ICYMI - The Goya Nominations & Winners

by Nathaniel R

In case you missed them... and you might have because we forgot to share them, let's talk about the annual Goya Awards honoring Spanish cinema. Last season Pedro Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas's most recent collaboration Pain & Glory was the champ. To honor the 2020 film year, Banderas himself will direct and present the live-streamed ceremony in March 2021. This year the Africa-set drama Adú which is currently streaming on Netflix, and the girls school drama SchoolGirls lead the nominations with 14 and 9 nominations respectively.  UPDATE 3/ 8: Schoolgirls (or The Girls) took the top prize at the ceremony but it tied Adú in wins with 4 each. Coven (also known as Akelarre) won the most trophies with 5 craft wins.

The nominees and winners for the 35th annual Goyas and a few notes are after the jump...

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YNMS: The Young Pope

by Laurence Barber

In the wake of House of Cards' success, it seems networks have all been clamouring to make shows about other worlds that are full of their own political intrigue. Netflix itself has the Gerard Depardieu-starring Marseille, which French critics savaged and everyone else mostly ignored, and the upcoming The Crown. In other ways, shows like Mr. Robot and UnReal seem partially derivative of this trend despite updating and resituating it. Now, in a joint production, Sky, Canal+ and HBO have teamed up to produce the latest project from Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino: The Young Pope...

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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?

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I Want To Squeeze You, Please You

JA from MNPP here - I don't want to speak for Nathaniel, but I can't imagine him having to do one of his patented "Yes No Maybe So" takes on this here first teaser for Pedro Almodovar's next flick, a comedy called I'm So Excited - as in The Pointer Sisters' big hit song, which we see some male flight attendants perform therein. I can't imagine Nat having to to a "Yes No Maybe So" since this is Almodovar, and it is always HELL YES with Almodovar. 

So I will just present it unto you, in hopes it can maybe put a smile on your face on this dreary horrible day. And I will add this informational nugget - I stole pizza from a pizza party that The Pointer Sisters were having during a drag show I attended when I was in college in the late 90s, and that's all this song ever makes me think of. So thanks for the pizza, ladies!

[UPDATE: The comedy about a flight where passengers begin to reveal their secrets to one another when the plane runs into trouble will feature familar Pedro regulars Javier Cámara (Talk to Her), Lola Dueñas (Volver) Cecilia Roth (All About My Mother), Carmen Machi (Broken Embraces) and a lot of new blood. Actors doing just their second tour of duty for the great auteur including Paz Vega ("Amparo" in Talk to Her), José Luis Torrijo (a doctor in All About My Mother), Antonio de la Torre ("Paco" in Volver) and Blanca Suarez ("Norma" in The Skin I Live In). We will also see quite a few Pedro virgins, most of them male: Hugo Silva, Miguel Angel Silvestre, Raúl Arévalo, Willy Toledo, José María Yazpik, Carlos Areces, and the lone new actress Laya Martí. What's more, according to Fotogramas, the comedy will also feature Pedro's movie star darlings Penelope Cruz & Antonio Banderas though they don't appear in this 47 second look.]