Will somebody explain the sheep and the bear? Luis Buñuel really knows how to disturb people. This, his most characteristic surreal drama proposes an impossible, irrational situation – which isn’t all that different from the reality we know. Petty social rules, jealousies and bitterness make life hell for group of dinner guests stuck with each other, caught in an existential trap.
The Exterminating Angel
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 459
1962 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 6, 2016 / 39.95
Starring Silvia Pinal, Jacqueline Andere, Augusto Benedicio, José Baviera, Antonio Bravo, Claudio Brook, Rosa Elena Durgel, Lucy Gallardo, Tito Junco .
Cinematography Gabriel Figueroa
Film Editor Carlos Savage
Original Music Raúl Lavista
Based on a story by Luis Alcoriza, Luis Buñuel
Produced by Gustavo Alatriste
Written and Directed by Luis Buñuel
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
That intransigent rebel imp Luis Buñuel never mellowed — after ten or so...
The Exterminating Angel
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 459
1962 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 6, 2016 / 39.95
Starring Silvia Pinal, Jacqueline Andere, Augusto Benedicio, José Baviera, Antonio Bravo, Claudio Brook, Rosa Elena Durgel, Lucy Gallardo, Tito Junco .
Cinematography Gabriel Figueroa
Film Editor Carlos Savage
Original Music Raúl Lavista
Based on a story by Luis Alcoriza, Luis Buñuel
Produced by Gustavo Alatriste
Written and Directed by Luis Buñuel
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
That intransigent rebel imp Luis Buñuel never mellowed — after ten or so...
- 12/6/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer
PARK CITY -- In answer to the question posed in the title of How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer, know that the three women experience life in ways that audiences should find amusing, touching and thoroughly enjoyable.
This one is a treat, although be forewarned that the rhythms of life in a small, sun-blasted Arizona town in mid-summer are slow. People take their time; there's nothing much to do other than to gossip or become the subject of that gossip. Fortunately, the Garcia girls do the latter.
A film that speaks about three generations within a Latino family and about female desire clearly has several audiences. Those who enjoyed the 2002 Sundance winner Real Women Have Curves will certainly embrace this one. Perhaps it's no coincidence that lovely and likable America Ferrera stars in both pictures.
Writer-director Georgina Garcia Riedel makes her feature debut here by expanding one of her short films. The title is tongue in cheek for the "girls" are actually the matriarch of the Garcia family, Dona Genoveva (Lucy Gallardo), a 70-year-old who decides old dogs can learn new tricks; her middle-aged daughter Rosa (Elizabeth Pena), a bitter divorcee grappling with loneliness; and one real girl, Rosa's 17-year-old daughter Blanca (Ferrera), just awakening to womanhood.
Grandmother starts life anew by purchasing a used car. She has never driven, but her gardener, Don Pedro (Jorge Carver Jr.), who is about her age, volunteers to teach her. The town soon takes notice of the two lurching through the back streets.
Then Rosa, fighting off depression and discouragement in her butcher shop, finds herself under romantic siege by the video shop owner (Steven Bauer) across the dusty street. What she fails to notice is the warm affection her butcher Jose Luis (Rick Najera) has for her.
A newcomer to town with a notorious reputation, Sal Juarez (Leo Minaya), cruises by Blanca in his cousin's pick-up often enough that one day she gets in. He turns out to be more sensitive and attentive than she imagined.
Riedel weaves the three plot strands together so each reflects and plays off the others. Seldom has sexual desire by women found its way to the screen with such poignancy and power. That a teen has hormones buzzing inside her is no surprise. But Riedel dares to depict a much older woman still in desperate need for the physical expression of affection.
Clearly her three actresses trusted her in areas where much could go wrong. Their reward is three indelible performances that speak to the yearnings of women of all ages. The tenderness with which Riedel shows the sometimes comical, sometimes emotional inner lives of the Garcia girls is doubly refreshing at a time when cinema seemingly can explore every side to sexuality except that of love.
Riedel possesses a rigorous though unhurried style that gives the sleepy town a hazy beauty. She favors few camera angles per scene and is content to let actors dwell within the frame in virtually still poses. Movement is kept to a minimum as the play of emotions happens in the actors' faces and in the sharp dialogue.
All tech credits are first rate.
HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS SPENT THEIR SUMMER
Loosely Based Pictures
Credits:
Writer/director: Georgina Garcia Riedel
Producers: Georgina Garcia Reidel, Olga Arana, Jose C. Mangualo
Executive producers: Nieves Riedel, David Riedel
Director of photography: Tobias Datum
Production designer: Elizabeth Calienas
Costume designer: Swinda Reichelt
Editor: Sean Robert Olson
Cast:
Lolita: Elizabeth Pena
Blanca: America Ferrera
Dona Genoveva: Lucy Gallardo
Don Pedro: Jorge Cevera, Jr.
Sal Juarez: Leo Minaya
Victor Reyes: Steven Bauer
Jose Luis: Rick Najera
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 128 minutes...
This one is a treat, although be forewarned that the rhythms of life in a small, sun-blasted Arizona town in mid-summer are slow. People take their time; there's nothing much to do other than to gossip or become the subject of that gossip. Fortunately, the Garcia girls do the latter.
A film that speaks about three generations within a Latino family and about female desire clearly has several audiences. Those who enjoyed the 2002 Sundance winner Real Women Have Curves will certainly embrace this one. Perhaps it's no coincidence that lovely and likable America Ferrera stars in both pictures.
Writer-director Georgina Garcia Riedel makes her feature debut here by expanding one of her short films. The title is tongue in cheek for the "girls" are actually the matriarch of the Garcia family, Dona Genoveva (Lucy Gallardo), a 70-year-old who decides old dogs can learn new tricks; her middle-aged daughter Rosa (Elizabeth Pena), a bitter divorcee grappling with loneliness; and one real girl, Rosa's 17-year-old daughter Blanca (Ferrera), just awakening to womanhood.
Grandmother starts life anew by purchasing a used car. She has never driven, but her gardener, Don Pedro (Jorge Carver Jr.), who is about her age, volunteers to teach her. The town soon takes notice of the two lurching through the back streets.
Then Rosa, fighting off depression and discouragement in her butcher shop, finds herself under romantic siege by the video shop owner (Steven Bauer) across the dusty street. What she fails to notice is the warm affection her butcher Jose Luis (Rick Najera) has for her.
A newcomer to town with a notorious reputation, Sal Juarez (Leo Minaya), cruises by Blanca in his cousin's pick-up often enough that one day she gets in. He turns out to be more sensitive and attentive than she imagined.
Riedel weaves the three plot strands together so each reflects and plays off the others. Seldom has sexual desire by women found its way to the screen with such poignancy and power. That a teen has hormones buzzing inside her is no surprise. But Riedel dares to depict a much older woman still in desperate need for the physical expression of affection.
Clearly her three actresses trusted her in areas where much could go wrong. Their reward is three indelible performances that speak to the yearnings of women of all ages. The tenderness with which Riedel shows the sometimes comical, sometimes emotional inner lives of the Garcia girls is doubly refreshing at a time when cinema seemingly can explore every side to sexuality except that of love.
Riedel possesses a rigorous though unhurried style that gives the sleepy town a hazy beauty. She favors few camera angles per scene and is content to let actors dwell within the frame in virtually still poses. Movement is kept to a minimum as the play of emotions happens in the actors' faces and in the sharp dialogue.
All tech credits are first rate.
HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS SPENT THEIR SUMMER
Loosely Based Pictures
Credits:
Writer/director: Georgina Garcia Riedel
Producers: Georgina Garcia Reidel, Olga Arana, Jose C. Mangualo
Executive producers: Nieves Riedel, David Riedel
Director of photography: Tobias Datum
Production designer: Elizabeth Calienas
Costume designer: Swinda Reichelt
Editor: Sean Robert Olson
Cast:
Lolita: Elizabeth Pena
Blanca: America Ferrera
Dona Genoveva: Lucy Gallardo
Don Pedro: Jorge Cevera, Jr.
Sal Juarez: Leo Minaya
Victor Reyes: Steven Bauer
Jose Luis: Rick Najera
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 128 minutes...
- 1/25/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Ferrera sets her 'Summer' plans for indie
America Ferrera, the breakout star of HBO Films' Real Women Have Curves, is set to star in the indie How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer for first-time director Georgina Garcia Riedel. The story, penned by Riedel, follows three generations of women in a Mexican-American family during one hot summer in the small border town of Somerton, Ariz. When Dona Genoveva (Lucy Gallardo), the Garcia family matriarch, purchases a car, she sets off a chain of events that leads to a sexual revolution within her family, from her middle-aged daughter to her teenage granddaughter (Ferrera). Elizabeth Pena is in negotiations to star alongside Ferrera as the middle-aged daughter.
- 10/22/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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