I Finally Saw Volver

Just got back from seeing Volver.

It's a well crafted, well acted, very melodramatic picture.

To call it a 'women's picture' wouldn't be an insult, and shouldn't scare any men away from seeing it.

Penelope Cruz is a fantastic actress in Spanish, in English . . . not so much.

She deserves serious consideration for her performance come awards time, as does Carmen Maura in a pitch perfect supporting role.

You are unlikely to see better performances this year from any other actors in any other language.

Not to slight all the other actresses who enliven this tale, they're all excellent, but Carmen and Penelope really stand out.

Pedro Almodovar is one of the best directors around, and he's in his prime, even if he seems to return to the same themes over and over again.

As far as the picture, there's really nothing I can say beyond all the positive reviews (shockingly, at least to me, this film has an even better percentage of good reviews) that would convince you to see this if you weren't already convinced, so I won't try.

But, one thing that puzzles me, this film deserves a wider release. In the United States we have a plethora of native Spanish speakers, and their first generation offspring, who would eat this stuff up with a spoon if it was sold to them the right way. The Spanish speaking community in the United States is large enough, wealthy enough, and diverse enough to support a few quality "art house" movies each year. That companies like Sony Picture Classics don't figure out a way to sell these kinds of pictures to those kinds of folks is incomprehensible to me.

Possibly they are doing the NYC/LA thing until they get their expected nominations, then they'll give it a wider release hoping the awards buzz will expand the market.

If it seems at all intriguing to you, then go see it when it hits your town, and even if it looks like the kind of soapy mush you can't stand, don't let that stop you, this film transcends the genre that gave it birth.

I've Only Just Begun to Pimp . . .

previous Volver posts, here and here

Volver opens Friday in LA/NYC, and I'm excited about the prospect of getting to finally see Pedro Almodóvar's latest film.

In today's LAT there's a big feature article on Penélope Cruz. Read it already. Obviously, she's as talented and intelligent as she is beautiful. Too bad she seems to have awful taste in men.

Also, the writer lucky enough to interview Ms. Cruz is someone familiar to me. Prof. Josh Kun taught in the English Dept. at UC Riverside while I attended (he's since left, but here's an LAist.com interview from last year). He was quite popular, but I never got a chance to take any of his courses, but those that I know that did, regarded him highly.

Random Blogger Bloggeriness

Two weeks to the election, a long, long, long two weeks. MSNBC has gone into full political mode, Tony Snow was on with Chris Matthews, not a fair fight at all (nobody's posted the video yet, surprisingly).

What I'm listening to right now on Urge? The Best of Hanson - The 20th Century Masters Millenium Collection (did I just admit that?)

An amusing and lengthy (for Kotaku) article crafted by Brian Ashcraft recounting attending a gaming event, that turned out to be of interest mainly for one of the voice actors (a Japanese porn star).

Also, Go Fug Yourselves Fug-girls! Sure Penelope Cruz is sort of dressed like Pres. Abraham Lincoln, she still looks cute, and hot, anyway. Y'all wish you could pull that off.

Would random blogger bloggeriness be complete without some YouTubeage? I think not. I present to you, Gorilla Lovemaking (interestingly it's been up since February, and hasn't been marked as offensive, and it isn't offensive as a matter of fact, just funny).