Amparo Baro Movies
Victor wants to be a famous actor and so has come to Madrid in search of work. There he meets representatives of a Hollywood film company. They want him to appear in their next film as a real macho man. Meanwhile Victor works for a phone sex company and is called by lonely, closeted plastic surgeon, Ricardo and his "wife" Amanda. This riotous Spanish comedy chronicles what happens when Victor and Amanda fall in love. To help her get a divorce, he offers to take incriminating photos of himself and Ricardo making love so that she can sue for divorce. When he learns that Amanda is not Ricardo's wife, Victor is very surprised. Meanwhile, the real wife, Angela and her lover, her husband's business partner, want to kill Ricardo. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Javier Bardem, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, (more)
- 1995
Little Felipe has been sick for a long time. To hasten his recovery, his parents send him to spend the summer of 1958 in the villa of his grandparents, located in the wealthy quarter of Cadiz. The warm climate of southern Spain is good for the boy, but the inhabitants of the great home may be a different story as all the relatives within are a tad strange. There Felipe meets his great-grandmother and her tough nurse Adoracion who patiently listens to grandmama's reminiscence's of the bandoleros who died for her. Felipe is not allowed to leave his bed, but his hours pass pleasantly thanks to the ministrations of the sexy Mari, a virgin, who loves to tease her four strapping aspiring lovers. As the summer progresses, Felipe interacts with all of his relatives and from their strange behavior finds himself learning an awful lot about life and love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1994
This Spanish film, shot in the lovely Huesca region, pokes gentle fun at the showbiz aspirations of five monks in a lonely monastery. When the grouchy old screenwriter cannot meet his deadline for the script for a new and already dull movie, he and his partner end up sequestered in a Spanish monastery. The five monks cannot help but add their two pesos worth every chance they get. The screenwriter also finds unwanted advice from the town baker who believes the script, which was set in 19th-century Scotland and written for Sean Connery, would be more interesting if it were a modern Spanish story with local settings. The baker, a pretty young woman, has many great ideas for the film. She, the screenwriter and his partner end up in a triangle that parallels the triangle in the story. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fernando Rey, Maribel Verdú, (more)
- 1989
Dora (Angela Molina) is a music-hall type singer who is more than a bit of a floozy. She goes out with lots of men, has sex with them, and quite appreciates it when they pay for it. She met the piano player Juan (Angel de Andres Lopez) during an air raid at the time of the Spanish Civil War. Later, the two of them meet quite by chance as they are both auditioning for a job with Mario (Manuel Bandera), a gay nightclub owner. Juan is in love with Dora despite her unchanged habit of going out with as many men as possible, and the two of them are also friends with Mario (who also goes out with as many men as possible). There is a nobleman whose attentions Mario at first entertains and then spurns. This prompts the gay nobleman's mother to swear revenge on him for breaking her darling son's heart. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ángela Molina, Ángel de Andrés Lopez, (more)
- 1987
In this idiomatically Spanish comedy, set in the woodlands of Galicia in the 1920s, a large cast of oddballs and fools somehow manage to carry on with their lives (and deaths). One of these odd ducks is a bandit who cannot quite manage to pull off a robbery, though the travelers he meets are quite obliging. Another is a ghost who wishes he had traveled to America before dying. Even a funeral is a source of laughter, as two spinster sisters send the dead one off into the afterworld with countless messages and admonitions for their deceased relatives. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alfredo Landa, Fernando Valverde, (more)
- 1987
The generals in this comedy probably got their positions the old-fashioned way: through having good connections (and/or lots of family money) and sufficient seniority. What is certain is that they have no affinity for the study of modern warfare, which is what they have been sent to do here. They have grown so used to maintaining themselves as superior beings that it comes as quite a shock to them when a mere lieutenant is allowed to show them just how ignorant they are. Some of them even start to understand that in an era of missile-delivered nuclear warheads, it's not very safe to be quite so out of touch. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fernando Rey, Héctor Alterio, (more)
- 1986
- R
Antonio (Jose M. Sacristan) is a vagabond traveler who hitches a ride into a small town. He takes a job in a restaurant before landing a better job in the local movie theater. Antonio remembers the owner as the woman who employed his acting troupe years before when he was a young child. He later gets mixed up in a plot to steal a valuable painting from a convent. The English title of Cara de Acelga is Spinach Face. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- José M. Sacristán, Fernando Fernán Gómez, (more)
- 1982
A group of nine middle-aged companions get off the train from Madrid to begin a bicycle tour of the Guadarrama Mountains -- the same bike tour they took together 24 years before. Only this time, instead of halcyon memories and pastel-shaded visions of natural beauty, the nine start to bicker among themselves, petty concerns take over the day, and in the end, none of the group seem to be either happy or accomplished in anything at all -- they cannot even make a biking excursion hang together. When they do manage to ramble on (verbally and bicycling), the substance seems to have been let out of the dialogue like air out of a tire -- leaving the conversation flat as a pancake. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Amparo Baro, Maria Massip, (more)
- 1980
- PG
The complex relationship between a thirteen-year-old girl (Ana Torrent) and an old man living in lonely but wealthy splendor is the focus of this drama. Alejandro (Hector Alterio) spends his time playing chess on a computer, riding his horses, or enjoying classical music. His life starts to change under the influence of young Goyita (Torrent) who slowly becomes a friend and then begins to impose on him in not-so-subtle ways. First she wants him to burn his dead wife's clothing, and before long she intends to involve him in a plot of revenge against a Civil Guard. Torrent received a 1980 Best Actress award at the Montreal Film Festival for her performance. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Héctor Alterio, Ana Torrent, (more)
- 1978
Set in the late Franco era in a lonely region of northwestern Spain, this story examines the process by which a socially quite conservative "Miss Lonelyhearts" radio counsellor becomes a woman with a much broader view of life. The girl in question lives with her very religious sister in a large house and gives advice in keeping with the prevailing attitudes of the times. When a man seeks her out and determinedly woos her, she resists him, just as he resists everything she and her program stand for. Eventually, they have a tempestuous and even abusive short-lived affair. Despite the un-romantic ending of their relationship, something has stirred in her, and she questions her old ways of seeing things. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marilina Ross, Adolfo Marsillach, (more)
