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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 - 9 Comments »

DP/30: The Skin I Live In, actors Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya

SPOILER WARNING!!! We try not to talk about the surprises in the movie too much… but it’s impossible.

9 Comments »

9 Responses to “DP/30: The Skin I Live In, actors Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya”

  1. jennab says:
    October 13, 2011 at 11:24 am

    An EXCELLENT DP/30! Banderas is astonishingly thoughtful and articulate, with some sort of multiple for that charming accent. Anaya equally so. Movie sounds creepy as hell, but this interview may have persuaded me to see it. Well done! Did I miss the Almodovar interview, or is it coming?

  2. Bob Giovanelli says:
    October 13, 2011 at 1:44 pm

    I haven’t watched too many of your DP/30s, but if they’re as good as this was, I’ll keep watching. After seeing the film at the NY Film Festival press/industry screening this week, I was curious to see Antonio talk this afternoon at the Apple Store on the upper west side. Glad I watched this on a day I need to take a break from all things film festivals (combining a Hamptons Film Festival visit too this week with working NYFF)…as your interview with he and Elena was probably more entertaining than the crowded Apple Store will no doubt be in a half hour from now.

  3. Driver says:
    October 13, 2011 at 3:41 pm

    Broadway Bob?! Flip the block…

  4. Peter says:
    October 13, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    I don’t understand many critics consider The Skin I Live In as a lesser Pedro movie. If anything, it’s more entertaining and fun than most. It’s completely ludicrous, but so much fun to watch. No one can do melodrama better than Pedro.

  5. David Poland says:
    October 13, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    It’s a great movie. And the people who don’t enjoy it’s pleasures need the stick removed from their collective buttocks.

  6. Breedlove says:
    October 14, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    Almodovar is easily one of the ten best filmmakers in the world. I have a hard time picturing him making a bad movie, or even a mediocre one at this point.

  7. Krillian says:
    October 14, 2011 at 8:11 pm

    Kinda angry that the third act is what it is, because I read about a year ago what I thought was the basic plot; now I see it’s the Big Surprise of 2011.

  8. The Pope says:
    October 15, 2011 at 5:44 am

    Sorry I’m not cheering from the gallery. I’m a big, big fan of Pedro and agree with Breedlove that he is one the ten best on the planet… but… I wasn’t involved in this one. Then again, he has been on such a searing run for the last 10 years, maybe I’ve become a little spoiled.

    My god, Elena Anaya is stunning, achingly beautiful.

    Great interview David, thanks.

  9. movieman says:
    December 12, 2011 at 8:25 am

    Does anyone else think that “Skin” is getting the short end of the stick this awards season?
    Almodovar is so dependably great, and so wildly prolific, that people (critics and audiences alike) have begun taking him for granted.
    Call it the “Woody Allen Curse.”

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“I don’t really think, Sean, that you need to know about my various sexual liaisons. Or that anyone else needs to. I did write about them. I filled a hundred pages of Moleskine notebooks with my one-night stands, my affairs. But I decided they didn’t belong in a professional memoir. First of all, these are real people we’re talking about. Many of them were enjoyable. Some were abject failures. My wife said to me when she read the pages, ‘Of what purpose is this in a memoir? Of what purpose is this other than to titillate?’ The point is, I never see them. It’s because I have nothing in common with them, frankly. And probably didn’t at the time. I could not provide a sensible reason why I married these women. The thing is, in the case of my marriages, it takes two people to fuck up a marriage. It wasn’t simply the fault of these women that I lost interest in them and realised they were insignificant relationships. Which is how I look at them right now–as being insignificant. I see them as blips.”
~ William Friedkin On Cutting Interviewers Off At The Sass

“I have to imagine from Mr. Spielberg’s point of view, the paradigm shift in the 1970s was just the new “normal,” a “halcyon era” from which we are straying in the 21st century–because theatrical exhibition is tenuous (as it has been since the 1940s), the home video market has dried up and people are watching pirated movies on their phone. Spielberg’s coming-of-age era was for him the halcyon period that the 21st century “implosion” will cause to go “crashing into the ground.” But he is wrong. The market for movies is actually diverse and highly segmented–although from the top-down movie industry vantage point and media punditry you would not think this to be true.  Would we really mourn for Mr. Spielberg or ourselves if Lincoln would have been made for cable or had played on public television?  Is it bad for humanity that cable television is creating wonderful, resonant stories in long-form series that people want to watch at home on TV (or streamed onto their computer)? I don’t think so, but it is a paradigm shift and it might affect people’s theatrical moviegoing habits. Televisions in people’s homes have had that effect for seven decades–it is not a new phenomenon. As Art House cinema impresarios we need to focus on what WE can do at our theaters and in our communities. It is not productive for us to fret over what pundits say or about what well-meaning filmmakers like the Stevens–Spielberg and Soderbergh–say. We should fret about what we can do in our communities. What we can do to support filmmakers.”
~ From A Response By Russ Collins, CEO, Michigan Theater–Ann Arbor And Director, Art House Convergence, To Mr. Spielberg