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Almodovar delivers moving tribute to cinema and love with “Dolor y gloria”

Coming out this Friday

Here's me breathing a sigh of relief. Almodovar has made another masterpiece, a work of art. “Dolor y Gloria" is sublime. I’d become disillusioned with the El Deseo boss. “Broken embraces” and “La Piel que lo habito” were colorful, if shoddily-written, films that lacked substance and felt saturated with false emotion. Those were films, I could but only deduce, made by a filmmaker in professional ... more >

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CANNES FESTIVAL, Will Smith and Jessica Chastain on jury

Read our coverage during the festival May 17-27.

Will Smith, Jessica Chastain, Maren Ade, Fan Binbing, Park Chan-Wook, Paolo Sorrentino and Gabriel Yared (a French-Lebanese composer known for writing the score for "The English Patient") have just been announced as this year’s jurors at the 2017 Cannes Festival, celebrating seventy years this year. These brave men and women will help jury president Pedro Almodóvar in choosing a winner among this ... more >

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Almodovar’s “Julieta” at the Cannes Festival | REVIEW

A compelling drama on human loss
Adriana Ugarte and Emma Suarez
Directed by Pedro Almodovar

Like in many of his previous films every scene of “Julieta,” the new Almodovar that premiered in Cannes today, is visually perfect: flawless lighting, pristine combinations of color, evocative sculptures, colorful fabrics that stand in as metaphors for love, aging, masculinity, all of which are a part of the rich ecosystem of symbols that propel Almodovar’s films. The venerable, La Mancha-born ... more >

I’m So Excited

As irreverently fun as a bathroom foam fight
Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz and Antonio de la Torre
Directed by Pedro Almodovar

Pedro Almodovar’s “I’m So Excited” received a largely underwhelming response earlier this year in the director’s native Spain, as well as a few cranky complaints here; IndieWire, for instance, called it his worst film. Notably absent are the standard Almodovar themes of a sexual predator preying on the powerless (“Talk to Her,” “The Skin I Live In”), or murderous sexual jealousy playing itself out ... more >

The skin I live in

The new Almodovar is here
Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, and Jan Cornet
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

It would be criminal to discuss the plot of Pedro Almodóvar’s new film, “The Skin I Live In,” in any linear or sensible fashion, for it would ruin the sick joke he’s setting us up for. The best way to describe it is to lay out the unsettling images and metaphors Almodóvar fills the screen with for about an hour, after which, through assorted flashbacks, he gradually starts to link all the ... more >

Pedro Almodóvar

At the New York Film Festival

Pedro Almodóvar's “The Skin I Live In,” which opens Friday, continues the theme of captivity and powerlessness—whether experienced through a coma, a kidnapping or a permanent, paralyzing handicap—that has permeated films like “Talk to Her,” “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” and “Live Flesh.” Whether they're deranged or romantic, farcical or tragic, Almodóvar's movies always combine melodramatic stories ... more >

Editor’s log: Volver

At the press luncheon

In 2006 while at the Cannes Film Festival I attended a press lunch for Volver (Pedro Almodovar); Almodovar and his lead actress Penelope Cruz would be answering questions from the press seated at a lunch table festooned with plates of seafood and prosciutto. I was running late. The lobby of the Carlton Hotel was swarming with well-heeled clients laden with shopping bags from Hermes and ... more >