Movie Marketing Monday

The Skin I Live In

After bringing the world films such as Matador and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Pedro Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas reunite for this film about a plastic surgeon on the hunt for the men who raped his daughter. If Almodóvar is attached to a film then you know it will be an automatic must see for me.




Our Idiot Brother

Hollywood’s obsession with grown men acting like children continues. I do like the casting choices in the film though.

Countdown to TIFF: 2002 in Review

TIFF 2002

2002 was the year that I started to infect my friends with the film festival bug. I was able to share my knowledge in regards to the selection process, theatre locations, type of food and drink to have, etc. While 2001 had it far share of great films, 2002 completely blew it out of the water. The amount of exceptional films was simply staggering. On a personal note, this was also the year when the term “The Whale Riders” officially became a part of the festival lexicon between my friend and I.

While skimming through the program book to make our selections, my friend and I came across a film entitled Whale Rider. The picture in the book was of a young girl on a whale, and the description of the plot did not really peak our interest by any means. Instead we opted for a quirky Canadian film, Le Marais (The Marsh), which was playing at the same time. Even as we watched the director and cast of Whale Rider stroll into the Cumberland, while we stood in line for Le Marais, we were confident that we had made the right choice. It was only after sitting through that “weird goat-boy movie” that we realized we had made a grave mistake. Whale Rider not only turned out to be a phenomenal film but it was also the toast of the festival that year winning the People’s Choice Award for favourite film. We will always regret that decision hence the birth of “The Whale Riders.”

Total Number of Films Watched: 28

My Top 5:

Sweet Sixteen
Punch-Drunk Love
Spirited Away
Better Luck Tomorrow
Bowling for Columbine

Honourable Mention: Talk to Her, Secretary, In America, Dirty Pretty Things, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Blue Car, Phone Booth, The Magdalene Sisters, Laurel Canyon, Sex is Comedy

The Disappointments: Ginostra, Le Marais (The Marsh), Tycoon, Le Neg, Tuck Everlasting

The Whale Riders (aka. I regret passing on these films): Whale Rider, City of God, Far From Heaven, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Frida, Real Women Have Curves, Personal Velocity, Irreversible, Gerry, 8 Mile.

Memorable Moment: It is a tie between seeing P.T. Anderson and Adam Sandler at the Punch-Drunk Love screening and taking in my very first Midnight Madness Screening. When Adam Sandler arrived at the Uptown theatre it was absolute chaos. The media and fans were all trying to get photos of Sandler and ask him questions. The festival volunteers had to form two human chains in order to get the ticket holders into the theatre safely. Fortunately I was at the front of the line so I did not have to endure the madness for too long. Plus I was able to snag front row seats inside the theatre. After seeing Punch-Drunk Love the night before, I had five films lined up for the final day of the festival. It was a long day but I ended it off with a Midnight Madness screening of, a then unknown director, Eli Roth’s film Cabin Fever. I had heard stories about the Midnight Madness screenings before but nothing prepared me for the sheer fun that the experience brought. Cabin Fever may not be a great film, but I definitely had a lot of fun watching it with the Midnight Madness crowd.

Random Star Sightings: P.T. Anderson, Adam Sandler, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Duvall, Hayao Miyazaki, Roger Ebert, Joel Schumacher, Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader, Michael Moore, Sergi López, Niki Caro, Kesha Castle-Hughes, Peter Mullan, Lisa Cholodenko, Alessandro Nivola, Samatha Morton, Cliff Curtis, John Cho, Sung Kang, Justin Lin, Catherine Breillat, Chloë Sevigny, Vincent Gallo, David Strathairn, Agnes Bruckner, Philip Noyce

Recycled Material Cannot Mend Broken Embraces

Broken Embraces

For many directors, and audience members, there is a fine line between showing your appreciation for other’s works and overindulging in it. This is why so many people have issue with Quentin Tarantino’s films. Depending on the viewer, the originality in Tarantino’s productions can be loss amongst all his numerous winks and nods to specific genres. Pedro Almodóvar is another director, similar to Tarantino, who constantly injects his film with various references to films he love. The majority of which can be found in classic films from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Yet unlike Tarantino, Almodóvar has been more subtle about his approach, and many would say, more successful as well. Still, even a master like Pedro can fall into the realm of overindulgence as is the case with his film Broken Embraces.

Mateo Blanco and Harry Caine (Llíus Homar) share more than just a love for movies and writing. In fact they share the same body. Things are complicated even further by the fact that Mateo Blanco died fourteen years earlier. Despite Harry Caine’s, and his producing partner Judit (Blanco Portillo), best attempts to keep the circumstances surrounding Mateo’s death secret; the emergence of a young director, Ray X (Ruében Ochandiano), threatens to blow everything out of the water. Both Harry and Judit are forced to confront issues regarding Mateo’s affair with a wannabe actress named Lena (Penélope Cruz). Lena’s beauty is enough to make even the strongest man weak. Anyone lucky enough to have Lena, like Mateo and wealthy business man Ernesto (José Luis Gómez), find it extremely hard to let her go.

The thing about Broken Embraces is that the majority of it feels like a mishmash of scenes taken from better films. Heck, Almodóvar even lifts...err...reworks a scene from his own superior film, Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. While part of me was happy to see Cruz’s take on the film’s particular scene; the nostalgic moment did not enhance anything to Embraces overall plot. The film would still reach the same levels had it not been included.

This is not to say that Broken Embraces is an awful film... it is just a disappointing one. It plays more like comfort food than it does a truly satisfying meal. It is as if Almodóvar got so caught up in making a Hitchcockian film that he opted to just recycle his already well used plot devices to save time. All the classic Pedro Almodóvar themes (e.g. secrets, paternity issues, forbidden love, murder, etc.) are on display but they never excite the way you would expect it them to. The bulk of the film centers on a mystery fourteen years in the past. Unfortunately the mystery is one that will easily be solved by anyone who is familiar with Almodóvar’s previous works. It also does not help that he lays on the melodrama extra thick for this outing.

Granted even an average Almodóvar film, such as this, is still more engaging than the best works of lesser directors. The cast try their best to raise the film to the levels we have come to expect from Pedro. Penélope Cruz and Ruében Ochandiano are especially good in their respective roles. Yet even the performances can only go so far. Broken Embraces is a serviceable trip down memory lane for Almodóvar lovers but it hardly rivals his best works (i.e. All About My Mother, Volver, Talk to Her). If anything the film left made me want to revisit Almodóvar’s earlier films, such as Woman on the Verge, Live Flesh, Matador, etc., which were far more satisfying than this film.