Finding Fatimah movie review: dating while Muslim
There’s lots to like in this mostly sweet British Muslim rom-com. Pity, then, that it tries too hard, instead of trusting its characters, and sabotages itself.
Clash (Eshtebak) movie review: the view from inside social upheaval
Challenging and provocative, but the limitations it places on itself restrict the appreciation for anyone not already steeped in its culture and politics.
Letters from Baghdad documentary review: Gertrude Bell, the original Lawrence of Arabia
One of the most cinematically beautiful documentaries ever is a phenomenal portrait of a shamefully forgotten woman who helped shape political history.
Raw movie review: girly gory allegory
Cinema as a punch in the gut and not for the squeamish, casting female desire as ravenously predatory in a way that few films have ever had the audacity to do.
The Lost City of Z movie review: archaeology was his religion
An adventure of the intellect and of the heart with the real-life explorer who inspired Indiana Jones, one more about the journey than the destination.
curated: Taco Bell’s bro-tastic “friend zone” ad
Taco Bell: down with male sexual entitlement.
Free Fire movie review: guns a-boring
A 90-minute shootout that never makes us care who lives and who dies. In attempting to send up a cinematic cliché, this only becomes a tedious example of same.
London photo: architectural black face
But in a good way!
The Handmaiden movie review: the women pushing back against misogyny, thwarted by their own film
The intrigue, shifting alliances, and twisted revenge? Delicious, pulpy fun. The male-gazey soft-core porn that undermines the female protagonists? Not so much.
curated: Cognitive Dissonance: A Star Wars Story
If little boys cannot see themselves in the characters in Star Wars: Forces of Destiny, they’ll just die, or something.
