In Contention

Tag: Bad Education

  • THE LISTS: Top 10 NC-17 rated films

    Amid the recent kerfuffle over the Motion Picture Association of America’s curious decision to slap Derek Cianfrance’s sensitive marital drama (and Oscar hopeful) “Blue Valentine” with a commercially inhibiting NC-17 certificate, I failed to note that the MPAA’s most drastic rating celebrated rather a significant anniversary last week.

    October 5 made it 20 years since Philip Kaufman’s sexually explicit literary biopic “Henry & June,” the first film ever to be given the NC-17 classification, opened in US theaters.

    Like “Blue Valentine,” Kaufman’s film was a high-end prestige item aiming for critical kudos and even a shot at year-end awards (indeed, it did wind up nabbing a solitary Oscar bid) that the sage folks on the ratings board nonetheless deemed a little too adult for the adults.

    For decades before then, the X rating (now defunct, but still prevalent in everyday speech) had been their standby for such films — of which one, “Midnight Cowboy,” managed to override the X-rated stigma to win the Best Picture Oscar — but had since become too closely associated with grimy pornographic material.

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  • ‘A rollicking struggle, a joy to watch’

    Breathe, my fellow Almodovar devotees — the first reviews for “Broken Embraces” are in. While they’re not unqualified raves, it would appear that the master has pushed himself into new and challenging tonal and thematic territory, and the critics are duly appreciative.

    Screen International’s Barry Byrne suggests that it will delight fans and befuddle others, but isn’t that usually the case with auteur works as singular and stylised as Almodovar’s? Extracts from Byrne’s measured take on the film (beware of spoilers, however):

    The film is awash with references to the noir genre, Italian neo-realism and even to Almodóvar’s own quirky oeuvre. Stylistic nods to films including Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place and Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful form part of Almodovar’s valentine to cinema.

    Fans of Almodovar will get plenty of what they expect here – rich saturated colours, hyper plotting, stylistic pyrotechnics and off-centre comedy. But there are carefully nuanced male characters too and the bleak, distant tone coupled with the unassuaged pain of the leads is a new departure for the director.

    In the more successful first half of the film he elegantly pulls it off … (but) With the action moving ponderously towards a baffling denouement, we enter the terrain of high melodrama.

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