I can’t believe we haven’t seen a film in two weeks but it’s true. Anyway, Bronwen won a pair of tickets in her department raffle and so we saw this at the $925 a ticket (yikes!) Kendall. Nice art deco. The film is the latest from Pedro Almodovar and is another in his series of homages to classic genres, this one in film noir. It’s ‘about’ an actor who shows up at a director’s office and tells him he’s his long absent best friend/first lover. He’s got a story about their days in the school together and the priest who both molested him and expelled the director to keep them apart. Lots of remarkable twists and turns, as in any noir. As with all of his work, it’s set in the gay/transvestite/transsexual/junkie community and, as with the last few of his pieces, its primary role (beyond being a good film noir) is to normalize deviance and the community in Spain. A good film, with fine acting from folks who were also in “Y Tu Mama Tambien” and other Spanish language films (including “The Motorcycle Diaries”) although I don’t think it’s as good as everyone says. Very stylized and very analytical, but also emotional. As Bronwen says, it draws you in and then forces you to step away. Not as cold as something by, say Peter Greenaway, but the form entails considerable distance for the participants and the viewer