The Water Cooler Gang continues their Most Iconic Directors series with a look at Pedro Almodóvar’s Oscar-winner for screenplay Talk To Her.
This week, we continue The Almodóvar Series as part of our Most Iconic Directors series. This is, of course, our monthly look at the films and legacy of Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar. June’s title (yes, recorded in July) is his 2002 Oscar winner for original screenplay Talk To Her. The film brought Almodóvar his first Oscar for screenplay after winning Best Foreign Language Film for All About My Mother. Talk To Her breaks away from Almodovar’s stable of regular actors and stars Javier Cámara and Darío Grandinetti, and both actors would go on perform in later Almodóvar films. We talk about how Talk To Her marks a shift away from his female-centered films, focusing on two men and the women in comas on which they obsess. We also talk about viewing the film from a 2020 lens and its general themes with special guest Brian Susbielles.
Next month’s entry will be Almodóvar’s NC-17 rated Bad Education with guest Nathaniel Rogers.
But first, we continue our weekly therapy session, Corona(virus) Corner. Here, as always, we share what we’ve been watching since we’ve been sheltering at home.
We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
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This is a so amazing film… it was a travesty that it was not nominated for Picture and that Javier Cámara did not even get a nomination either as lead or supporting. I am completely over the ridiculous fact that Spain chose Mondays in the Sun (a great but inferior film) both for the Oscar submission and also for Best Picture at the Goyas (a reaction to the ultra-conservative government back them, was the most likely explanation, along with the odd but understandable consideration of Pedro Almodovar because of his persona, by his peers of the Spanish Academy)… I still think it is not Almodovar’s best (close 2nd though after Women on the Verge) neither the Best Picture of 2002 (Bowling for Columbine and Chicago, on top of Talk to Her, in my book), but it certainly deserved to be nominated for Picture, Director, Actor (I’d say Lead, Javier Cámara), Original Screenplay (deserved win), Score, Cinematography, Film Editing and Foreign Language (if it had been submitted, it should have won)