Did you see Almodovar's Law of desire

A scene.

Yes, love it. Amodovar at his most Spanish and funniest. Carmen Maura is also great in it, and Banderas is beautiful and unspoiled. Really captures "La Movida Madrilena". This and "Women on the Verge" are my two favorite early Almodovar films.

[quote] A breakthrough role for Antonio Banderas

Through what did he break?

He broke into your consciousness?

I'm surprised the 'woke brigade' haven't cancelled this and Carmen Maura by now but I suppose it is too obscure for them.

Thought it was great when I saw it on its original release and it has held up over the years with repeat viewings. One of the many Almodovar gems and Banderas was at peak hottest in it. It was also the first Almodovar film I saw and its success led to the release of his earlier films.

R2, I have the same two favorites among the early Almodóvar films. It was as though he really put it all together with those two (Matador before them was about three-quarters of the way there). Then he backslid for a few after Law of Desire, before hitting his best phase. I like or love every film he's made starting with Live Flesh in '97, minus the return to farce for I'm So Excited (which has some laughs, but it was a "can't go home again" demonstration).

In both Law of Desire and Bad Education, there are similar scenes of a trans woman entering a church and confronting the priest who had molested her when she was a boy. It's interesting to compare those scenes.

I thought it very much like Hitchcock at first.

Eusebio may have been pretty in the 1960s but he was becoming desiccated by 1987.

I wondered whether Eusebio Poncela was the model for the actor Alberto in Pain and Glory, with whom director Salvador has had a long estrangement. Then they start hanging out again, and Salvador does a stage reading of something Alberto wrote. It's said the characters had a bitter break after making a film called Sabor in 1987. Salvador felt that Alberto's heroin use made his performance "heavy" and dragged the film down.

Poncela was never in another PA film after being in two back to back (Matador and Law of Desire), right around the same time.

^ "Alberto does a stage reading of something Salvador wrote," just to unscrambled the names.

[quote]Eusebio Poncela. He is skinny

Skinny? Yes, probably skinny to most 350-pound American people. He was a normal-sized guy with a full bush and unmutilated dong. Very sexy in the movie Arrebato (1979).

Is Eusebio gay IRL?

I found the answer myself. He is gay, he said in he interview that he was maricon.

"Through what did he break? He broke into your consciousness?"

I love Antonio as an actor, but I said I was into Eusebio. He wasn't classically handsome, but his smile and these eyes. And his fragility, makes you wanna take him in your arms and squeeze him.

And his body seemed rather nice and firm too in these scenes in bed and in the shower, when Antonio was washing him and telling him he wasn't allow to sleep with other guys anymore, take coke and had to lead a healthier life.

Is this streaming somewhere?

A year or two ago TCM played all of Almodovar's early movies on their Sunday night TCM Imports program. I loved "Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom" and especially "Dark Habits" (Julieta Serrano as the Mother Superior was fantastic!). To me, "Dark Habits" is a wonderful blend of the camp and the deeply emotional sides of his work.

Almodovar has a superb gift for portraying lesbian characters/lesbian relationships- see "Parallel Mothers". I actually think he's better at lesbians than gay male characters like in "Law of Desire" and "Bad Education".

R14, I don't know about streaming, but you can rent it for a few bucks from the usual places (Amazon Prime, Vudu, YouTube, Apple TV).

HBO Max did have almost the entire Pedrography for most of last year, but they scrolled off at the end of October.

Thank you for "Pedrography" r16, I am totally stealing that

It would be funny though to yell "Eusebio" in some passionate moment.

I guess Eusebio was named for Eusebius Pamphili, the 3rd century Greek historian of Christianity.

One of my favorite Almodovar films. And Carmen Maura was *amazing*.

Almodovar is the only interesting writer/director making movies this century.

I don't know of anyone remotely comparable.

I love how they all casually do coke

Using the little girl to lip synch is sheer genius

^^ another version

Banderas was SO hot in this movie. I knew as soon as I saw it he would be an international star.

There's a boy that's been on my mind All the time Eu-eu-sebio!

Just say the word, OH! Eu-eu-sebio!

Madonna developed her thing for Banderas from the movies of that period: Law of Desire, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! Pedro A. read her for filth in something he published a couple years ago.

^ He says "Madonna treated us like simpletons".

She asks "Does Banderas hit women?".

I saw it when it was first released, and the scene I remember most clearly, and fondly, is when Carmen Maura walks past a smoldering building and tells the firemen who are just finishing up, "Don't be shy. Hose me down!" Of course, they oblige her. I used to shop at a grocery store across the street from a fire station, and always wanted to stop and use that line...

Eusebio was 40 in this film. Looking younger, not a single wrinkle, as if he was a Dler. He only had thin hair, but it was the same in Arrebato, that was filmed a decade earlier.

I would have only cut his hair short, the rest was perfect.

Eusebio with Almodovar on the set.

^ Eusebio and Pedro had better be careful. The ratbag from the other thread will accuse them of being Repblicans.

R32 Two old MAGAt maricones Eusebio and Pedro.

Too bad that Eusebio isn't my age. I am in love with him since I have seen the film. We even share the same religion. I would take him to church.

Ok, there is a slight problem that our church is turbo homophobic.

R16 - FIOS is another place you can rent his films.

I have several of his titles (including both Labyrinth of Passion and Pepi, Luci, Boom) bookmarked.

R9 Is that an erection on the pic from this film Arrebato. This must be a mighty interesting film. Where can it be found, it isn't on Youtube.

R36 It's very much of its time. Overlong. Drug-taking and obsession.

I was fast-forwarding. The penis scene is about a third of the way in.

I wonder why Almodovar was seated separately from Penelope at tonight's Hollywood Bitchfight.

Did Pedro attend the Hollywood bitchfight™ (kudos) with his spouse Fernando?

Thank you R37. The film is freakish, but I am enjoying watching Eusebio's chest hair. Serves well to pull up a boring Monday in the office.

R15 I don’t even think that the characters in Parallel mothers were lesbian. Certainly not Penelope’s character. She was a straight woman, who gave in to some caresses of her young friend out of loneliness, empathy and since they already had a family together... It was more of a situational homosexuality, cause they were stuck together in the care for a child, like two men in prison, and they liked each other. To the younger girl it may have had some meaning, but it was completely one sided. And Penelope returned with the father of her child as soon as he left his wife.

While in the law of desire it is a homosexual story, no matter the complications.

R38 The Academy hates gays.

Bad Education and Women on the verge are my favourites. I have to admit that I may be when only one but ... I also really liked I’m so excited. Almodovar’s use of music is sublime, and I really love Javier Camara.

R43, I thought I'm So Excited was better than its rep. That musical number for the stewards was glorious, and of course he always has great casts. But it's his weakest since he really turned into a must-see in the late '90s. I think he was trying to tell a story and make his points the way he had in his early years, and maybe he couldn't get by with that kind of taboo farcical humor as easily by 2013.

Carmen Maura is fiercely brilliant in this. And I love his blueish-green shirt! For me, Pedro's earlier films are his best. They have a manic, zany energy while his later ones are more mature and slower-paced, stunningly photographed. All About My Mother was probably the closest he got to merging the two 'sides' of his career. I enjoyed I'm So Excited just because it was a trip back to his more irreverent side, and Camara and Roth were great as always.

My favourite of his films is 'What Have I Done To Deserve This?' It's a bit minimalist (mostly set in the one small apartment) but the cast are excellent and it really feels grimy and cheeky.

[quote]For me, Pedro's earlier films are his best. They have a manic, zany energy while his later ones are more mature and slower-paced, stunningly photographed. All About My Mother was probably the closest he got to merging the two 'sides' of his career

All About My Mother is his Annie Hall, for merging the two sides. These days, of course, it's dangerous even to bring up Allen (other than to say "I regret working with him"), but there was a time when there was that divide with his fans. Some people loved Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Husbands and Wives; others wished he would go back to making movies like Bananas, Sleeper, and Love and Death.

I prefer later Pedro, myself. I do like some of the earlier ones very much, but Live Flesh is where I feel it all starts to come together. I think his storytelling focus improved.

I have noticed that Almodovar, in two of his gay themed movies, Law of desire and Bad education, had a leading man who was a gifted and successful filmmaker, just like himself. It made it seem a bit autobiographic.

Both of these characters were played by slim blonde to light brown haired men, with firm and elongated figure. Cold and distant and elegant. While Pedro looked like a butcher's apprentice.

And both were tops in bed.

[quote] A breakthrough role for Antonio Banderas as an obsessed lover who doesn't take no for an answer. For the most of the film I dreaded him as a maniac and stalker, but in the end he shows as a romantic character.

Te voy a cantar las cuarenta.....

I love the whole carefree atmosphere: lots of coke, sex, etc etc

I stumbled into this when it played in my liberal arts college film night in a little auditorium. As a closeted little gayling, it began my obsession with Spanish men. Groundbreaking.

Almodovar fan here. I’ve been reading about him since 1990, right before he released his controversial movie, Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down. Around that time I also watched Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. I couldn’t find any of his gay related films til a few years later. I watched What Have I Done to Deserve This in 1994 and Law of Desire in 1995. All these years later I recall an interview of his that I read. He stated that Spanish society is matriarchal. At the time, myself living in a Hispanic society (foreign country), I didn’t grasp it. I was completely engrossed in the “woke” writings of the time that called for taking down the patriarchy. Now, thirty years later, living in a majority Hispanic U.S. city, I totally get it. Be warned.