In his latest movie, The Woman In Black, Dan traded his Hogwarts uniform for a totally new role as a Dad.
Natalia brings you the latest news on Adele’s interview with Anderson Cooper, Kristen Bell’s interview on Ellen is auto tuned, Ladyhawke’s latest music video and much more!
Natalia discusses what’s new with Pharrell Williams and her thoughts on Karl Lagerfeld’s mean comments towards Adele’s weight. She also shows a roster of animals behaving like humans and, wait until you see the new size of coffee available at Starbucks!
Natalia dishes the latest news on the Juno Awards nominees, the upcoming Spiderman 3D film starring Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield and is Katy Perry hooking up with Tim Tebow? Watch today’s episode to find out.
When The Kooks are in the studio they’re focused and most importantly, sober. Watch Hugh and Luke explain their reasoning below.
The Kooks released a new album called “Junk of the Heart,” and you would think Hugh and Luke would be very excited about it. Well, they seemed rather indifferent to be honest. We spoke about that and why they don’t care about critics.
Natalia dishes the latest in entertainment news on Joan Rivers, Lana Del Rey and a brand new trailer for the movie Hunger Games.
Natalia talks about how Snooki might be pregnant, Nicolas Cage’s Cage Rage, Elisabetta Canalis is dating Steve-O and more for Feb 1, 2012.
Natalia dishes the news on Miley Cyrus breaking her tailbone, a 100 year old woman who plays the Nintendo DS to stay young and Houston, Texas contemplating a statute of Beyonce.
David Beckham debuts a new line of underwear, the worst dressed celebrity – Shy’m and Matthew Broderick is back as Ferris Bueller with a brand new commercial airing during the Super Bowl on Feb 5th 2012.
Daniel Radcliffe is back with his new movie The Woman In Black. It’s a bone chilling remake of a film from the ’80s. Ironically, Daniel actually scares very easily but he’s not afraid of ghosts. In this interview he tells us what really gives him the creeps.
Next time you’re struggling to make conversation, try asking this question: “If you could invite anyone (living or dead) to the perfect house party, who would it be?”
Graffiti6 is starting to make their North American invasion, and they are hitting up the Tonight Show. Does this sound familiar? Well the Beatles made the exact same journey over 40 years ago. Naturally, @jordans_life had to make some comparisons.
Nick plays World of Warcraft. Not only that, he’s the head of his guild, demonstrating that it IS possible to juggle being a hardcore gamer with being a top-selling recording artist.
During a LIVE interview on andPOP.com Nick Carter gave out a number and took phone calls from his fans. These were real phone calls from real fans who we gave exclusive access to one of the biggest recording artists of our generation.
There were great questions about music, fitness, the backstreet boys but the most popular question, however, was about his underwear. In this clip Nick talks about his his ‘Haynes’ and covering his fans with glow in the dark paint.
When releasing new music today, half the battle is online promotion. However, contests, signed merch and giveaways aren’t always the best solutions. When working on their latest album, Hedley came up with a brilliant idea, they decided to make trailers.
It’s hard to prepare for an interview with Hedley. So in this interview, we threw caution to the wind, got a 24 of beer and broadcast the interview live on our USTREAM (andPOP.tv). Eventually Jacob, Dave and @jordans_life ended up talking about hairy legs, their newest music video and more.
Diamandis from Marina and The Diamonds talks to us about her very serious disease. It’s called synaesthetic. And we lied, it’s not a disease. More like a cool condition. Diamandis explains further.
Would you be embarrassed if someone scrolled through your iPod? We sit down with Spee and Brendan to talk about the diverse music on their playlist.
Roger Ebert once said the biggest change in films over the last couple of decades is that studios used to make the prestige pictures, and indies were these tiny little shock or exploitation flicks. Nowadays the studios make the shock or exploitation flicks, and we rely on indies to remind us what the cinema is still capable of.
This thought went through my head sometime between leaving the theatre that showed “Stranger Than Fiction,” and paying $4.25 again to see “Flushed Away.” Don’t get me wrong; they’re great movies, but there’s a definite sameness to films that have been through the studio food processor. Even if “Stranger Than Fiction” partly manages to avoid its formula (at least for the first half), and “Flushed Away” is an example of it done really well, both ultimately feel like old hat. I was left with sudden cravings for a story where the characters didn’t resemble people I’d met before, where the plot didn’t go exactly where I expected, and where the revelations were actually revealing. I needed, in short, an indie, or at least a foreign film, and “Volver” (“to return”) fit the bill nicely.
“Volver” is the latest from Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar, whose films (his most famous on these shores are 2002′s “Talk to Her” and 1999′s “All About My Mother”) I’m not familiar with, but if this movie’s any indication, I’d better start seeking them out. It’s built on one of those wonderfully creative but incredibly low-budget concepts that indie filmmakers wish they had more of: after their mother’s funeral, a pair of daughters (Penelope Cruz and Lola Duenas) are visited by her ghost, who helps them sort a few simmering personal problems out.
This is brilliant partly because it leads to a great story, and partly because it’s easy to have an actual actress (Carmen Maura, apparently an early muse of Almodovar’s who’s working with him for the first time in 17 years) interact with Cruz and Duenas and say she’s dead; no extra expense is needed to infuse the movie with an element of the supernatural.
The protagonist, so to speak, is Cruz as the younger sister, Raimunda. Early in the film her husband loses his job, walks out, and she’s left scrambling for the means to support herself and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Paula (the excellent Yohana Cobo).
Compounding Raimunda’s frustration is that she’s also lost her aunt and mother figure, Tia (Chus Lampreave). Raimunda didn’t have a good relationship with her mother, and when she loses her husband, a rift of sorts is created between her and her daughter. Also, by not attending her aunt’s funeral (because of the shock over her husband) her sister starts hating her. So a large part of the movie is Raimunda getting a job and healing her relationships with everyone.
But the movie is also about Sole, who runs an illegal salon out of her house so she doesn’t have to pay extra rent and who, it’s implied, went through a bad breakup herself two years ago (neither of these elements are explored in any detail, however). She is the first to be visited by her mother, and both characters get screentime equal to Raimunda’s.
The film is also about the sisters’ pot-smoking, cancer-stricken neighbour, Agustina (Blanca Portillo) whose mother has her own connection to the family and has been a source of strain on her daughter and her neighbours’ family.
And so the wheels are in place for one of those movies where technically nothing happens. And like the best of those movies, “nothing” is really everything, and the plot is moved forward by forces both outside (a friend of Raimunda’s heads off for a little while, leaving her in charge of his restaurant), and within as characters discover themselves. For me to reveal any more would spoil your enjoyment of the movie.
And it really is a wonderful movie. Almodovar’s screenplay includes elements of comedy, tragedy, suspense, and mysticism. There’s an understated ease to it all; you can tell everyone involved enjoyed being in and working on this movie, whether it’s the audience’s clapping during an impromptu musical performance or the palpable sadness when Maura’s character delivers the film’s most jawdropping revelation. Cruz has never given a more believable performance (Raimunda is a likable but extremely flawed character) or, it must be said, looked more beautiful.
To be fair, I love strong female protagonists. And one of my favourite types of movie is the type where nothing happens but everyone learns something. That said, provided you’re willing to put up with subtitles and deliberate pacing, I have a hard time believing any viewer would not be charmed by “Volver.”
4.5*/5*
