The Almodóvar Series: 1990s ‘Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!’

This week, we’re continuing our Most Iconic Directors series with The Almodóvar Series, a monthly look at the films and legacy of Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar. April’s title is his 1990 dark romantic comedy Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, starring Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril. If you ever wondered what Stephen King’s Misery would look like as a romantic comedy, then this film gives you something of a taste. The central story involves a newly released mental patient (Banderas) who kidnaps an actress (Abril) he’s been obsessing about since an initial brief encounter. Almodóvar’s film features many of his usual touches – bright, vivid colors (particularly red) and strong female characters. Upon release in the United States, the film helped usher in the NC-17 rating. We talk about whether or not it would receive that rating today and more with special guest Jim Keller.

Next month’s entry will be Almodóvar’s first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother with special guest Erik Anderson of AwardsWatch.com.

But first, we continue our weekly therapy session, Corona(virus) Corner. Here, as always, we share what we’ve been watching since we’ve been sheltering at home.

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!

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Music from https://filmmusic.io

“Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)