It's tempting to see Pedro Almodóvar's career as one steady progression from early Warholian kitsch like Pepi, Luci, Bom to recent audience-pleasing, Oscar-winning standouts like All About My Mother. If so, then the breathtaking Talk To Her is easily his career apogee and deftly confirms his status as one of the world's foremost filmmakers.
A stand-out hit among the current new wave of globally fê ted Latin American features, Fabián Bielinsky's fine caper thriller fucks with audience perception like a pumped-up David Mamet puzzler. A motley team of conmen and crooked cops progress from petty shop swindles to plan a rare stamp heist, but as the stakes escalate and the cast of characters broadens, nagging questions about who's hoodwinking who throw up dazzling wheels within wheels.
It's easy to be cynical about a windy old narcissistic diva but less so to heckle one who's come back from a horrible brain disease: 18 months ago Minnelli was told she'd never walk or talk again. That she battled back to do these live shows at New York's Beacon Theater is the kind of courage that wins you a whole new audience, possibly even including some heterosexuals. On the other hand, if she's really unlucky, she might just get saddled with further Pet Shop Boys collaborations.
