Word: var
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...integration of Venezuela into the Mercosur trade bloc and the creation of a Bank of the South to challenge the IMF. This has region-wide parallels on the ideological front in the form of teleSUR, a continental TV station to disseminate Bolivarian ideology.Simón Bolívar, the nineteenth-century liberator that inspires “Bolivarianism,” indeed dreamt of a single Latin America where language, Iberian heritage, and a predominant religion would allow for united polity. That is a fine dream, and further integration inspired in by the European model may very well...
What hasn't changed is the NC-17. Though the designation got a makeover in 1990--it used to be X--it still has the old, unfair tinge of porn. The big studios avoid it. Mostly it goes to sexually charged fare from world-class directors, like Pedro Almodvar's Bad Education ($5.2 million domestic) and Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers ($2.5 million). The one big, glitzy NC-17 movie, the 1995 Vegas-stripper epic Showgirls, cost $45 million to produce and earned just $20 million. That modest sum is the highest take ever...
Agrado is one of Almodóvar's great creations, and the avatar for his artistic message. Her name means pleasure, and she is a sort of Falstaffian clown - colorful, pleasure-seeking and lovable. She sees life as a bagatelle, not a soap opera. If there is a complaint to be made about this adaptation it is that Australian-born writer Samuel Adamson ultimately ignores the Agrado spirit by deciding in the final scenes to take himself and the play too seriously...
...adaptation of a masterpiece will draw criticism from those who believe great art should never be tampered with, such as one character in the play who scolds a painter for copying Picassos. But some elements of the Almodóvar original have been enhanced by the adaptation. The theme of fertility - of pregnancies and menopausal women - resonates in the dramatic space of the theater, which as the curtain rises is pregnant with possibility, but by the end is filled with emptiness, as the seats are vacated and the actors slip off-stage. It is also a joy to watch...
...forgive Adamson for attempting to stake out his own artistic ground at play's end, and choosing a burial plot for that purpose. But in so doing he abandons the Almodóvarian spirit, which always favors birth over death. In this adaptation's postmodern flux, Almodóvar's unique voice, upbeat even amid the direst human tragedies, ultimately goes missing. Which is a shame. After all, it's his voice, and the way from hurt to healing it describes, that we most want to hear...