Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

One of my stances – there are many – is that there should be no boring movies, ever. You can say a lot about Pedro Almodóvar’s controversial romance, which features Antonio Banderas as a lovesick kidnapper freshly released from his inpatient psychiatric stay and Victoria Abril as his film star object of affection, but you can never say it’s boring. Bold colors, a thought-provoking gender dynamic, and a BDSM miasma fogging up the lens: As his follow-up to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Almodóvar chose a real queer-ass straight movie to make. Catch this Queer Film Theory 101 screening for June, or forever wonder what might have been. – James Scott