"Pain and Glory" leads the European Film Award Nominations

by Nathaniel R

The European Film Awards will be held in Berlin in just one month (December 7th) and big names are nominated: Pedro Almodóvar, Antonio Banderas, Yorgos Lanthimos, Olivia Colman, Roman Polanski, and more. But the question is who will actually attend and who will win? The Oscar submitted titles from Spain (Pain and Glory) and Italy (The Traitor) lead the nominations along with Roman Polanski's An Officer and a Spy from France. Almodóvar is of course an old favourite of the EFAs. With the Pain & Glory nominations he's now up to 22 EFA nominations (he's won 6 times plus received a special honor). His movies have won the top prize twice (All About My Mother and Talk To Her) while Volver won an "audience" version of Best Film, too. 

A full list of nominations with more comments is after the jump...

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Beauty Break: Almodóvar's Eye Candy

by Cláudio Alves

César Vicente in PAIN & GLORY (2019).

Before Martin Scorsese ignited the internet's fury with his comments about the MCU, another master filmmaker had already made headlines with less than complimentary opinions on the matter. Back in April, before he took his glorious Pain & Glory to Cannes, Pedro Almodóvar criticized superhero movies for having no sexuality. According to the Spanish auteur, they are neutered.

When compared against his passionate filmography they are piteously sexless indeed. But so are most movies. Few filmmakers have explored the many permutations of desire as thoroughly as Almodóvar has, usually with a patina of irreverent queerness. From killers in skimpy white briefs to ballets of bulges and sculpted asses, his camera is always ready to lick an actor's body and crystalize them into divinities of wantonness.

You're invited to peruse the director's gallery of beautiful men, starting at the dawn of his career and ending with Pain & Glory's first bloom of desire. Come see Almodóvar's NSFW eye candy…

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Murtada talks "Pain & Glory"

The Film Experience representing on Turkish TV! Murtada appeared this weekend to discuss Pedro Almodovar's autofiction career reflection in Pain & Glory. Well done. (If you haven't yet caught Murtada's review, referenced here, check it out.)

Pain & Glory now playing in NYC, LA, DC, San Francisco, Chicago.
Oct 18^th Houston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Miami…
Oct 25^th Detroit, Austin, Seattle, Denver, Fort Meyers, New Jersey, Ontario…
Nov 1^st Atlanta, Fort Worth, Honolulu, Milwaukee, Santa Barbara...
Nov 8^th New Orleans, San Antonio, Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinatti, Des Moine...

Podcast: Judy's Pain & Glory

with Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R

 

Index (58 minutes)
00:01 Pain and Glory - Pedro Almodóvar's career, the moment we fell for the picture, and Antonio Banderas tender dazzling homage/star turn.
14:50 Oscar's Best International Feature competition. How they vote, movies we love, and what might get nominated.
27:27 Renée Zellweger as 'The World's Greatest Entertainer' in Judy. The performance and the film.
43:11 The Best Actress Race: Scarlett, Cynthia, Renee, Alfre, and more...

Related Reading/Listening
Murtada's Pain & Glory Review
Nathaniel's episodes of Las Culturistas
Foreign Submissions you can stream right now

 You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Pain and Glory, Judy

NYFF Review: Pain and Glory

by Murtada Elfadl

Salvador Mallo, the director and lead character in Pain and Glory, tells one of his actors that holding back tears in emotional scenes instead of crying makes actors better. Yet Pedro Almodóvar, who wrote and directed and based this film partially on his life, does not. He goes deep, he explores honestly and elicits a deeply emotional and cathartic reaction. 

In this thesis on his life and his work, he finds the generous space to include many of his collaborators in front and behind the camera. On screen we have Antonio Banderas as Mallo, Cecilia Roth, from All About My Mother (1999), appears as an actress from Mallo’s past who’s eager to work with him again. And most poignantly Peneope Cruz, his muse of many years and movies, plays a version of his mother...

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