24 August 2006

The Next Film to Get All Geeked Up For

Now that SoaP fever has ebbed, it's time to start looking for the next film to hype.

Well, Volver is the movie I'm going to hype (a long piece regarding the film was in the Telegraph recently).

Almodóvar is mostly brilliant. I've been a fan of his stuff for a long time now. This film has gotten great press, and more importantly it's got her (see below) in it.



She's escaped from the clutches of that other Cruise, and seems to have survived the ordeal without too much damage.

This is his first film with Carmen Maura since the fantastic Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. She's an amazing actor, one of the best alive, does comedy or drama with equal ease.

Of course no European interview is complete without slagging Hollywood
Even more telling was the return of Penélope Cruz to a major film role in her native Spain after an artistically unhappy six years in mostly dismal Anglophone movies (Sahara, Vanilla Sky). Cruz, 32, is a revelation as Raimunda. Almodóvar rightly compares her to actresses in Italian neo-realist films such as Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani. Her performance is the year's first real contender for the awards season.

"Penélope wanted to work in Spain again, and I wanted to work with her," Almodóvar reflects. "In Hollywood, actresses don't have many chances after 35. No one there would have given her a role like Raimunda. I know her so well. When it comes down to it, those down-to-earth roles are the ones she's best at.

I don't think this film will generate too much hype, but it probably should.

It looks like it's getting the usual limited release for foreign films in the United States, with its LA/NY run beginning on November 3rd (which suggests that they may be expecting some Oscar buzz for this film).

3 comments:

bill said...

Yeah, but how do you pronounce it? Is it like Mulva?

XWL said...

No it's pronounced just as it's written, one of the things Spanish has going for it as a written language.

The second person polite command form, is vuelva, however.

(at least I think it's the second person polite command form, it's been nearly 20 years since I've been instructed in that language)

(also, vuelva should be close enough for snickering purposes)

XWL said...

This comment has me wondering which languages use 'to come' or something similar as we do in English for the verb form to express the approach or arrival of orgasm or 'to go' as they do in Spanish and Japanese.

There must be a research paper out there codifying all the various linguistic quirks associated with that activity.

Of course, what exactly do you type into google to get pointed to the right paper?