PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
Ok, I'll admit it. The only reason I went to see Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down when it came out was because it was one of the first films to feature an `NC-17' rating. I was a horny teenager back then. And, now I'm a horny adult, so I've graduated to Pedro Almodovar's latest flick Live Flesh (Carne Tremula).
The film opens in 1970 Madrid, when people apparently were too scared to be out on the streets. A hooker gives birth on an empty city bus, with her motherly pimp and the driver acting as birthing coaches. This is one of the funnier baby delivery gags I have seen in a while and is capped of the pimp (who resembles a Spanish Bea Arthur) gnawing the umbilical cord off with her mighty incisors.
Flash forward twenty years – bus baby grows up to be Victor Plaza (Liberto Rabal), a loveable oaf who wants only to start a relationship with a coked-up wench named Elena (Francesca Neri) that he shagged in the bathroom the previous weekend. Way to set your sights high, Victor!
The feelings that Victor has for Elena are not mutual and, upon his false entry into her apartment, the two struggle both aurally and physically. The police are called. Shots are fired. Victor goes to jail. The cop named David (Javier Bardem) is paralyzed and ends up marrying Elena. Poor Victor is forced to watch his beloved cheer for her new husband as her becomes a successful wheelchair basketball star.
Most of the film takes place two years later, when Victor is released from prison. He starts by having an affair with the wife of Javier's partner and it just gets wackier from there. By the way, Elena has made a miraculous transformation from Sandra Bernhardt to Dr. Quinn. She has even flattened and discontinued bleaching her foofy hair. I did even get that it was the same person, but I'm a frigging idiot. So there.
Doesn't sound like your typical movie, eh? It doesn't look like it either. Almodovar makes every scene look like a campy nightmare and can only be matched in style to the work of Wong Kar-wai (Happy Together). Live Flesh is a visual feast and, oh yeah, has some really hot sex scenes.
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