 TALK
TO HER
SPAIN 2002 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
APR 15 17 FRI 8.30PM (NOTE
TIME CHANGE) SUN 4:45 PM WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
When Benigno (Javier Cámara) and Marco (Darío
Grandinetti) first meet, it is at a ballet performance, where
both are unmistakably moved by the passion of art. Their next
meeting finds them caring for their respective loves in a
home for coma patients. Almodóvar's intricately crafted
tale of misdirected desire and impossible romance revisits
the director's obsessions with bullfighting, silent cinema,
and, of course, sex. “TALK TO HER shows how reliable
[Almodóvar] has become at marrying suspense, comedy
and tragedy. . . balancing several tones at once, answering
questions and simultaneously deepening the mystery.”—Elvis
Mitchell. (112 mins.)
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 TIE
ME UP! TIE ME DOWN!
SPAIN 1990 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
APR 16 17 SAT 7 PM, SUN 7 PM WHITSELL
AUDITORIUM
Ricky (Antonio Banderas, in his breakthrough role) is a recently
released mental patient, obsessed by adult film star and drug
addict Marina (Victoria Abril), with whom he once shared a
midnight tryst with. Driven by freedom, decaying sanity, and
love, Ricky decides to persuade Marina to love him by the
only way he knows how —abduction. What on the surface
should be the crime of an obsessed stalker becomes a masochistic
love affair. Meanwhile, Marina's former boss (Spanish screen
legend Francisco Rabal) and sister (Loles León) take
their own obsessive routes in order to find Marina, and try
to save her. (111 mins.)
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WHAT
HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?
SPAIN 1984 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
APR 22 24 FRI 7 PM, SUN 4:45 WHITSELL
AUDITORIUM
Gloria (Carmen Maura) shares a Madrid apartment with husband
Polo (Luis Hostalot), two self-destructive young sons, and
a megalomaniacal mother-in-law. Driven by equal parts No-Doze
and inhalants, Gloria attempts to cope with her dysfunctional
family. Almodóvar displays the metered discipline of
later films with his kaleidoscope of characters and their
deadpan delivery of the most outrageous dialogue. (101 mins.)
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 HIGH
HEELS
SPAIN 1991 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
APR 23 24 SAT 7 PM, SUN 7 PM WHITSELL
AUDITORIUM
Almodóvar staple Victoria Abril plays Rebeca, a Madrid
television news star who has never seemed to measure up to
her movie star mother (Marisa Paredes). Rebeca makes every
attempt to compete with her overbearing mother, from marrying
a former stepfather to seducing a drag queen playing her mother
to admitting on national television to the murder she believes
her mother has committed. Thus begins Rebeca's redemption,
at the hands of an affectionate detective and her incarcerated
compatriots. Featuring Javier Bardem, Bibi Anderson, and an
unforgivable prison musical sequence, HIGH HEELS marries Almodóvar's
frenetic visual style with the noir tones of his later masterworks.
(112 mins.)
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 ALL
ABOUT MY MOTHER
SPAIN 1999 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
APR 29 MAY 1 FRI 7 PM, SUN 4:45 PM GUILD
THEATRE
A tribute to the great actresses of stage and screen, Almodóvar
explores the roles played by women both publicly and privately.
Combining elements of ALL ABOUT EVE, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE,
and Truman Capote's MUSIC FOR CHAMELEONS, this heady drama
is the director's first world-acknowledged masterpiece. “Almodóvar's
talent has always been acknowledged as unique, but ALL ABOUT
MY MOTHER demonstrates how great it is as well. . .His trademark
mixture of humour and emotion is still evident here but with
a greater accent on emotion, evoked with insight and delicacy.”
—José Arroyo, SIGHT AND SOUND. 1999 Academy Award
for Best Foreign Film (101 mins.)
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DARK
HABITS
SPAIN 1983 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
APR 30 MAY 1 SAT 7 PM, SUN 7 PM GUILD
THEATRE
Pointedly blasphemous and sublimely bizarre, Almodóvar's
early film takes on the Catholic church with brash incisiveness.
Yolanda (Cristina Sánchez Pascual), a washed-up torch
singer with a heroin habit seeks refuge from gangsters inside
the (seemingly) chaste walls of a convent. Naturally, Almodóvar's
Mother Superior is a drug-addled lesbian (Julieta Serrano),
and the convent's cast of characters include an erotic novelist
and an acid dropping nun who communes with Christ. DARK HABITS
is both a love letter to and a blissful tearing-down of the
tradition of convent films that the director was raised on.
(114 mins.)
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 LIVE
FLESH
SPAIN 1997 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
MAY 5 7 THUR 7 PM, SAT 9 PM GUILD THEATRE
Based on a novel by English crime author Ruth Rendell, Almodóvar's
taut mystery is one of his darkest and most sexually intense.
The brutal shooting of a beautiful Italian junkie (Francesca
Neri) links the victim with policeman David (Javier Bardem)
and Victor (Liberto Rabal), the man who gets sent up for the
crime. When Victor gets out of jail he finds Elena married
to David, left paraplegic by the shooting. As a form of obsessive
affection, Victor becomes the lover of Elena and David's friend
Clara (Ángela Molina), a sex-starved policeman's wife.
Featuring Penelope Cruz in the most memorable opening sequences
of the director's career. (103 mins.)
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 WOMEN
ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
SPAIN 1988 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
MAY 6 7 FRI 7 PM, SAT 7 PM GUILD THEATRE
WOMEN ON THE VERGE made the director into an international
cinema icon. In typical Almodóvar style, the film weaves
an array of colorful characters into a single, manic-depressive
symphony. Carmen Maura highlights as the heroine Pepa, a TV
star heartbroken by her lover Ivan (Fernando Guillén),
and desperate to find her bearings. “Mr. Almodóvar
sets out to charm rather than shock. That he succeeds should
not come as a surprise. The common denominator of [his] films.
. .is their great good humor.” —Vincent Canby,
NEW YORK TIMES. (90 mins.)
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LAW
OF DESIRE
SPAIN 1987 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
MAY 12 14 THUR 7 PM, SAT 7 PM WHITSELL
AUDITORIUM
Oft-compared to the director's more mature ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER,
this tale of obsession and emotional excess stands as one
of Almodóvar's strangest. A pre-Hollywood Antonio Banderas
stars as Antonio, a charmingly neurotic fan of playwright
Pablo Quintero (Eusebio Poncela). After seducing the object
of his obsession, Antonio becomes homicidally possessive,
eventually killing Pablo's former lover. In true form, a family
crisis is introduced, with Pablo's transsexual sister (Carmen
Maura) landing a role in one of his plays, and the director
falling victim to amnesia. In the tradition of the subversive
melodramas of Sirk and Fassbinder, LAW OF DESIRE remains one
of Almodóvar's moodiest and most sordid films to date.
(102 mins.)
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KIKA
SPAIN 1993 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
MAY 13 14 FRI 7 PM, SAT 9.15 PM WHITSELL
AUDITORIUM
Perhaps the most deliberately naughty of Almodóvar's
films, KIKA blends satire with camp — offering an outrageous
commentary on media and desire. Kika (Verónica Forqué,
AY CARMELA) is a ditzy makeup artist in a love triangle between
Nicholas (Peter Coyote), an American writer, and Ramon (Alex
Casanova), his stepson. Where Kika ends up is in the center
of a national media blitz, when Ramon's ex-lover Andrea (Victoria
Abril) captures Kika being raped and broadcasts it onto national
television. While disarming on the surface, KIKA is a maturely
insightful, late-20th century at the voyeurism and angst of
the television age. (114 mins.)
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 BAD
EDUCATION
SPAIN 2004 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
MAY 19 21 THUR 7 PM, SAT 9:15 PM WHITSELL
AUDITORIUM
The latest and most self-assured of his career, BAD EDUCATION
is also regarded as Almodóvar's most personal film
to date, a nostalgic trip through childhood memories of love,
trauma, and cinema. Enrique Goded (Fele Martinez) is a successful
young filmmaker who seems to have reached a premature creative
apex, eventually resorting to culling through the tabloids
for material. As a narcissistic and critically-adored artist,
Enrique is shocked from his ennui by the visit of a former
schoolmate and lover, Ignacio (Gael Garcia Bernal). Ignacio,
now an overly ambitious stage actor, pitches a screenplay
to Enrique, “The Visit,” which conjures memories
of sexual abuse at the hands of their boarding school priest
Father Manolo. Soon, as Enrique begins filming, it becomes
clear that “The Visit” is a footnote to a larger,
more intense human drama. As elegantly baffling as the noir
of Hitchcock and Tourneur, BAD EDUCATION is an exultant work
of cinema, a tragic love song from an inspired genius.(109
mins.)
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THE
FLOWER OF MY SECRET
SPAIN 1995 DIRECTOR: PEDRO ALMODOVAR
MAY 20 21 FRI 7 PM, SAT 7 PM WHITSELL
AUDITORIUM
Leo Macias (Marisa Paredes) is the writer of lavish romance
novels, sent into an emotional and creative swan dive when
she realizes her husband isn't in love with her. Leo's last
gasp at a life of her own comes in the form of a new identity
- Amanda Gris - her pen name at a large newspaper. In a true
Almodóvarian turn, Leo's greatest success as Amanda
Gris is an unflinching tearing-down of the sentimental work
of novelist Leo Macias. Inspired by Dorothy Parker, THE FLOWER
OF MY SECRET is Almodóvar's most understated, witty
statement of love and ambition. (103 mins.) |
