Shameless Self Expression

Two unmarried women (Penelope Cruz, Milena Smit) are about to give birth in the same hospital and form a bond despite a fairly significant age difference. Some time after the birth, photographer Cruz feels something is up with her new baby. She just can’t help shake this uneasy feeling, especially since the baby looks neither like her nor the father (Israel Elejalde). So she arranges a covert DNA test and learns something most extraordinary and heartbreaking. Almodovar regular Rossy De Palma plays Cruz’s best friend.   Along with Jesus Franco and Hong Kong Cat III films, Pedro Almodovar ( “Tie Me Up!, Tie Me Down!” , “Dark Habits” ) was my very strange and kinky introduction to foreign-language cinema as a teenager, and the only one of the three with any kind of critical credibility. The former ‘Spanish bad boy’ and now critical darling has had a very eclectic career. I loved “The Skin I Live In” , and the likes of “All About My Mother” and “Talk to Her” were solid too, even ...

Set mostly in a Texas trailer park, Emile Hirsch plays a low-life with a significant gambling debt he can’t afford to pay. When his ne’er do well father (Thomas Haden Church) claims he’s unable to get that kind of money himself, Hirsch comes up with a desperate plan: His no-good mother has life insurance, with Hirsch’s aptly named sister Dottie (Juno Temple) as the beneficiary. Hirsch suggests hiring someone to bump mum off and split the insurance money. The guy Hirsch goes to for the job is a Texas police detective named Joe (Matthew McConaughey) who does some contract killing on the side. Problem is Joe is a creep who wants $25,000 up front, and when Hirsch can’t pay it, he decides he’ll take the virginal Dottie as a ‘retainer’ instead until the money can be paid. Gina Gershon plays Haden Church’s current wife, who also wants a cut of the money.   Adapted by Tracy Letts ( “Bug” ) from his own play, this 2011 film from esteemed director William Friedkin ( “The French Connectio...