By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Screening Gotham: Aug. 11-13, 2006
A few of this weekend’s worthwhile cinematic happenings around New York:
–This weekend, Sony Classics begins warming up audiences for Pedro Almodovar’s exquisite new Volver by launching Viva Pedro, an eight-film touring retrospective of some of the director’s best-loved work. In lieu of his incomparable early triumph What Have I Done to Deserve This?, a few only slightly inferior titles are planned for the next two months at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, among them the perverse, brilliant sex-and-death romp Matador, the gorgeous coma-soap Talk to Her, and this weekend’s melodrama-of-choice, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
Viva Pedro is too immense and marvelous (and, yes, flawed) a program to profile in this space–or in any space, for that matter–but for all its unsurpassed technique, narrative ambition and humanity, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better summer offering. Art on this level feels like a privilege.
–It wasn’t so long ago I urged you to take in Margaret Brown’s documentary about Townes Van Zandt, Be Here to Love Me. Everything nine months old is new again, I guess, as the spare, intimate doc gets a revival at Makor. The bad news is that you won’t find one of Makor’s customary director Q&A’s (Brown is based in Austin), but on the bright side, you have two weekends to get over to the Upper West Side for a look. Procrastinators, rejoice.
–For the four or five of you who did not pile into BAM the other night to check out The Reeler’s Half Nelson preview, you are also in luck: It hits theaters today. Be the first on your block to forecast an Oscar nomination for Ryan Gosling; somebody seems to think it’s that time again.