Talk to Her
Recent Watches:
The King of Comedy (1982, Scorsese)-
Spaceballs (Mel Brooks, 1987) [REWATCH]-
Seven Up! (Paul Almond, 1964)-
7 plus Seven (Apted, 1970)-
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969) [REWATCH]-
-
Talk to Her (Almodovar, 2002) -
Bad Education (Almodovar, 2004)-
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (Kramer, 1967) -
+
The Tenant (Polanski, 1976)-
+
Non-Stop (Collet-Serra, 2014)--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've decided to start watching the British documentary series
Up, in which they interview children at seven and return to them in periods of seven years. I'm rating these by individual merits, and not overall cause (which is a noble one). I believe the second in the series-
7 plus seven- has the most interesting age, so I'm not sure if it'll be topped. While it interesting to see the teenagers being interviewed about past answers, and some new rising issues,
Seven Up! had an advantage in that it was easier to see the class differences based on the schools. Or perhaps Almond chose to capitalize on this more than Apted. None the less I'm looking forward to see where these men and women end up at 21.
There are two Almodovar films in this set, which I watched pretty close together
Talk to Her, is the most acclaimed Almodovar film. A noticeable flaw is some contradiction in character, a bull fighter who fears a snake is possible but seems bizarre. These kind of moments range throughout but they don't take away from the films most powerful suit, the symbolism. There are many amazing moments, often Almodovar will artificially recreate the emotions of the two main characters (Marco & Benigno) on the coma patients. When Benigno speaks of Marco's crying during the first play he puts eye drops into his patient Alicia, creating artificial tears. This is done on another occasion during the silent film montage, which was a bizarre but great addition right before the climax. Once the tension is revealed the movie grows some deep but sick symbolism and themes. While the tension is not shocking since it was heavily preluded, the way Almodovar handles the situation is. The symbolism grows after this as you can literally see Benigno getting inside Marcos head when he first comes back to visit him. The necrophiliac premise is revolting, but the message Almodovar put across really got inside my head.
Bad Education was a bitter experience for myself, reminding me of another film I hated
Mysterious Skin. I actually couldn't finish
Bad Education, and not out of disgust but of emotional withdrawal. I found the line between fiction, non-fiction, and reality to be irritating in this instance. I'm sure this has personal meaning to Almodovar as he himself went to a Catholic boarding school, but if you're going to watch a film about sexual abuse in the Catholic church I recommend the documentary
Deliver us From Evil.
Almodovar Ranked: (so far)
1. Broken Embraces
2. All About my Mother
3. Talk to Her (above)
4. Bad Education (above)
I really want to watch
The Skin I Live In.
Now my most anticipated watch:
Polanski's
The Tenant is his final film in the Apartment Trilogy, I still have to watch
Repulsion, but
Rosemary's Baby is in my top ten.
The Tenant also covers paranoia, where Polanski himself plays the paranoiac. After he moves into an apartment where the last tenant killed herself, he gets surrounded by bizarre and often evil tenants. The movie effectively covers how perception changes reality for the paranoid mind, and how the unconscious blames the outside world for the actions of the own man. The ending is predictable, in fact I didn't even have to watch more than ten minutes to understand what will come. Before so there are a few tense instances, and the film can be slightly disturbing. Polanski is no Mia Farrow, and
The Tenant is no
Rosemary's Baby, but it remains a decent psychological thriller.
Polanski meets the former tenant and a new friend
The first movie I've seen of 2014 is a pretty typical early release, a Liam Neeson action. With a hostage situation on an airplane the movie does build tension well, but fails with a lame twist. I didn't see it coming, but it was just really incoherent and had a clear bias. Add this to some obvious plot holes and the story collapses on itself. It's better than
Taken 2, which I also went to theaters to watch, but I suggest just sticking to
Snakes on a Plane 
.
Reply to Topic
