Political provocation: Though she's pretty competent in most aspects of her life, Gloria spontaneously arranges to have Miguel 'adopted' by an obviously pedophilic dentist (Javier Gurruchaga). Most outrageous moment: Flush with cash, Gloria's 14-year-old drug-dealing son (Juan Martínez) hires his prostitute neighbor to have sex with his gay older brother, Miguel (Miguel Ángel Herranz). (Oh yeah, there's also a subplot involving Hitler.)

Gloria's slow crawl out of the rut of daily humiliations and 18-hour workdays ends with a sudden burst of violence, a dramatic climax leavened by the comings (ahem) and goings of the sweet hooker (Verónica Forqué) next door. Too bad the guy can't get it up, forcing her to slump home more dejected than ever to her cramped apartment, domineering husband, cranky mother-in-law, and two distant teenage sons. In the opening scenes, Gloria (Carmen Maura), a cleaning woman, attempts to add some spice to her life by accepting an offer of casual sex at work. What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984): Family and sex coexist uncomfortably in this working-class, femme-empowerment tale. There's so much beauty in physical deterioration.' Political provocation: You can bet that the same institution that once had a list of books its members weren't allowed to read wasn't too happy about the depiction of drug-addicted lesbian nuns from a formerly ultra-Catholic country. Most outrageous moment: Mother Superior (Julieta Serrano) attempts to seduce the troubled singer by sharing her heroin. If sometimes shocking for its own sake, the film eventually finds its satirical edge in specificity, as when it parodies the self-mortifying practices of holy persons with names like Sister Sewer Rat, Sister Manure, and Sister Damned, or in the religious mysticism of a nun who induces 'visions' with LSD. Since Almodóvar has the Catholic Church in his sights, the nuns are revealed to be nihilists who aren't above proclaiming that Christ's blood is baked into their pies or selling hard drugs to pay the rent on their convent. Nominally about a nightclub singer (Cristina Sánchez Pascual) hiding out in a convent from thugs (nearly a decade before Whoopi Goldberg picked up her rosary in Sister Act), this black comedy is really centered on a group of secretly badass nuns who tame tigers, write bestselling erotic novels, and have affairs with other women - or priests.

By catching up with his comedies, we can appreciate a master auteur's artistic development, and discover how he's refashioned his recurring themes and tropes into dramatic material in his later films.ĭark Habits (1983): Cinema has yet to do justice to the spate of politically progressive nuns who are challenging the no-homo bromance of the Vatican, but Almodóvar's third feature comes close. However calculated to push buttons and break taboos, Almodóvar's comedies provide his female and gay protagonists with satisfying character arcs (and hilariously catty put-downs), offering a much-needed alternative to the redemption-of-an-asshole joke machines Hollywood turns out. But longtime fans know that the filmmaker first came by his international renown with a comedy, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and that those early, darkly comic films from the 1980s - about heartbroken but tenacious women, ditzily fun nymphomaniacs, sexually obsessed killers, and, most daringly, los gays - are his major contribution to the boundary-pushing milieu of Spain's post-dictatorship era and to the shaping of European cinema and culture today. Over the past two decades, Almodóvar's early comedies have gradually become the prolific director's hidden oeuvre, having been eclipsed by his elegantly garish melodramas. The 63-year-old filmmaker harks back to that past with his first comedy in nearly 25 years, I'm So Excited!, a lighthearted, ensemble-driven bit of escapism set 30,000 feet in the air. Before he was one of cinema's finest dramatists ( All About My Mother, Talk to Her, Volver, Broken Embraces), writer-director Pedro Almodóvar was a provocateur and a satirist.

Tv tropes my friend pedro