broken arms??

It's been almost six weeks since I last managed to find a movie that interested me enough to get me out to the cinema, and by last night, I was getting desperate.

A quick scan of yourmovies.com.au revealed an appalling shortage of appealling films - except for two! One was a Spanish movie whose title had me intrigued but a bit trepidatious - Los Abrazos Rotos - which, in my little-used Spanish, translated as 'Broken arms'; the other was a preview session of Nowhere Boy, starring the irresistable Kristen Scott-Thomas, but showing only at the Brighton Bay (in preview).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I opted for Kristen, raced around like a chook without a head to get ready in time to catch the 7:15 session, and drove down to Brighton, arriving at the ticket counter at 7:13 precisely! Everything had worked out beautifully - light traffic, good car park, there wasn't even a queue for tickets! - until I ordered my ticket... and was told that the movie isn't showing until Boxing Day!! Yes, apparently, *sometimes*, the online movie listings aren't correctly updated, and in fact, even though the Brighton Bay was reported to be showing three sessions per day of Nowhere Boy all week, it was in fact Nowhere to be found until Friday!

Not only did I waste a trip to Brighton, but I was now too late to get to another cinema in time to see Los Abrazos Rotos (which I had by now realised actually meant 'Broken embraces' - 'Abrazos', not 'Brazos' (arms)!

So today, determined to see a some film somewhere, I went straight from work to the Kino to see Broken Embraces.

It was great to get back to the cinema again! The movie wasn't bad. It was the first Pedro Almodovar film I've seen. The story was interesting, but it was a bit long... could have done with tighter editing, and perhaps 10 minutes or so cut. Penelope Cruz was great, though, and the story climax was pretty good, though the actual ending of the movie was a bit lame. I'd give it *** out of 5.