Palme d'Or winner The Square with Claes Bang. “Gobsmackingly weird” Cannes Film Festival favorite may have a tough time landing a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award nomination. As an aside, Ruben Östlund's comedy-drama is totally unrelated to Jehane Noujaim's 2013 Oscar-nominated political documentary of the same title, which refers […]

Sara Montiel Sara Montiel: Legendary Spanish movie and recording superstar dead at 85 Sara Montiel, a.k.a. Sarita Montiel a.k.a. Saritisima, one of the Spanish-speaking world's biggest film and recording stars, died yesterday, April 8, '13. Montiel, who was found dead by paramedics called to her house in Madrid's district of […]

'Dead Man Down' with Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace. 'Dead Man Down': Colin Farrell latest box office bomb Directed by Niels Arden Oplev, whose Swedish-made The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo became an international blockbuster, and starring Colin Farrell, whose box office standing has suffered a series of major setbacks […]

Miguel Ángel Silvestre in I'm So Excited. Pedro Almodóvar I'm So Excited trailer Pedro Almodóvar's upcoming movie, I'm So Excited / Los amantes pasajeros (literally, “passing lovers” and/or “passenger lovers”) has a new and full trailer. That's the good news. The not-so-good news (for non-Spanish speakers): it's in Spanish, without […]

Fernando Guillén dies: Pedro Almodóvar Collaborator, Goya Award winner for Don Juan in Hell Fernando Guillén, a Spanish acting legend whose film, stage, and television career spanned close to six decades, died of cancer earlier today at a Madrid hospital. The Barcelona-born Guillén was 81 according to the daily El […]

'Bad Education.' Bad Education: Pedro Almodóvar's complex, disturbing, brilliant gay film noir (in gorgeous color) One of Pedro Almodóvar's most accomplished, most complex, and most daring films, Bad Education / La Mala educación is a disturbing, but also immensely moving effort that cleverly twists all the conventions of the film […]

No Rest for the Wicked with José Coronado Pedro Almodóvar didn't have much luck at the Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Goya Awards this evening in Madrid: Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In won a total of four Goyas, but none for its director/writer. Starring Antonio Banderas […]

AFI FEST 2011 Guest Artistic Director Pedro Almodóvar has selected the following classic thrillers to be presented at the festival: Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face, Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Cercle rouge, Edmund Goulding's Nightmare Alley, and Robert Siodmak's The Killers. Why this particular quartet? “Because in some way, albeit tangentially, […]

Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya in Pedro Almodóvar's La piel que habito / The Skin I Live In The list of 19 films in competition for the 2011 Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or was announced earlier today. According to festival artistic director Thierry Fremaux and festival president Gilles Jacob, 1,715 entries […]

Penélope Cruz, Yohana Cobo in Volver. Best Foreign Language Films: Biggest Oscar Snubs #4a Barbra Streisand - 'Yentl' & 'The Prince of Tides': Biggest Oscar Snubs #5 I've always had a personal grudge against the Academy's rules & regulations for the Best Foreign Language Film category. I know I'm not […]

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Marc Forster's Quantum of Solace (top); Kristen Stewart as rocker Joan Jett in Floria Sigismondi's The Runaways (bottom) Daniel Craig will be playing (unfairly) disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist in the Hollywood version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. David Fincher is slated to […]

Vera Farmiga on the Oscars' Red Carpet. Best Supporting Actress nominee Vera Farmiga Vera Farmiga arrives at the 82nd Academy Awards, held on March 7, '10, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Farmiga was a Best Supporting Actress nominee for her performance in Jason Reitman's Up in the Air, also […]

Jeremy Renner in Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker. 'The Hurt Locker,' 'Up in the Air': WGA Awards The Writers Guild of America came up with some pretty shocking choices at their 2010 awards held this evening: Mark Boal's The Hurt Locker (directed by Kathryn Bigelow) for best original […]

Luis Tosar and Juan Oliver in Cell 211 (top); Rachel Weisz in Agora (middle, upper); Lola Dueñas, Pablo Pineda in Me Too (middle, lower); Penélope Cruz in Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces (bottom) Daniel Monzón's Celda 211 / Cell 211, a drama set during a prison riot, was the big winner […]

Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin in It's Complicated (top); Penélope Cruz, Lluís Homar in Broken Embraces (middle); Agnes Varda in The Beaches of Agnes (bottom) Which movies were totally ignored by the Academy? Which performers and filmmakers were ignored? The list is quite long, of course. Below are the most notable […]

Penélope Cruz in Broken Embraces (Emilio Pereda & Paola Ardizzoni / El Deseo / Sony Pictures Classics) (top); Jordi Mollà in El cónsul de Sodoma (Steinweg Emotion Pictures) (bottom) In the Spanish-language website Filmin, “questions without answers” are asked about the selections for the Spanish Academy's 2010 Goya Awards. A […]

Rachel Weisz in Agora (Mod Producciones) (top); Penélope Cruz in Broken Embraces (Emilio Pereda & Paola Ardizzoni / El Deseo / Sony Pictures Classics) (bottom) Daniel Monzón's prison drama Cell 211 and Alejandro Amenábar's historical blockbuster Ágora (a.k.a. Mists of Time), with respectively 16 and 13 nominations, are the two […]

Penélope Cruz in Broken Embraces (Emilio Pereda & Paola Ardizzoni / El Deseo / Sony Pictures Classics) The Spanish Academy's Goya Award nominations, the Writers Guild nominations, and the Vancouver Film Critics' winners are some of the film-award announcements to come in the next few days. Potential Goya nominees include […]

Penélope Cruz, José Luis Gómez in Broken Embraces (Emilio Pereda & Paola Ardizzoni / El Deseo / Sony Pictures Classics) (top); Catalina Saavedra in The Maid (Elephant Eye) (middle); Tahar Rahim in A Prophet (Roger Arpajou / Sony Pictures Classics) (bottom) Los Angeles' American Cinematheque will host the Hollywood Foreign […]

Betty White, Sandra Bullock in The Proposal (Kerry Hayes / Touchstone). Sandra Bullock, up for a best actress SAG Award for The Blind Side, will present the Screen Actors Guild's Life Achievement Award to Betty White at the 2010 Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony. White and Bullock worked together in […]

The White Ribbon by Michael Haneke. Six films are vying for the top prize at the 2009 European Film Awards. They are: Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, about a teenager (best actress nominee Katie Jarvis) upset that her mother has found herself a new boyfriend (Michael Fassbender) Stephen Daldry's The Reader, […]

Broken Embraces: Pedro Almodóvar on the set (top); Penélope Cruz as the heroine (bottom). In the mystery-melodrama, a director and his female star begin a passionate love affair that leads to all sorts of trouble. Wendy Ide in The [London] Times: “Certainly, it is unmistakably an Almodovar film. Nobody else […]

Penélope Cruz, seen above in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, will not look like this in Pedro Almodóvar's next film, Broken Embraces / Los Abrazos rotos, for the director asserts he doesn't want his leading lady to “repeat those [hairstyles] she has worn in other films.” On his website, Pedro […]

Pedro Almodóvar Pedro Almodóvar: Best-known Spanish film director According to a poll conducted by the Spanish-based SigmaDos, Pedro Almodóvar is the best-known modern-day Spanish film director in his home country, Zinema reports. That should come as no surprise to anyone anywhere in the world, of course. In fact, what's somewhat […]

This past Thursday, June 14, '07, one of the world's top directors of the last 25 years, Pedro Almodóvar, was presented with the title of Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, one of Italy's highest civilian honors. The Spanish director received the Commendation for his “contributions […]

Helen Mirren young: Hot future Queen back in the 1960s. Helen Mirren young: Hot future Queen Helen Mirren, the odds-on favorite to take home this year's Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in Stephen Frears' The Queen, is among the more than 100 Oscar 2007 nominees – including 16 […]

Volver with Penélope Cruz and Carmen Maura. Pedro Almodóvar mother-daughters comedy-drama Volver – literally, “To Return” – marks the filmmaker's Goya Awards comeback, topping five categories, including Best Picture and Best Director. Almodóvar had been at odds with the Spanish Academy after two of his most internationally acclaimed films – Best […]

Pan's Labyrinth with Doug Jones as the Faun. Whereas Pedro Almodóvar's Volver received on single Academy Award nomination – Penélope Cruz is up for Best Actress – Guillermo del Toro's Spanish-Mexican dark fantasy Pan's Labyrinth / El Laberinto del fauno has been shortlisted for a total of six Oscars, including Best Foreign […]

Captain Alatriste with Viggo Mortensen. The Spanish Academy's Goya Awards' top nominee, Agustín Díaz Yanes'  Captain Alatriste received a total of 15 nods, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay (Díaz Yanes), and Best Actor (Viggo Mortensen). Spanish-speaking U.S. performer Mortensen (The Lords of the Rings trilogy, A History of […]

European Film Awards: Penélope Cruz was the Best Actress winner for Pedro Almodóvar's unusual family comedy-drama Volver, which had previously earned Cruz – as a 21st century Anna Magnani – and fellow cast members Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, and Chus Lampreave an ensemble Best Actress award […]

Javier Bardem in The Sea Inside. In Alejandro Amenábar's euthanasia drama The Sea Inside / Mar adentro, Javier Bardem plays a tetraplegic Spaniard fighting for the right to end his life in a country where – like just about everywhere else –assisted suicide is legally akin to murder. One of the year's biggest […]

Culture clash German-Turkish drama Head-On with Birol Ünel and Sibel Kekilli. Directed by Fatih Akin, Head-On was the 2004 European Film Awards' Best Film winner – and a loser in all other European Film Academy categories for which it had been nominated. (In the non-official categories, the culture clash drama […]

Gael García Bernal in 'Bad Education': Mexican-Caribbean transvestite. Gael García Bernal quote: 'Bad Education' star and his 'inner transvestite' Oct. 2004: Mexican actor Gael García Bernal has recently discussed reports about his having a tough time during the production of Pedro Almodóvar's Bad Education / La mala educación because he […]