Almodovar Count-down

I decided I would go ahead and just list all of Almodovar's films and then I can try to keep track of them and whether I have seen them or not.  If I am scheduled to watch something at TIFF through the end of Dec., I'll just put down TIFF and assume nothing will go wrong (always a risky assumption...).  O stands for I own this on DVD.  (While there is one Blu-Ray Almodovar set, it is mostly the early films, and otherwise Criterion only has singles, and I am trying not to go that route, as I expect one of these days Criterion will put out a Blu-Ray set of his entire oeuvre, though maybe I am just dreaming.)

Pepi, Luci, Bom (believe I borrowed this from Robarts and watched it)
Labyrinth of Passion TIFF
Dark Habits TIFF
O What Have I Done to Deserve This?
O Matador (Own on Almodovar Collection V.2 but not watched)
O Law of Desire TIFF
O Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (TIFF screening will be 3rd viewing)
O Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! TIFF
High Heels
O Kika TIFF
O The Flower of My Secret TIFF
O Live Flesh
O All About My Mother Paradise & TIFF
O Talk to Her TIFF*
O Bad Education Paradise
O Volver TIFF
Broken Embraces TIFF
The Skin I Live In TIFF
I'm So Excited! (Watched on DVD)
Julieta TIFF
Pain and Glory TIFF
Parallel Mothers TIFF
The Human Voice/Strange Way of Life (TIFF showed these two shorts together)
The Room Next Door TIFF

Marking it all down means I really will have seen (or can fairly easily see) all of Almodovar with the exception of Dark Habits** and High Heels.

In terms of my favorites, I rank Women on the Verge first, followed by All About My Mother, Pain and Glory and Volver.  I expect I'll like Talk to Her, which is another highly rated film, and I do hope I enjoy What Have I Done to Deserve This? whenever I finally get around to watching it.  About the only one that didn't do a lot for me was Parallel Mothers.

It's somewhat interesting that I watched Women on the Verge on its initial release (and loved it), and then was so turned off by the plot of Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! that I kind of went off Almodovar through the 90s and 2000s (obviously my loss).  It really wasn't until Pain and Glory in 2019 that I started watching his films again on the big screen on their initial release. 

* I was reading something about the plot of Talk to Her, and I realized I have seen it already!  The struggle is figuring out where and when.  I thought the most likely candidate was the Paradise, but it wasn't part of the Queer Cinema Club offerings; Google doesn't appear to think it played at Paradise or at TIFF or even at Carlton either in 2023 or 2024.  It's certainly possible I broke down and watched it on DVD, but I don't recall doing that.  So weird.

** I decided to take a quick look, and while I do have a conflict with TIFF's screening of High Heels, I actually can catch a screening of Dark Habits in a couple of weeks.  (There would have been a conflict with Dark Habits, but Bad Bad No Good was asking a ridiculous price for tickets to a gig at Lee's Palace!  I suspect if this is what they think they are worth, I won't ever see them.  C'est dommage...)  In fact, I got the very last ticket to Dark Habits right after I decided to look!  Fortuitous.  I will still want to check in a few more times to see if I can get a seat a bit further back for Labyrinth of Passion.