Almodovar’s Latest Movie: Giddy Fun
Some personas got giddy last week when I posted the trailer from Almodovar’s new movie, “I’m So Excited!” (It opens tomorrow in Spain and June 28 in the U.S.) Perhaps they will be even more jazzed to see the film when they read this review from Spain’s leading newspaper, El Pais, which like much of the Spanish establishment doesn’t always appreciate its native son. The paper says: ‘As they’ve matured and deepened over the years, Pedro Almodóvar’s films have also grown darker: within the noirish stylings of “Broken Embraces” and the quasi-horror of “The Skin I Live In,” his two most recent offerings, lie some of the blackest recesses of his filmography. It has led some, not least the director himself, to ask what ever happened to the light-hearted Almodóvar? To all those crazy junkie nuns, desperate housewives and other creations who once made us laugh so much? To all those earlier, funnier ones? And so we have “I’m So Excited,” heralded as his first straight-up comedy since “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” 25 years ago. From its 1980s videogame-tinged opening titles, camper-than-camp characters — led by a trio of bitching male flight attendants — and lip-synched interludes, it’s an unashamedly self-conscious attempt to lighten up and relive past glories.’
