Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

"Has the kind of retro-sexist hook that can seem outrageous and provocative. Enlightened audiences may go for it precisely because they’ll have to do ideological somersaults to justify it."

"Almodovar allows his movies to moan and sweat and writhe. Sex looks like sex, not pornographic but messy and warm. The curtains do not billow, the sheets burn."

"Almodovar's polarities are so perfectly lined up in opposition to my own that it is quite possible for one of his movies to shoot right through my brain without striking a single cell."

"Mr. Almodovar's comic invention runs out too soon, leaving the audience to giggle weakly in anticipation of the big laughs and disorienting shocks that never arrive."