Beauty vs Beast: Love Bound
Monday, November 28, 2016 at 3:00PM Jason from MNPP here back from turkey break and prepping a fresh "Beauty vs Beast" for y'all to feast upon. The Spanish provocateur Pedro Almodovar's latest film Julieta (which our pal Manuel reviewed right here via the New York Film Festival) opens in the U.S. in just a couple of weeks and so the Museum of Modern Art is celebrating all things Almodovar with a great big retrospective, starting tomorrow. The series runs through mid-December and they're showing pretty much everything he's made - don't miss out!
And so in turn for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" I'm asking you to look back to Almodovar's 1990 romantic comedy of kinky kidnapping, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (aka ¡Átame!) and its rope-crossed lovers -- Ricky (Antonio Banderas), fresh off the psych ward, and Marina (Victoria Abril), the actress and recovered drug addict who finds herself on the receiving end of Ricky's deranged affections.
PREVIOUSLY Last week's contest between Gaston and The Beast from Disney's Beauty & the Beast went back and forth and back and forth between the two big strapping hairy-chested menfolk in belle's life for awhile, but in the end true romance won out - y'all softies - and The Beast took it home with 55% of your vote. Said Nick T:
"Kudos to Gaston for having such a great song, but The Beast is such a lovely character. Even if my memory of him is blurrier, it's still warm."
Reader Comments (8)
Is there anyone more fuckable than Antonio Banderas in Átame!? Still his best work
LOVE Átame! I recently got to see it on the big screen for the first time in a double bill with Volver in my local arthouse cinema.
I had to vote for Marina. How gorgeous, sexy, vulnerable, romantic, funny and all-around great was Victoria Abril in this?!
I also voted for Marina, poor thing.
Confession: I saw Átame! as a double feature with... Parenthood!!! Can you imagine? Oh, I miss double features and their absurd pairings!
Still my favourite Almodovar! Victoria Abril was an absolute firecracker here.
Julieta is a bewitching film, indelible performances and such an intriguing structure.
If I were voting with my head I'd probably go for Marina, but my vote for Ricky was guided by more, um, prurient interests. I have no shame. I regret nothing.
Least favorite Almodovar. Although, I'm So Excited, was pretty bad.
One look at the young Antonio Banderas and I voted for him. A pure reflexive action. (I haven't even seen this film).
Antonio is one of my longest-standing crushes. No contest. No one beats Antonio.