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Entries in Carmen Maura (9)

Tuesday
Jul022013

Posterized: The Almodóvar 19

It was with great shame Friday that I realized I'm So Excited had landed and I hadn't done that  Entire Retrospective of Pedro Almodóvar's Filmography that I suggested I'd be doing all spring. And here we are in July. My plans are always much larger than the hours filling each day as you know.

I know a lot of people aren't crazy about the new picture I'm So Excited (reviewed) which is a very silly raunchy gay comedy but I laughed a lot. (LAST DAY TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY CONTEST TODAY!) I'm going again with friends this weekend because what better way to celebrate America's Independence than... uh... catching a Pedro movie! Support your world class auteurs so that all movies without superheroes don't end up going straight to VOD by 2017.

Herewith the Almodóvar Filmography with a few notes...

How many have you seen?

Click to read more ...

Monday
Jun272011

Box Office: Crushed Cars, Ascendant Woody and Global Hits

We won't waste too much time on the American box office today as it's the usual stories: an animated film tops the charts (don't make me say the name), Bridesmaid barely dipped and Midnight in Paris is zooming up the "all time Woody Allen lists". On this last bit I wish we had "adjusted for inflation" charts at the ready. Those inevitable stories about it passing Hannah and Her Sisters at the box office are going to be annoying because $40 million in 1986 is a helluva lot more ticket-buying action than $41 million in 2011, you know? I'm guessing that Annie Hall, which really captured mainstream attention, would reign supreme if you adjusted for inflation. [updated: yep, ANNIE HALL is #1]

And yes I normally do a new drawing for the box office but I hate drawing cars and the only picture I'd like to conjure in that realm is Cars 2's "Mater" squished flat in a compactor.

U.S. Box-Office (Actuals)
figures via box office mojo

01 CARS 2 new $66.1 
02 BAD TEACHER new $31.6 
03 GREEN LANTERN $18 [review] (cum. $88.9)
04 SUPER 8 $12 [thoughts] (cum. $95.1)
05 MR POPPER'S PENGUINS  $10.1 (cum. $39.2)

the rest of the top twelve are now losing screens... 
X-MEN FIRST CLASS $6.6 [review, top ten X] THE HANGOVER PT II $5.5, BRIDESMAIDS $5.2, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES $4.9 [review], KUNG FU PANDA 2 $4.1, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS $4.1 [podcast] and TREE OF LIFE $1.3 [overheard & thoughts]

Worldwide Action
It's all about the 4th Pirates film worldwide unfortunately, reminding us that the US hardly has the strangehold on lemming-like sequel culture. Johnny Depp on loop nears another 1 billion gross. Crazine$$.

But let's talk about movies that never get any attention on movie blogs!
I looked at the global charts at box office mojo and thought it was worth sharing. Here are the top grossers that aren't Hollywood for 2011 (Please note: Bollywood does not give figures to B.O.M. so who knows with those films)

2011's Top Grossers (Non-English Language)

01 Hankyu densha 
This Japanese film is based on a best-selling novel about intersecting lives (it uses a public transport line as connecting backdrop). Starring Miki Nakatani and Erika Toda. It's nearly as big a hit as, say, Rango across the ocean but it's Japan only thus far. [Trailer]
02 Rien à déclarer (Nothing to Declare)
Directed and written by and stars (whew) Dany Boon who you might remember as the lead actor from last year's chaotic farce Mic-Macs (which was from Amélie's director). It's a comedy about customs officers during the elimination of the French-Belgium border in the 1990s. This is a bigger hit than True Grit or No Strings Attached overseas and has distributors in various markets but nothing for the US as far as I can tell. 
03 Che bella giornata (What a Beautiful Day)
A very complicated sounding comedy starring Checco Zalone (who also co-wrote the movie) as a security officer in Italy who gets mixed up with an Arabic girl posing as a French woman. Italy only thus far. [Official Site]

04 Kokowääh
German star Til Schweiger (Inglourious Basterds) co-wrote this family comedy and co-stars with his daughter. Warner Bros handled the very very successful German release. Will we see it... or some English language remake here?
05 SP The Motion Picture
Japanese film about Security Police that's based on a TV series.
06 Gantz
A genre film about two teenagers played by Ken'ichi Matsuyama and Kazunari Ninomiya hunting and killing aliens. This one has distributors in some European countries in addition to Asia but the only US plans (at the moment) is a spot in the New York Asian Film Festival which is just about to start (July 1st). 

Here's the trailer for the festival as a whole (cute). If you're in NYC are you seeing anything?


After that in the global charts when its not Hollywood films it's mostly Asian films (they have their own strong markets) but there's one film in particular that our actress-loving heart is thumping for longingly. That's Les Femmes du 6ème étage (Service Entrance) which is a French film about Spanish maids from director Jean-Philippe LeGuay. The Spanish cast includes Carmen Maura and Lola Dueñas (Volver reunion alert!) as the help and Fabrice Luchini and Sandrine Kiberlain as conservative wealthy French employers.

Service Entrance

Strand Releasing has US distribution rights but given that the film is the 79th most popular overseas for 2011 with a $15 million gross (thus far), we hope it gets a hearty US push.

Do you like hearing about foreign hits or did your eyes just glaze over?

Sunday
Mar132011

you will have a thousand affairs...

i doubt i doubt
that you will find as pure a love as the one you have in me.
you will have a thousand affairs
without love.
but at the end of it all
there's only pain

Sunday
Feb202011

Berlinale Pt. 2: Red Carpet, Movies To Watch For

One of the best things about A-list festivals is that you get red carpet ogling inbetween all the big ticket movies. Oh sure, you get that at medium sized festivals too but the celebrities and movies are more regional and less Klieg lit. So who was at Berlinale? Hailee Steinfeld was despite also showing up at US events and London events in the same week (I didn't include her in the lineup because she's been featured so much lately). That girl has probably logged more air miles in the past month than you have all year!

Here's a small sampling of stars.

 

From left to right: Dominic Cooper had a new film at the festival called The Devil's Double (more on that in a bit). He must weigh 120 lbs. He is always wearing the slimmest most form fitting suits that money can buy and constant cardio workouts can provide; Diane Kruger, still enjoying that post-Basterds boost, was there to push Unknown (#1 at the US box office this weekend); Gabourey Sidibe, who everyone griped would be hard to cast after Precious is doing pretty well for herself, don't you think? In addition to Showtime's The Big C she is in Yelling to the Sky (Zöe Kravitz has the lead role) which premiered in Berlin ; Diane Lane and Josh Brolin were there for the True Grit premiere (Bridges and Steinfeld also attended) looking more doubly attractive than ever, yes?

The other extra special thing about international red carpets is that the European stars get way more attention than they do at US events. And some of them are more than deserving of flashbulbs.

 

From left to right: Ludivine Sagnier and Sibel Kekilli, two TFE favorites from France and Germany respectively, were at the fest. Ludivine co-stars with Dominic Cooper in The Devil's Double.  Sibel attended the True Grit premiere but she didn't have a film of her own to push this time. However -- GEEKY FREAKOUT ALERT -- I didn't know this but she's playing "Shae", Tyrion's beloved prostitute in HBO's Game of Thrones. Yes; Diane Kruger gets featured twice because everyone knows she's a clotheshorse; German star August Diehl, who shares Inglourious Basterd's best chapter (the one in the cellar) with Kruger and Michael Fassbender, headlines the German film Wer Wenn Nicht Wir (If Not Us, Who) which won the Alfred Bauer, a prize that rewards innovation in films; And finally Spain's Carmen Maura, who we've loved since the late 80s on account of all of those delicious Pedro Almodóvar movies (she's still the reigning champ of his filmography, having starred in 8 to Penélope Cruz's 4.) is part of the star ensemble in Les femmes du 6ème étage.

A Few Movies To Be on the Lookout For
That film of Maura's translates to Women on the 6th Floor but according to Obsessed With Film, who call it "shamelessly enjoyable", it's being called Service Entrance for English markets.  It's about a rich Frenchman who becomes obsessed with Spanish maids living above him in the servants quarters. Maura's delightful Volver daughter Lola Dueñas is also in the cast.

The Cooper/Savignier movie mentioned earlier called The Devil's Double is about a man forced into being the body double for one of Saddam Hussein's sons. Cooper plays both roles, body double and the son of Hussein and he's reportedly great in it though the reviews of the film are not as kind, likening it to Scarface for its Big lurid violent sensationalism. But Ludivine & Dominic? I'm in.

Once I started investigating what played beyond the prize winners, there were too many movies thatsounded interesting, particularly the Bollywood drama about a black widow 7 Khoon Maaf starring Priyanka Chopra as a black widow and Naseerudin Shah (we love him) as the eldest of several of her usually doomed husbands. It turns out, it's playing in NYC right now. There's also a French animated film from the director of Kirikou and the Sorceress (2005) called Les Contes de la Nuit and a new Chen Kaige movie Sacrifice that Variety thinks is a return to form of sorts. So let's just end with an all star Shakespeare that we know you'll eventually have a chance to see.

Ralph Fiennes directs Vanessa Redgrave in Coriolanus

Ralph Fiennes modern dress Shakespearean adaptation Coriolanus, didn't win any prizes but reviews were interesting with Vanessa Redgrave being held up for significant praise. That's no surprise in terms of reviews. Can this film eventually wow Oscar voters? They tend to prefer their Shakespeare in period traditional form but Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave hasn't been in the mix since (gulp) 1992, so it would sure be nice to see her on the red carpet again if the performance is as wonderful as we hope.

My sadness about this movie pre-viewing is that Linus Roache does not appear. When Fiennes was doing this on stage a decade ago, Linus Roache (Priest, Wings of the Dove, Batman Begins, etcetera) was his much raved about co-star.  I had just moved to New York when they were doing it at BAM and I was so poor I didn't even consider going. Sadness.

Roache belongs to that unfortunate club of Wonderful Actors Who Never Get High Profile Work (at least not since the 90s) and he's been replaced in the film version by Gerard Butler. First he has to settle for Law & Order and now he's dumped for Butler, King of Bad Movies? What a world. What a world.

See also: previous Berlinale post for the jury awarded films

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