★★★ (3 out of 4)
People keep saying that Pedro Almodóvar, now 76 if you can believe it, is turning the camera on himself in “Bitter Christmas,” to which I say, hasn’t he always? It doesn’t matter if a man, a woman or an animal plays him, that’s Pedro snapping his matador’s red cape at any bullish fool who thinks he can be boxed in for popular consumption. Spain’s resident poet of life on the verge won’t be slowed down, not with the swirls of light, color and music that follow him everywhere.