Bad Education

[Ghostboy]

Reflecting on this movie, I quickly realized it was a lot better than my initial reaction. My full review is here.

[Fernando]

the score is phenomenal

This was fantastic.  
The credits are ace.

Agree, if I were a critic of EW I'd say 'There's nothing bad about Bad Education', and well there isn't, as his previous films (haven't seen Talk to her) performances, cinematography, score are really great.

I'd like to know in the not so distant future if Mac or Mini-Mac thought old Hitch was a big influence on this one, or how about you GB?

[cron]

Exactly what a friend of mine said.
He compared it to Vertigo a lot, a film I haven't seen.

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

[MacGuffin]

Pedro Almodovar on the Red Carpet Again



Pedro Almodovar has been down the red carpet before, but the director said it felt like the first time at the Hollywood premiere of his new film, "Bad Education."

"For me, premieres are like when you fall in love," Almodovar explained, speaking in Spanish. "It's like the first time in that it's going to last forever. So, in that sense, this premiere is like the first time I've premiered the movie, and that's the way I'm celebrating it."

The movie has been shown at film festivals in Moscow, Toronto, New York and Telluride, Colo.

"Bad Education" teams Gael Garcia Bernal and Fele Martinez in an often gritty examination on the effect of Franco-era religious schooling and sexual abuse on the lives of two longtime friends.

Hollywood isn't just talking about the 26-year-old Bernal, who also stars in Walter Salles' "The Motorcycle Diaries," they're saying good things.

"Really? Is that true?" Bernal asked at Sunday night's premiere. "I don't get to know that. I've been doing too many interviews to realize what goes on in the outside world."

Almodovar said he's not surprised that Bernal has been embraced by Tinseltown.

"Really, he's amazing. I think I give him very good luck," the director told AP Television News with a laugh. "No, truly, he deserves it. He's working very hard and very courageous and with risk, and I'm very glad that he's becoming so big here."

[ono]

'Bad Education' = NC-17
"Bad Education," the new film by Pedro Almodóvar, right, about two young boys who meet and fall in love in Franco-era Spain in the 1960's and are subject to abuse by a priest at school, has been given an NC-17 rating (no one 17 and under admitted), the Motion Picture Association of America announced yesterday. The two-second scene that elicited the rating appears early in the film and involves the head movements of a transvestite, played by Gael García Bernal, while performing oral sex. A publicist for "Bad Education," Jessica Uzzan, said that the director and producers had been alerted early on that this was an issue and argued it with the M.P.A.A. but that they had never considered cutting the scene. "It's a film for adults," Ms. Uzzan said. "Bad Education," loosely based on Mr. Almodóvar's upbringing and life, is to open in three theaters in New York on Friday and in Los Angeles on Dec. 10. CATHERINE BILLEY
~New York Times

[evaderhead]

Gael Garcia Bernal 's acting in the film was so nice...

[MacGuffin]

'Bad Education' NC-17 rating stands

Pedro Almodovar's latest film, "Bad Education," will carry an NC-17 rating, which says that no one under 17 will be admitted.

The MPAA Classification and Ratings Appeal Board said Tuesday that after listening to arguments from Ken Lemberger, consultant to the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, it has decided to uphold the ratings board's earlier decision to award the film an NC-17 rating, which it earned for what the board said is "a scene of explicit sexual content."

Almodovar's film, which delves into the issue of priestly sexual abuse within the context of a homoerotic film noir, received an 18 rating in Almodovar's native Spain, though other countries have rated it more leniently. According to IMDB.com, it has received a 12 rating in the Netherlands and a 15 in the United Kingdom.

Although the movie intentionally does not portray childhood sexual abuse, it does include a sexual encounter between two consenting adult men, played by Gael Garcia Bernal and Fele Martinez.
 
Sony Pictures Classics opened the film with an NC-17 rating last weekend in New York in three theaters, where it grossed a strong $147,370 for the weekend. The film, which is expected to figure in the upcoming awards season, opens Dec. 10 in Los Angeles.

SPC execs declined comment.

"Bad Education" is the second film that the specialty distributor has released this year with an NC-17 rating, following the Scottish film "Young Adam," which it released in April.

[bonanzataz]

Gael Garcia Bernal 's acting in the film was so nice...

if by "acting" you mean the way his ass looked in wet underwear then YEAH IT WAS!!!

this was a good movie. almodovar is cool. and i don't see how this got an nc-17 and kinsey got an r. that is all.

[pete]

MINOR spoiler

wow, what a director, almodovar.  I don't think anyone else's name appearing in the opening and ending credits have as much weight in a film as his does.  I hope I'm not being irrelatable when I say that it's so much easier to see this film as a part of his collective works than any other director; that you can see where exactly this film falls on his timeline and what it means to his career and evolution as a director.  Does anyone know what I mean or am I solo on this one?
I liked how the movie played like a mystery but you don't ever feel like you're watching a mystery until it is revealed.  that's pretty cool.  it's also quite mundane, how everything happened, and frankly, the ending didn't hit me until I thought about it while the credits rolled up.  then all of a sudden, the movie became so dark and so tremendous.  I hope people can see where I'm coming from.

[bonanzataz]

i know exactly what you're talking about, pete. i don't know if i would have liked this movie if i didn't know it was almodovar, but viewing it as a film within his oeuvre, i was blown away. i still need to see kika, high heels, and matador.

[modage]

SPOILERS SPOILERS EVERYWHERE!

i don't know if i would have liked this movie if i didn't know it was almodovar, but viewing it as a film within his oeuvre, i was blown away.

see, i am not particularly a fan, so this movie did little to sway me.  

The Hollywood Reporter: You have said this is a film about forbidden love. But people are also talking about child molestation and the abuses by the priests and the church.
Pedro Almodovar: I think the film makes itself very clear and puts everything in its place. People have talked a lot -- and maybe I have too by using the title "Bad Education," which refers to that part of the film -- about where I narrate the boys' lives at school with the priests. But that is one unit within six or seven more in the film. I think people that see the film know what I mean with the title. And I think the film doesn't even go against the church. What's more, I'd even say the opposite. I don't treat the priests poorly. I like lots of the characters in the film, but if I had to choose one, it would probably be that of the priest who falls madly in love and deposits his life in the hands of an adolescent. I don't mistreat the priests. You can see desire and faith mixed with shame. But that doesn't impede him from doing what he wants to do and abusing his power. In the end, he's a man who's in love with something that is forbidden. I'm agnostic; I don't believe in God. I didn't have that luck. But when I was little, I really enjoyed the religious ceremonies, and that is also visible in the film.

perhaps this is stirring up a similar controversy, as TTH did with the sympathy to the raper of the comatose, the way this film seemed to excuse the priest from 'loving' the boy was sick.  i also found the scene of the two boys jerking each other off to be in poor taste, and after thinking about it, not so much because they are gay and its forbidden as they are so young i shouldnt be watching this.  if it were a girl doing the same to a guy at their age, it would still be just wrong.

I'd like to know in the not so distant future if Mac or Mini-Mac thought old Hitch was a big influence on this one, or how about you GB?

other than the score and a few elements after the twist, i really was not feeling the hitch influence very much.  actually, had it not been for my reading that this was supposed to be like hitchcock or the psycho score i would have never placed that.
the opening credits were great, but my favorite part of the film unfortunately.  the score particularly during them was an adept rip-off of Bernard Hermanns often imitated Psycho score, which was fun but also unfortunately more intense than any particular scene in the movie.  it never seemed to rile up any emotion during 2 hours that rivaled the intensity of the opening credits.  thats a shame.  i liked the sort of 'twist' halfway through, not that it was that shocking but it was successful.  i dont know that its due at all to any sort of almodovar genius, so much as just better marketing keeping these details out of the synopsis/previews etc.  whereas, most movies you never have a chance to feel any sort of twists like that because its been spelled out for you before you enter the theatre (recent exception, also sucessful being MILLION DOLLAR BABY.)  so, it worked, but mostly because its a fairly small budgeted foreign movie i guess and not the latest george clooney vehicle or whatever.  i also didnt feel like i had any idea WHY juan was willing to go so far to do this.  just because he 'grew up in a small town with a transvestite brother' he was so willing to become a famous actor he was willing to have continual buttsex with two different people, not to mention murder his brother?  i mean, within the noir context, okay its the plot, deal with it thats fine.  but, i'm just saying i didnt really 'get' his character or why he acted that way other than 'its an almodovar movie'.  the long shot after the movie setup where he is crying, what was that about?  it seemed liek it should've been the 'end of the movie' shot, but wasnt.  so i cant say i felt there was much of a reason for it.  this movie was one notch gayer than alexander, but only a little.  so, there have been in all three of his films that i've seen, aspects that i want to like, so many elements that could add up to a movie i loved but it just never connects and builds something worthwhile for me.  it was okay, but just not my taste.  i guess to paraphrase Hanzel here, the movies he's created over the years, I don't really like them, but the fact that he's making them, I respect that.

[Jeremy Blackman]

MALA SPOILERS

i also didnt feel like i had any idea WHY juan was willing to go so far to do this . . . i mean, within the noir context, okay its the plot, deal with it thats fine. but, i'm just saying i didnt really 'get' his character or why he acted that way other than 'its an almodovar movie'.

Enrique didn't understand Juan either. (He kept talking about Juan's "enigma.") Anyway, we can come up with some explanations about Juan's motivations (see below), but the point is that he's mysterious. That's what's so great about this movie, it's irrationally mysterious and multi-layered, but it's just a character drama. It's a noir film without guns.

the long shot after the movie setup where he is crying, what was that about?

I think it was about him realizing that he really truly wanted to be his brother. That's probably why he killed him. And I'm sure the "killing Ignacio" scene brought back memories of killing Ignacio.

To make a Mulholland Drive analogy, Juan as Zahara is Betty to Ignacio's Diane.

he was so willing to become a famous actor he was willing to have continual buttsex with two different people, not to mention murder his brother? . . . this movie was one notch gayer than alexander, but only a little.

The "gayness" of the movie seems to bother you. Why?

[modage]

the gayness didnt bother me, but the excusing of pedophilia did.  the movie was only noir in the sense it took its plot twists, but it also managed to drain any actual tension or suspense out of it by turning it into a gay melodrama.

[Jeremy Blackman]

the gayness didnt bother me, but the excusing of pedophilia did.

When is the pedophilia excused? I don't think he even tries to explain it... he just describes it.

it also managed to drain any actual tension or suspense out of it by turning it into a gay melodrama.

I thought the suspense came from the melodrama (like it does in most Almodóvar films), but I guess there wouldn't be much suspense if you didn't get into the melodrama. You probably have to be prepared for a certain level of playfulness and grandiosity with an Almodóvar movie. Like the thing at the end explaining what happened to the characters... that was a bit much for me.