Steven Soderbergh did two Che movies last year and he’s already finishing two more by May? Does that guy ever sleep? I think maybe he’s been dipping into Tarantino’s coke stash. In any case, I wish I wasn’t too poor to go to France, both because of the movies and because it’s been rumored that there’s a place there where the ladies wear no pants. I think I read that somewhere.
In a recent interview, Spanish director Pedro Almodovar (Talk to Her, Volver) said:
"It's difficult to make a movie anywhere in Europe now. There is a general crisis of creation. "In America, it's perhaps not a crisis in terms of creativity, but in terms of quality. The quality of films being made there is simply not comparable to those before the 1960s. This is more than just a juvenile audience, I think it's become infantile."
Pssh, whatever, dude. I don't know much about Spain, but this t-shirt I saw a t-shirt once said it's like Mexico with a college education. But in terms of what he said, I think that if this new clip from Good Luck Chuck proves anything, it's audience sophistication.
So there you have it, let's bomb Spain, those lisping bastards. And this time we'll have a good reason. I still have the "I fought in a decisive sea and land battle and all I got was Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Phillipines" t-shirt from the last Spanish-American war. It's bedazzling!
