Search for Luis

Words cannot express how weary I am of watching lifeless, hollow movies like My Life in Ruins - generic romantic comedies that have no clue when it comes to either "romance" or "comedy." The films aren't quite poorly enough made to label them "bad...

Parallel Mothers, Pedro Almodovar’s 15th movie since exploding onto the international scene with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, is two movies crammed into one and both suffer at least a little by having to share time with the other. ...

It has become tiresome to travel to a multiplex seemingly every other Friday to see the latest remake of a foreign horror film. For the most part, the problem isn't that these productions are remakes but that they're bad remakes. In some cases, t...

The Skin I Live In is an old-time horror movie told in anything but an old-time horror movie fashion by the iconoclast Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar. There’s a mad scientist, a faithful servant, a beautiful woman trapped in a prison, and...

If I were in a kind mood, I might say that The Specialist attempts to be an atmospheric, dramatic thriller. On the other hand, if I wanted to be truthful, I could note that this film has two obvious assets (both of which are used to maximum advant...

When it was released in 1961, Viridiana was seen as shocking by some, blasphemous by others, and even deemed controversial by those accustomed to European filmmakers coloring outside the lines. Today, the “edgy” and “envelope-pushing” ...

All the world is in love with Almodovar, or at least so he would have us believe. His full name is Pedro Almodovar, but no one bothers with the first name, least of all Pedro. His movies trumpet "A Film by Almodovar" with pride, and his latest, Vol...

The previews for When a Man Loves a Woman do this film an injustice. Heavy on poorly-edited melodramatic sequences, they give little inkling of the level of emotional honesty attained. Luis Mandoki's film succeeds not because it tackles alcoholis...