Tag: world cinema
Y Tu Mamá También
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Mexico, 2001
What’s odd about Y Tu Mamá También is how it can be so many things all at once: a road movie, a coming of age comedy, a sexy love story, a political critique. By way of illustration, this latter motif peppers the movie: there are soldiers and police and beggars and put-upon …
Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters)
Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Austria, 2007
A busy master forger, Salomon Sorowitsch is a man with little concern for political ideals. And that’s what keeps him alive when war breaks out and he ends up in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Receiving preferential treatment to other prisoners, Sorowitsch is given the task of forging the currency that will keep the …
Buena Vista Social Club
Director: Wim Wenders
Germany, 1999
Ry Cooder visited Cuba in 1996 to record sessions for an intended Afro-Cuban collaboration. The Africans never made it out of Mali leaving Cooder and World Circuit’s Nick Gold high and dry. What followed was pure serendipity: within three days Juan de Marcos González managed to put together an extraordinary collective of …
The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Germany, 2006
Crass Hollywood remakes of European art film aren’t often successful. The big budgets, the bigger country and the biggest names tend to kill off every single cell of zeitgeist in the original. And I can see that happening here, when they get sad-jowled Nicolas Cage to emote all over this …
Kika
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Spain, 1993
Déjà vu abounds in Kika, a brief return to the sort of hair-brained frivolity that characterised Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown. Parallels might also be drawn with Almodóvar’s ¡átame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) (1990), another film in which the director treats a sexual attack on a woman …
Law of Desire (La Ley del Deseo)
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Spain, 1987
There’s much to like about the performances in Law of Desire. Eusebio Poncela plays a marvellously ambivalent, sexually ambiguous film director as his insouciance gives way to raw emotion while Carmen Maura takes well to her role as his gold-hearted, rough diamond sister.
But the real turn here is delivered by Antonio Banderas …
High Heels (Tacones Lejanos)
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Spain, 1991
The early 90s represent a busy, transitionary period for Almodóvar. And during that period, he takes on multiple muses having apparently fallen out with Carmen Maura. His two key players are Marisa Paredes and the delectable Victoria Abril, both of whom spring up here to lead this oddball of a movie.
Abril is …
La Flor de mi Secreto (the Flower of my Secret)
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Spain, 1995
You get the very distinct sense when watching La Flor that Almodóvar is onto something. And so the maturity and virtuosity of his output has increased with each film ever since.
As a writer of great female parts, he’s blessed here with a strong performance from Marisa Paredes who as the protagonista Leo …
Memories of Murder
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Korea, 2003
Korean cinema is alive and kicking, emboldened and naive like a headstrong teenager with something to prove. One driver is undoubtedly a gutsy brew of high melodrama and truthful acting. Another might be that uniquely Korean gift for all things epic: simple, emotive storytelling with a keen directing wit.
Song Kang Ho …
Malèna
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Italy, 2000
It’s tempting to think of Malèna as a shrink-wrapped, ultra-compact, bitesize companion piece to Tornatore’s meandering, elegiac ode to movies Cinema Paradiso. But while both pictures feature protagonists still in the grip of childhood, what drives young Renato here is something less innocent and more erotic. For what’s barely hinted at in …
Elsewhere on MikePadgett.com …
Club nasty: a night to remember (other nights)
I used to frequent the After Dark club in Skipton years ago. Even if you don’t know the After Dark, you know it by another name: Aqua, Bliss and Crystals; Club Klass, …
- Originally published: 2 Feb 2009 in Editorial
York
York has been around since Roman times, when it was one of the principal settlements in Britain. Constantine the Great was declared emperor there in 306, following the death of his father …
- Originally published: 9 May 2008 in UK
Córdoba
Containing some 500,00 inhabitants, tenth century Córdoba was home to Europe’s largest urban population. The Caliphate, a dynasty of Ummayad rulers exiled from their Syrian homelands, held sway over rich hinterlands that supported …
- Originally published: 15 Apr 2008 in Europe
Brokeback Mountain
Director: Ang Lee United States, 2005 Apparently, for a time Brokeback Mountain became famous within Hollywood circles as “the greatest script that nobody greenlights”. Based on a story by Annie Proulx, writers Larry McMurtry …
- Originally published: 25 Mar 2007 in Film
Ronin
Director: John Frankenheimer United States, 1998 Ronin is the sort of movie whose mere suggestion would provoke a Pavlov’s Dog reaction amongst most serious moviegoers. Beautifully shot on location in Paris and France Sud …
- Originally published: 18 Jun 2007 in Film
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.