Almodovar according to Sight and Sound

The photo has nothing to do with Almodovar or his films. I just like staring at buildings because I always wonder how humans manage to achieve to build such beauties (or monsters in certain cases).

The film festival in Taipei is coming up soon and ever since I left the lumberjack country, I haven't been going to see "films". I watched Almodovar's latest work Volver the night before I left Paris in September. It was OK, not the best film he's done in recent memory but I hate the fact that everyone is giving it high praises for the reason that it is Almodovar who has made it (I don't want to start on Taiwanese film critics because a lot of what they say is bullocks...OK, fine, I'll give them some credit for being more cultured in a culture-lacking country). The film was a bit of a bore to tell the truth. It seems like Almodovar has copied and pasted materials from his previous works. It felt slow, much slower than his previous films though the decor is still carefully designed to fit the mood of the scenes.
I came across Sight & Sound at HMV in Tokyo and read the whole two-page review on this film. I was happy to see that someone out there is willing to say that the film isn't all that good after all. In fact, the reviewer at S&S raised a question on how Almodovar has created this weird formula or spell (can't recall the exact wording of the article so just putting pieces together here) so that people who loved his previous films can continue to like his new one(s), despite the poorer quality of the new one(s). Quite true indeed, I thought. And I almost fell for it too! But when I left the cinema on Rue Mouffetard, I realised something was different about this film. I saw his two previous films, Todo sobre mi madre and La mala educacion in Paris and I walked out the cinema with various emotions (more of a stun for the latter one and couldn't really think for awhile). But this time, I wasn't quite sure what I saw; I was sure I saw a film made by Almodovar but I could not feel much (except for the fact that he actually used Saint Etienne's song during one scene...a big surprise for me). Anyway, it's like Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain; when I saw it, I thought it was good, but not that great because certain elements in the film weren't as refreshing as what people or critics thought. Maybe I am too critical and picky but it's just me.