Beauty Break: When Almodóvar met Alcaine

by Cláudio Alves

Starting yesterday, Strange Way of Life is streaming on Netflix. To commemorate the occasion, I thought about diving into the collaboration between Pedro Almodóvar and cinematographer José Luis Alcaine, a recurring creative partner since they filmed Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown back in the late 80s. Even though I had issues with the short film, its lensing wasn't one of them. Indeed, playing with Western iconography and Saint Laurent fashions, Strange Way of Life is as visually enchanting as one would expect from something bearing the Spanish auteur's signature. When everything else fails, Alcaine creates hyper-artificial frames, popping with bright colors and luster…

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Tweets: Movies that should be TV shows, QT fun, Minority Report ages

SO RELATABLE 

Me: *literally in the middle of a scene*
My Imposter Syndrome: pic.twitter.com/yoSYE70zpl

— Andy Mientus (@andymientus) August 1, 2019

We stopped doing weekly tweet roundups but nevertheless, it's fun to share highlights from time to time for those that don't use twitter (and because it's so easy to miss hilarious tweets or interesting little provocations or takes. So every once in a while we feel the need to share a batch. Hope you enjoy the round-up after the jump which includes Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Minority Report, Weekend, Christopher Nolan, and two very fascinating questions for the room (if you're reading we assume you love the movies lots) so please answer 'em in the comments...

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Reviews: I'm So Excited & The Heat

This review was originally published in my column at Towleroad

and i know i know i know i know i know i want you i want you ♫

Here's a film you'll never see on an airplane. Pedro Almodóvar's latest, I'm So Excited!, takes place (almost) entirely aboard an airplane like some lost "bottle episode" of an aborted Almodóvarian sitcom. But the stewards and pilots are less concerned with fastening your seat belt than unzipping your pants and more interested in spiking drinks than pouring them. It's arrived just in time for Gay Pride Weekend and what great timing; this is by far the gayest thing Pedro has done since Bad Education (2004) in which Gael García Bernal famously both tucked his junk for drag duties and showed it off in wet underwear poolside.

I think it was the internet critic David Poland (of Movie City News fame) who dubbed that earlier film "fag noir" and took some heat for that but I personally don't think Almodóvar would have minded. In fact, for a long time I miscredited the tag to Pedro himself. Pedro's characters are often outrageously hedonistic from nympho nuns to homicidal hotties to transgendered hookers and even the sanest among them act on melodramatic or comic impulse without shame or apology. In short, to appropriate a quote from Rich Juzwiak they're 'as faggy as they want to be'. And that's just the ladies! [more...]

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Win the "I'm So Excited" Prize Pack

I would personally like to thank Sony Pictures Classics for latching on to Pedro Almodóvar all those years ago and nurturing his ongoing fandom in arthouse circles. As you may have heard his latest, I'm So Excited, is in the theaters this weekend. SPC is offering five prize packs to readers right here at TFE! 

Enter to win an I'm So Excited! Prize Pack!

The I'm So Excited Prize Pack includes one  I'm So Excited flight attendant t-shirt, one I'm So Excited flight inflatable neck pillow and one I'm So Excited pilot wing pin.

To enter just send me an email by Monday July 1st at Midnight with...

• "I'm So Excited" in the subject line
• Your name and shipping address
• And the answer to this question: If you found yourself on a full flight with all the characters from Pedro's filmography, who would you sit next to and why?

The official synopsis goes like so...

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Days Until...*

9 Days Until... The 85th Annual Academy Awards
14 Days Until... Reader Appreciation Month kicks off: contests, reader spotlights and more. (read: a shameless begging to convince you to stick around daily once Oscar ends.)
19 Days Until... The 4th Season of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" Begins.
31 Days Until... The Bates Motel premieres on A&E. As a huge fan of Psycho and Vera Farmiga and Psycho-inspired art, I'm curious.
45 Days Until... we make our April Fools Oscar Predictions for 2013 and it all begins again. Noooooooooo (I mean "yes!")
51 Days Until... Mad Men Season Six premieres. Vulture has an interesting schedule for how to get caught up before the premiere but hurry because you're already two days behind. 
98 Days Until... Richard Linklater's Before Midnight the sequel to the utterly magical Before Sunrise & Before Sunset hits movie theaters
111 Days Until... my birthday. What are you getting me? How about a subscription to the site (see sidebar)
133 Days Until... Pedro Almodóvar's I'm So Excited hits movie theaters (in the US). I guess I better get cracking on that Pedro retrospective I promised y'all.

*in case you needed a reason(s) to go on living.