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Last night I watched one of Almodovar's earlier films, Live Flesh (Carne Tremula, 1997). Like all other Almodovar films (All About my Mother, Talk to Her, Volver), the plot was basically operatic. It took place in Madrid, which looks a lot like Vienna in this movie. I knew it starred Penelope Cruz, but I was surprised to see that Javier Bardem was also one of the main characters- a parapalegic cop who is both obsessed with his wife and playing (handicapped) basketball. Since this was 1997, there were a lot of cheesy architectural interiors as well as an unbelievable amount of tazmanian devil t-shirts (pretty much every scene). Remember those? I'm kind of glad they're not around anymore. But about the movie- it was really good (if you like high drama)! And Javier Bardem plays the role really well. So yeah, if you're looking for a movie...
In other news, I also saw 21 over the weekend (fun, but less good). It's that movie about vegas card-counting. Anyway, I looked up card-counting on Wikipedia and it's actually super-easy (although maybe less easy when a dealer's watching to see if you're doing it). Take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting
