Almodóvar's erotic 'Education'

Pedro Almodóvar's (of "Talk to Her" fame) newest film, "Bad Education," is a campy noir thriller told through three interwoven stories. \nThe first is the story of Enrique (Fele Martinéz), a film director, who is paid a visit by Ignacio, his grade school friend and first love. Ignacio (Gael García Bernal), now an actor, has a script he wants Enrique to read partially based on their relationship in grade school. The second story takes place in the imagination of Enrique as he reads the script. In this story, a transvestite, Ignacio (operating under the stage name Zahara) picks up a man while performing. After intercourse, Ignacio discovers the man is his childhood friend Enrique, who has written a script about Ignacio's sexual abuse at the hands of Father Manolo (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), the principal at the Catholic boarding school the boys attended. Ignacio steals the script and takes it to Father Manolo in an attempt to blackmail him. The third story takes place in the mind of Father Manolo as he reads part of the script. This story recounts the actual experiences of the real-life (in terms of the story) Ignacio and Enrique at the school.\nAs complicated as all of that sounds, the movie is actually quite easy to follow. Actually, the hardest thing to figure out about this movie is how it got the kiss of death NC-17 rating. "Bad Education" has its share of risqué moments, like two children giving each other hand jobs or a transvestite resplendent in a dress made to look like the naked female body (complete with pubic hair made from yarn). However, apparently the only difference between the NC-17 and R versions of the movie is that the oral sex scene is blurred out in the R version. This is insane since there is absolutely no nudity in the scene; it is just a head bobbing up and down. I guarantee that if this same scene featured a heterosexual couple, the MPAA would have had no problem with it.\nThere are plenty of special features on the DVD, including a couple of featurettes and commentary by Almodóvar. Overall, it's a pretty run-of-the-mill DVD release. \nThis is a very good movie as long as you don't mind a few uncomfortable moments (after seeing Ignacio sporting some extreme cleavage with his breast implants, I may have to seek some counseling). But, if you do decide to rent or buy "Bad Education" make sure you get the NC-17 version and not the pointlessly edited R version.