11:16 am By BiancaLaureano · Arts|Movies|Music|New York City · 2 Comments
30 Aug 2010Pedro Almodóvar’s film Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown has now become a Broadway musical with tickets on sale today at 10am. Beginning October 2, the press release announces the cast and states:
Now, WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN is a new musical based on the film. LCT’s Resident Director, Bartlett Sher, still happily reeling from his achievement on South Pacific, leads the extraordinary collaborators Jeffrey Lane (book) and David Yazbek (music and lyrics). Lane and Yazbek, the team behind Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, have taken Almodóvar’s tale and infused it with their own wry, comic style and an irresistible Spanish beat. Four celebrated designers will join them — Michael Yeargan (sets), Catherine Zuber (costumes), Brian MacDevitt (lighting) and Scott Lehrer (sound).
Both touching and hilarious, it’s a story about women and the men who pursue them… finding them, losing them, needing them, and rejecting them. At the center is Pepa (Sherie Rene Scott) whose friends and lovers are blazing a trail through 1980s Madrid. And why do they all keep showing up at her high-rise apartment? Gazpacho anyone?
Along with Pepa, there’s her missing (possibly philandering) lover, Ivan (Brian Stokes Mitchell); his ex-wife of questionable sanity, Lucia (Patti LuPone); Pepa’s friend, Candela (Laura Benanti), and her terrorist boyfriend; a power-suited lawyer (de’Adre Aziza) plus a taxi driver (Danny Burstein) who dispenses tissues, mints and advice in equal proportion. Mayhem and comic madness abound, balanced by the empathy and heart that are trademarks of Almodóvar’s work. And of Bartlett Sher’s too.
Remaining cast to be announced. Read more…
1:47 pm By BiancaLaureano · Arts|Events|Movies|New York City · Comments Off
16 Dec 2009
I just received this via the twitter account of NewYorkology:
@NewYorkology: RT @BAM_Brooklyn Just announced: Pedro Almodóvar will intro BROKEN EMBRACES this Fri at 6:40pm. http://ow.ly/MKGt
Tickets are on sale now and they will sell out! If you missed it, check out VL’s review of Los Abrazos Rotos/Broken Embraces.
foto credit: Jean-Baptiste Mondino for The New York Times via http://bit.ly/5oEJ09
2:05 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Culture|Movies|Spain|TV · 7 Comments
19 May 2009Pedro Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is considered a comedic masterpiece and is a personal favorite of mine. One might think I’d be excited about the premise of bringing it to television, but more than enthusiastic, I am feeling a bit tortured. This will be either the best or worst show ever:
Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar is venturing into television with a series adaptation of his first international hit, the Oscar-nominated 1988 feature “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”Fox TV Studios is developing the English-language hourlong project and has tapped Mimi Schmir to pen the pilot script. Almodovar and Schmir are exec producing [...]
The “Women” series “will be a suburban drama about a group of women who have known each other for a long time, perhaps from college, who are in the middle of their lives and looking at the second half of their lives,” Schmir said.
Like the movie, the series will feature a fair amount of humor. Schmir also is planning to pay homage to the movie by keeping some elements, like the film’s ongoing gag of unsuspecting visitors to the actress’ apartment being knocked out by sleeping pill-laden gazpacho she had intended for her philandering lover.
That sounds…boring. I am not going to judge too much before seeing it, but I think a lot about what makes Mujeres al borde special has to do with the when, where and who of the film. When? The 80s. Where? Downtown Madrid. Who? Some of the best comedic actors Spanish-speaking film as ever seen — and at their prime at that. How do you pull this off in a U.S. suburb? And furthermore, how do you make the premise worthy of an on-going series? I’m just not seeing it.
Have a look at the clip from the original classic and let us know if you think this show has any chance in hell of being good.
Via / The Hollywood Reporter
9:47 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|Movies · Comments Off
12 Dec 2007
Sometimes a pairing is just so perfect that no messing with the formula is needed. Such is the pairing of Spanish director Pedro Almodovar and Spanish actress Penelope Cruz. Yesterday, at the release of an album featuring music from his films, Almodovar confirmed that he and Penelope would be working together again on a film titled, Los abrazos rotos. Preproduction on the film, described as “a different crazy sort of love story” with its style taken from U.S. black films of the 1950′s, is set to start in the new year.
Via / Univision.com
8:38 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Chismes|Movies|Spain · Comments Off
19 Jul 2007
Rumor has it that Spanish film genius Pedro Almodovar(we heart him here at VL) is thinking about making a film in English with English actress Kate Winslet no less. The source of the chisme? A quote by Almodovar himself from a UK newspaper interview. He reportedly said:
What I’d really like to do is make Ian McEwan’s latest book into a film. And there is no shortage of British actresses to cast in it; I would definitely like to work with Kate Winslet who is a good friend of mine.
McEwan’s latest book is On Chesil Beach. I haven’t read it but I have to wonder: Almodovar’s gift has been his portrayals of pedacitos of Spanish life and culture andhe obviously has a deep well to draw from. Would such an adaptation of a foreign culture mas encima work?
Via / Film ick
2:05 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Movies · 3 Comments
10 Nov 2006
The latest child to spring from the mind of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, Volver (trailer after the jump), is not to be missed. The story, spun with bold intricate twists as only Almodóvar knows how, tells the story of three generations of women of La Mancha, Spain. The spectacular cast is led by la bella y talentosa Penelope Cruz in the role of Raimunda. Raimunda, like her mother played by Carmen Maura, like her sister played by Lola Dueñas, and like her daughter played by Yohana Cobo, have all been wronged by men and all hold secrets about just how deep those wrongs are. These wrongs committed by the nearly absent men are shrouded in further mystery by a culture of death.
But the culture of death presented here by Almodóvar and interpreted by the actors isn’t a dark one. Death and returning from the dead are as natural as life. In fact Almodóvar says that film is a tribute to the social rites practices by his people with regard to death and the dead and that making the film helped him look at death without fear, although he admits to not understand or accept it.
10:55 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Los Angeles|Movies|New York City · Comments Off
31 Oct 2006
Pedro Almovodar‘s unique Spanish vision has actually been touring the U.S. through the Viva Pedro restrospective for some time now, but finally audiences on both the East Coast and West Coast will get a taste of Pedro’s latest work of art, Volver. The film which has garnered both critical and popular acclaim throughout the world, including an Oscar nod, reunites Almodovar with Penelope Cruz in an all star female led cast.
1:06 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|Chismes|Spain · 3 Comments
10 Oct 2006
Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar shocked a few reporters in New York when he decided to comment on the relationship Penelope Cruz (known as Pe and one of Pedro’s muses) had with Tom Cruise:
Almodóvar said in a meeting with reporters that the actress’ career was damaged by the long relationship she maintained with the polemic Tom Cruise, current partner of Katie Holmes.The director also said that the roles that Cruz gets in the U.S. aren’t on par with her talent as an actress, and that in general she is offered scripts that cast her as “the pretty girl” instead of letting her develop all of her potential.
Penelope was Cruise’s faithful compaion for years, right after he divorced from actress Nicole Kidman. For Almodóvar, that relationship made the press “see Penelope in a bad light”. He thinks that many people, not only in the U.S., saw her as an opportunist, when that wasn’t the case and that Nicole Kidman could take advantage of her relationship to get good roles, but Penelope could not since “they saw her as the other woman”.
If Katie Holmes is reading this, I bet she’s saying “amen”. Tom Cruise is more a career liability than a help these days.
Meanwhile, Pe seems to be over all of that, happily dating Orlando Bloom and getting hit on by “drag kings”.
Via / El Semanal Digital
12:30 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|Chismes · 1 Comment
4 Oct 2006
Spanish actress Penelope Cruz is flying high with the success of her new film, Almodovar‘s Volver, and hasn’t wasted any time in replacing ex Matthew McConaughey after their split. She was rumored to be dating Adrian Brody, and now it seems she’s traded up for actor Orlando Bloom. Spain’s El Semanal Digital calls Penelope the country’s most eligible bachelorette:
After being romantically linked to actores such as Matt Damon, Nicolas Cage, Tom Cruise, Matthew McConaghey and Adrien Brody, our most international heartbreaker now has a new victim and, this time it’s an actor at the very height of his career.It seems that Orlando Bloom himself has fallen into the web of the sexy Spaniard, according to some revealing photos published in Cuore magazine.
Apparently, Penelope was introduced to Orlando by her good friend Salma Hayek.
Via / El Semanal Digital
Image via spettacolli.tiscali.it
5:17 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Arts|Celebrities|Events|Movies|Spain · Comments Off
17 May 2006
Famed Spanish cineasta Pedro Almodóvar, one of Spain’s most recognizable personalities, has been awarded the prestigious “Premio Principe de Asturias” prize for excellence in the arts.
Almodovar was chosen “both for his expertise and the honesty of his work, and for the joy and vitality of his scripts, and above all for implanting his roots, which are ours, too, into the society of a planet on the verge of a nervous breakdown and which straddles two centuries,” said the jury that awards the arts prize.“His work, rooted in a Spanish society which was opening up to deep changes, has gained a universal dimension through original language which is richly expressive and capable of synthesizing human complexity,” the jury added.
Almodovar described himself as “overwhelmed” and “undeserving” of the prize when he received the news at the Cannes Film Festival in France, where his latest film, “Volver” is competing for the festival’s top prize, the Palm D’or.
Previous Principe de Asturias prize winners include Woody Allen, JK Rowling, Nelson Mandela, and Arthur Miller. Almodóvar’s co-winners this year include Bill and Melinda Gates and the National Geographic Society.
Related:
Premio Principe de Asturias website
Via / Washington Post and 20 Minutos
VivirLatino is a daily publication published by Mamita Mala Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse Latin@ diaspora.
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