Pedro Party: The Music of Alberto Iglesias

We're celebrating Pedro Almodóvar all week. Here's Chris Feil on Pedro's standby composer...

Here at The Film Experience, ruminating on Pedro Almodóvar’s list of frequent collaborators would most likely find an actress’s name come up first. But aside from his onscreen talent, there is one now prolific relationship the director has that’s equally worth celebrating: composer Alberto Iglesias.

The Almodóvar/Iglesias collaboration is now ten films deep, dating back to 1995‘s The Flower of My Secret without a single gap film since. His work is inextricable from what Almodóvar creates on screen, a cohesive piece of the melodrama that enhances the tone rather than defining it. Let's discuss five favorites from his work after the jump...

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Happy National Sandwich Day!

What's your favorite sandwich?

Besides the artisinal classic Diego-Maribel-Gael, that is. Mine is the iconic grilled cheese though I also indulge in a little pastrami & swiss on occasion.

On this day in showbiz history...

1921 Charles Bronson of Death Wish and Dirty Dozen fame is born
1931 Monica Vitti born in Italy. You haven't lived until you've seen her mussing with her hair in L'Avventura
1952 Roseanne Barr is born in Utah of all places. Goes on to create one of the best and most important sitcoms of all time, Roseanne
1954 The first Godzilla movie opens. Many more will follow
1956 The Wizard of Oz gets its first television airing. Annual showings will become a beloved tradition that cements the movie's cultural legacy
1957 Hunky action icon Dolph Lundren born in Stockholm
1963 Popular Oscar winning documentarian Davis Guggenheim is born. His films include He Named Me Malala, An Inconvenient Truth, and Waiting for Superman
1964 Awesome Danish actress Paprika Steen is born. If you've never seen her work rent The Celebration (1998) and Applause (2009) immediately to start
1995 Jodie Foster's still underrated very funny Home for the Holidays with Holly Hunter in great comic form opens in theaters
1998 Shakespeare in Love premieres in New York. After an extremely heated still divisive Oscar battle over its next few months it wins Best Picture, a decision we co-sign here at TFE since The Truman Show wasn't nominated. On this day also Bob Kane, the co-creator of Batman, dies. To think that the last Batman movie in his lifetime was Batman and Robin, poor guy.

Let's all agree that Volver is a masterpiece (and not just a masterwork of cleavage appreciation)

2006 Pedro Almodóvar's Volver (2006) opens in New York and Los Angeles. Becomes one of his most popular movies, nabs Penélope Cruz her first Oscar nomination, and remains one of the best films of the Aughts and of Pedro's career. It's utterly embarrassing that Oscar didn't nominate it for Best Foreign Language Film 

and one year from today...
2017 Thor: Ragnarok opens 

Chus Lampreave (1930-2016)

Almodóvar aficionados, like you and I, have been dreading this day. But every great movie face eventually only still flickers on screens and in our memories. The great Chus Lampreave, so memorable in so many Pedro Almodóvar movies, has died at 85 years of age. She had been home bound recently in Almería.

Her film career began when Pedro was just a pre-teen. She was given her first acting job by the director Jaime de Armiñán. Like many directors after him, he worked with her repeatedly, including in the Oscar nominated film My Dearest Senorita (1972). She came to international fame via her relationship with Pedro Almodóvar though. She joined his troupe early on as one of his subversive nuns in Dark Habits (1983). She was always easy to spot with those coke bottle glasses, that tiny frame and inimitable voice. Dark Habits was the first of eight collaborations with Pedro over the next 26 years in which her comic timing and deliciously matter-of-fact next door neighbor / elderly relative charisma were always put to great use. After Dark Habits she appeared in Labyrinth of Passion, Matador, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, The Flower of My Secret, Talk to Her, Volver and Broken Embraces.

After the jump a bit more plus photos of some of her most memorable roles...

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I have to...

...dispose of some evidence. I mean, I have to... I... something came up. I'm just busy, okay? It's better for you if you don't know too much.