My head is full of images from the extraordinary and dreamlike movie Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, by Alejandro González Iñárritu.
BARDO, OR THE ONE WHO LEFT
BANNED BOOKS AND COURAGEROUS PUBLISHERS
(This is part of my speech during the ceremony for the Voltaire Prize awarded by the International Publishers Association during the marvelous Guadalajara Book Fair)
SUCCESS IN THE TIME OF REGUETON
Two facts: The most streamed singer anywhere on the planet on the Internet last year was Bad Bunny. And his album, YHLQMDLG, was the most downloaded.
ROMA Wasnt Built in a Day
Time, or rather a lack of it, had always been the problem. The director Alfonso Cuarón wanted to make another film with Emmanuel Lubeski, the celebrated cinematographer and a close friend of his, known as El Chivo, but they wanted to do it at their own pace.
Of Heaven and Superhumans
If I were to suggest two books to read this year, they would be “Brief Answers to the Big Questions,” by the renowned cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who died in 2018, and “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” by the historian Yuval Noah Harari. Both present lucid insights into what might happen after we die and the stories we tell ourselves to explain why we die.
Guillermo del Toro’s Monsters
Guillermo del Toro was nervous. It was a Friday night in January, and he was waiting to see the first U.S. audience numbers for his film, “The Shape of Water.”
Our Modern ‘Cool-ture’
To be labeled “cool” — in the classic sense of the word — is a big compliment. In fact, being cool is much better than being smart, handsome, rich, respected or influential.
Singing to Cellphones
There they were, two of my musical idols, just a few feet away: Joan Manuel Serrat, whose music has been part of my life’s soundtrack, and Joaquin Sabina, whose lyrical realism and irony have inspired me for about a decade. I had great seats for their show in Miami, and I was delighted to be there. But something felt off.
Speaking With an Accent, Proudly
When Spanish actor Antonio Banderas made his first movie in the U.S., in 1992, he barely spoke English. In fact, in order to star in “The Mambo Kings,” he learned his lines phonetically.
George Clooney on the Pitfalls of Fame
BEVERLY HILLS, California – It’s no surprise that when people spot George Clooney, one of the most famous men on earth, they immediately approach him. But rather than trying to meet him by saying “hi” or shaking his hand, people often just take out their phones and start recording him.