Viva Pedro.

Sony Pictures Classics is re-releasing brand new prints of eight films by Pedro Almodóvar - to theaters, mind you - and they're calling the series Viva Pedro. Indeed. Consider this a sort of online browsing and viewing tip. The trailer is... okay (and here's a QuickTime version). I would have preferred to see five or six minutes of clips from the films rather than artwork floating around for a minute and a half, but if you click on "The Films," you'll see that Sony does seem to be planning to add trailers for each of them.

And they are, by the way, evidently in order of their re-release: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988; to be re-released on August 11), All About My Mother (1999; 8/25), Talk to Her (2002; 9/1), Flower of My Secret (1995; 9/8), Live Flesh (1996; 9/15), Law of Desire (1987; 9/22), Matador (1986; 9/29) and Bad Education (2004; 10/6).

Updated through 8/12.

Volver, in the meantime, Almodóvar's latest (Cannes reviews), is slated for a November 3 release in NY and LA, opening wider in the rest of the country over the year-end holidays. But it's just opened in Germany (I hope to catch it within the next few days), and Der Spiegel translates its review. On August 25, it'll open in the UK; the Guardian's Simon Hattenstone interviews Penélope Cruz.

Updates, 8/8: Richard Gibson posts a photo at If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger....

There are two Pedros, argues Michael Atkinson in the Voice, and it's hardly surprising that this retrospective is cuddling up to the safe one.

And, via Alison Willmore at the IFC Blog, New York's breakdown of the series into "The Okay," "The Good" and "The Superior."

Updates, 8/9: Charlotte Cripps previews an Almodóvar mini-season in London for the Independent.

Writing for Movie City News, Stephen Holt finds the series a blast.

Updates, 8/12: Writing at Zoom In Online, Reid Rosefelt has several bones to pick with Michael Atkinson.

David Gritten has a feature-length interview with Almodóvar in the Telegraph.

With "Viva Pedro," Reverse Shot launches a new "Retro" series, beginning with James Crawford's take on Women on the Verge.

Posted by dwhudson at August 6, 2006 9:54 AM