movies by or about women opening UK/Ire from Fri Feb 02
Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville, and Helen Mirren are dealing with men’s crap in the corporeal and the spiritual worlds.
Journey’s End movie review: where the war winds blow
A descent into the muddy trenches of World War I that is intimate and immediate, melancholy and profoundly moving. An experience as visceral as it is intellectual.
Adele and Everything After (aka Letting Go of Adele) documentary review: for love of a very special dog
Sensitive, marvelously engaging portrait of the extraordinary relationship between one woman and her service dog. A remarkable story told with intense empathy.
Early Man movie review: primordial goop
A huge disappointment, crude and simple compared to Aardman’s earlier, more sophisticated and multilayered work. No satire or subversion, just a bog-standard triumph-of-the-underdog story.
12 Strong movie review: America enters the “graveyard of empires”
Tense but never sensationalized action adventure about the first post–9/11 US foray into Afghanistan, an extraordinary culture clash and mashup of medieval and modern technologies.
movies by or about women opening US/Can from Fri Jan 26
Two tiny releases — both about women but both written and directed by men — are all that’s new on offer this week for anyone looking for women’s stories.
movies by or about women opening UK/Ire from Fri Jan 26
Two foreign-language films, each playing on only a single screen in London: that’s it for movies by or about women this week.
Please Stand By movie review: fan trek
A lovely, gentle geek adventure that appreciates the importance of fandom as a source of inspiration and comfort, with a subtle and resolutely unsentimental performance by Dakota Fanning as an autistic fan.
Maze Runner: The Death Cure movie review: cute boys at the end of the world
The Auto-Tuned boy-band version of the apocalypse. You will forgive that every plot point that isn’t a cliché is in fact a plot hole because the hero is so dreamy and impossibly perfect, right?
The Cinema Travellers documentary review: moving pictures, under threat
A marvelous film, so full of the wonder of movies, so melancholy about the changing cinema landscape, so hopeful that though the technology is changing, the love will endure.
