Sitting in a trendily-shabby art cinema, seeing Almodovar's La Mala Educacion on an intentionally modest-sized screen with exquisite sound system (the setup du jour for the repackaged, mainstream-chic experience that art cinema has become), I was filled with two emotions: boredom and rage.
Boredom at the painfully mediocre film I was being subjected to - Almodovar gleefully pleasures himself on screen, content in the knowledge that throngs of trendy thick-rimmed glasses-wearing disciples will follow him to the end of the earth regardless of the sloppy writing, thoughtless direction, and textbook cinematography he shiftlessly assembles whilst greedily grabbing for any Hitchcock devices he could manage to steal from the filmmaker's general store. Plot is a lost concept...you can almost hear him in a hackneyed Spanish accent questioning "Plot? What is this...how you say...plot? What a funny word!"
Rage, however, at the eagerness with which the trendy Buddies Holly delight in swallowing every ounce of the film whole as per Almodovar's instructions on the side of the bottle. Rage at the haughty smile on the ticket vendor's face as he graciously grants me the ticket to True Cinema. Rage at the disdain upon his face as I loudly denounce the film upon my exit.
Bad Education is the perfect example of the commodity that is Art Cinema Gone Wild. The neatly-packaged, inspiration-impoverished per-pound trade good that independent or pure cinema has revamped itself to become. It was a horrible, shallow, confused film that could only conceivably be valued for the opportunity to gaze at sexually ambivalent attractive Spanish men. I spit upon this film, and upon the masses who eagerly applaud it.
Boredom at the painfully mediocre film I was being subjected to - Almodovar gleefully pleasures himself on screen, content in the knowledge that throngs of trendy thick-rimmed glasses-wearing disciples will follow him to the end of the earth regardless of the sloppy writing, thoughtless direction, and textbook cinematography he shiftlessly assembles whilst greedily grabbing for any Hitchcock devices he could manage to steal from the filmmaker's general store. Plot is a lost concept...you can almost hear him in a hackneyed Spanish accent questioning "Plot? What is this...how you say...plot? What a funny word!"
Rage, however, at the eagerness with which the trendy Buddies Holly delight in swallowing every ounce of the film whole as per Almodovar's instructions on the side of the bottle. Rage at the haughty smile on the ticket vendor's face as he graciously grants me the ticket to True Cinema. Rage at the disdain upon his face as I loudly denounce the film upon my exit.
Bad Education is the perfect example of the commodity that is Art Cinema Gone Wild. The neatly-packaged, inspiration-impoverished per-pound trade good that independent or pure cinema has revamped itself to become. It was a horrible, shallow, confused film that could only conceivably be valued for the opportunity to gaze at sexually ambivalent attractive Spanish men. I spit upon this film, and upon the masses who eagerly applaud it.