The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, May 10-16
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
A throwback to mother-daughter melodramas like Mildred Pierce, Imitation of Life and Autumn Sonata (the plot of which is recapped in one of lead Victoria Abril’s teary-eyed monologues), Almodóvar’s ninth film isn’t generally ranked among the best of his post-Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, pre-All About My Mother middle period, but when considered in isolation, this oft-daffy lark has surface pleasures (and some horrors) to spare and a plot that, after countless whatever-the-fuck twists, ultimately bows out on a moving note of unexpected emotional power. The acting from repeat Almodóvar appearers Abril and Marisa Paredes (who, as the Abril character’s Euro-famous torch song singer mother resembles the Joan Crawford of Pierce and, in her lackluster/overbearing parenting, the tabloid Ma Crawford of real life) carry it, covered in and surrounded by popping watermelon colors and set to various merengues, boleros, Miles Davis Spanish sketches and a Ryuichi Sakamoto score that Almodóvar purportedly disliked. Justin Stewart (May 12, 1:30pm; May 14, 1pm at the Quad’s Ryuchi Sakamoto series)