Tag: spain
Sex and Lucía
Director: Julio Medem
Spain, 2001
Paz Vega’s Lucía is a wilful, independent woman whose romantic Achilles heel is the troubled writer Lorenzo. She could have breezed on through life as easily as crossing a sunlit plaza were it not for the extraordinary entanglements created by her errant scribe.
In view of Lucía’s strength of character, perhaps her infinite …
Dark Habits
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Spain, 1983
This colourful film, about a nightclub singer on the run who holes up in a convent only to find the nuns are worse sinners than her, is the first of Almodóvar’s oeuvre made with full production.
As if on cue, the set design is suddenly marvellous, the story detail considerably richer than …
Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Spain, 1988
This is a decorated film – five Goyas and an Oscar nomination – and an international breakthrough for the director, but it didn’t sit too well with me.
Almodóvar’s screwball comedy cocktail has all of the lurid colour but lacks the bitter edge that adds bite to his more emotive works. After …
Volver
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Spain, 2006
Almodóvar ‘returns’ once more with an(other) extraordinary story about women and he coaxes a fine performance from leading lady Penélope Cruz.
In Volver, the director substitutes the gaucheness of Bad Education for the emotionally involving characterisation of All About My Mother and the film is predictably unpredictable, with typically serpentine plotting.
Ultimately though, …
Pepi, Luci, Bom
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Spain, 1981
This is where it all began, the first in a long line of zany, colourful and passionate tales whose collective carnival forms the prodigious output of Almodóvar.
Pepi, Luci, Bom gels remarkably considering the conditions in which it was shot. It’s the story of three very different women in a world bursting with …
Elsewhere on MikePadgett.com …
Hardware store rudeness
Whilst passing through a hardware store a while ago, my boss noticed that all was not quite well at the stick-on letters rack display. …
- Originally published: 20 Oct 2005 in Personalia
The Yellow Cross
René Weis Penguin (first published 2001) The Inquisition weighs heavily in our modern impressions of an era in which cruelty, intolerance and ignorance reigned supreme for several centuries. Yet a growing body of academic …
- Originally published: 22 Aug 2008 in Books
The End of the Affair
Graham Greene Vintage (first published 1951) Greene was in his writing prime when The End of the Affair was published. The book can nonetheless be considered a transitional piece: it’s an early prospect of …
- Originally published: 17 Jan 2010 in Books
Cononley
Cononley is a small village on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park near Skipton in the UK. It’s also the village where I grew up. This was a very short, post-Christmas …
- Originally published: 31 Dec 2009 in Walking
A certain thirtysomething
This week it turns out I’m thirty years old. It doesn’t feel any different. Yet. No urge to buy a big, red, penis extension sports coupé. No inexplicable desire to leave J for …
- Originally published: 29 Jun 2009 in Personalia
Who is that guy?
Hello you. I'm Mike Padgett and I work in the technology sector as an Information Designer.
I also enjoy travel, concerts, films and walking.
I'm based in Brussels, Belgium. My current favourite Belgian beer is St Feuillien Brune.