The Skin I Live In

My Favorite Films Of 2011 - Rodrigo Perez

Topping my list of 2011’s #1stworldproblems was making a top 10 list. Such is the difficult life of having to see movies for free and then attempt to express something insightful about them. I have the same issue every year: feeling zero motivation to write a top 10 list and then of course, al...

Drew Taylor's Favorite Films Of 2011

2011 was undoubtedly the year of Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life." It just wasn't for me. After winning the Palme d'Or on the same day that I saw the movie, I was left feeling baffled. Like I had missed something.

Hope You Like Synths: The Best Scores & Soundtracks Of 2011

Way back in the day, The Playlist started as a site focused principally on the places where movies and music met, and in particular, on scores and soundtracks. We've widened our net in the intervening years simply because that sole focus felt too small and we're movie lovers just as much as ...

From Bloody Murders To Bridesmaid Speeches: The 25 Best Movie Moments Of 2011

The great Howard Hawks once famously said that what makes a good film is "three great scenes, and no bad ones." While we'd argue that that's not an absolute hard-and-fast rule, he wasn't far off. With 2011 providing a number of above-average films, there've been plenty of m...

Box Office: Slow Weekend As '80s Remakes 'Footloose' & 'The Thing' Open Soft; 'Real Steel' Stays #1

You put out one remake of an '80s movie during a slow weekend, and it’s not a big deal. You put out remakes of two niche early '80s hits on the same weekend, and audiences get the message. This weekend was the clearest example yet of studios offering reheated product, one of which was remains in pub...

In Theaters: '80s Night At The Multiplex With 'Footloose' & 'The Thing'

Kick off your Sunday shoes, dear readers, this weekend it's time to cut loose with "Footloose." And what's that? It's a remake-tastic weekend with "The Thing" also in theaters, if you enjoy your '80s nostalgia with body inhabiting aliens instead of nubile dancing teens. Also, Señor Almodóvar's lates...

The Films Of Pedro Almodóvar: A Retrospective

Pedro Almodóvar is one of the most respected filmmakers in the world, an Oscar winner whose films have become Cannes mainstays, and who's capable of attracting almost any talent that he'd like, despite having never made a film in the English language (although he says that one is on the one way soon). But his global reputation is all the more remarkable considering just how challenging his fare can be. His violent, sexual taboo-pushing early work is the most obvious example, but throughout his career his interest in gay issues, Sirk-ian melodrama, explicit sex and obsessive behavior has hardly been the kind of thing that usually makes the cha...

The Skin I Live In—movie review

NYFF '11: Pedro Almodóvar Talks The Identity And Gender Themes Of ‘The Skin I Live In’

Director Discusses Finding Humor In Tragedy, Differences Between Men And Women, And MoreWhen we first laid our eyes upon Pedro Almodóvar's "The Skin I Live In" at Cannes, we called it a film that "snaps between bright glittering glamour and dark, doomed horror," and emerges largely triumphant, "uniquely beautiful and distinctively imperfect." The reception for Almodóvar's latest in the Big Apple has been similarly apprehensive and appreciative; the audience's reaction at last Tuesday's press screening was a testament to the polarizing nature of the film. Almodóvar and stars Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya were present with a translator in to...