¡Peeeedro! #08

8. Bad Education (La Mala Educación)

Bad Education was the first film by Almodóvar I ever saw. I saw it when it opened in theaters. I was 15 years old, discovering my sexuality and it was possibly the first film in which I saw sex scenes with two men (the first film not involving a weak plot with a fireman or a plumber or something like that and 5 lines of dialogue altogether). And I remember having a huge... crush on Gael García Bernal. The film is exquisite specially when I revisited it knowing something about film noir. Almodóvar is a master at making his very diverse genres and this film is no exception. Filled with vibrant colors, drag queens, religion, filmmaking and, of course, the tensions between fiction and reality, this movie is greatly great. I mean García Bernal is a Femme Fatale!! How genius is that? And it is also remarkable how the lack of women is not deadly pernicious in an Almodovarian film...

Epic Romances (The Ineligibles)

Should I explain or the title says it all? I'm about to start a series featuring my favorite romances of the last decade and I have decided some standards that make some wonderful romances ineligible. And this post is for them.

Rule #1: No happy endings. Obviously SPOILERS

Ineligible 1: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The gorgeous story of Clementine and Joel has a happy ending but that doesn't make it less special. Anyway it will have to wait for another series...

Ineligible 2: WALL·E

The same goes for the tale of WALL·E and EVE and their ecological love.

Rule #2: Both parts must be obviously in love. Again SPOILERS

Ineligible 3: (500) Days of Summer

Even though it is totally impossible to understand Summer Finn never falls in love with Tom Hansen. Something is wrong with her (apart from that Ringo thing) but I cannot help loving her a big lot.

Rule #3: Last decade (2000-2009) NOT REALLY SPOILERS

Ineligible 4: Room in Rome

This wonderful drama by Julio Medem opened in Spain this year (2010) and so does not count as last decade. But it is really and incredibly wonderful...

And so these are the ones that didn't make the cut. But several did... Coming soon!