As we noted last week, we’re accelerating the rate of episode releases for a couple of weeks to make up for the lengthy gap in our recent output.
This week is the first of a series of films in which we look at both the foreign original version and compare it to the American English edition. This week we’re looking at Abre los Ojos (“Open Your Eyes”) and Vanilla Sky.
Abre los Ojos is a 1997 film directed by Alejandro AmenĂ¡bar, starring Eduardo Noriega and Penelope Cruz. Vanilla Sky is a 2001 remake directed by Cameron Crowe, and stars Tom Cruise and…suprise! Penelope Cruz again! Four stars and three of them pronounce their last names the same way. Not to mention that Vanilla Sky has Cameron Crowe and Cameron Diaz working together. So clearly the working environment for the latter film was a modern-day “Who’s on first?” routine.
At any rate, both of these films are so close to one another in plotline that Claude only had to write up one synopsis, which was a nice break for him. And in a few days we’re going to drop some bonus audio in which Claude throws a minor fit about certain streaming services. So you’ve got that to look forward to!
Finally, a little shout-out of thanks to Tina Cassano for her “backstage” help with getting us to understand some of the Spanish-based culture in Abre lo Ojos.