Eastern Boys movie review: pretty boy
Repugnant drama about the tender relationship between a man who pays for sex and the boy he hires. At least Pretty Woman pretended to be a fairy tale.
coming of age
The Way He Looks movie review: love is all-seeing
A charming teen drama bursting with a warmth and compassion unexpected in the genre, and with a freshly sweet surprise of young love.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I movie review: image manipulation
One of the best SF series ever deepens its critique of the power of propaganda in ways complicated, intriguingly contradictory, and a little bit horrifying.
When Animals Dream (Når dyrene drømmer) movie review (London Film Festival)
A social-realist werewolf fantasy in which burgeoning womanhood is a thing terrifying to many a man, particularly if a woman simply will not be tamed.
Say When (aka Laggies) movie review: resisting the path
Charming and off-kilter, this is a rare tale of a young woman struggling with her identity in a way that deals a shock of recognition and never apologizes.
The Book of Life movie review: what’s a woman for?
The animation is fresh, unique, and gorgeous. But we don’t need another tale of a man having exciting adventures while a woman waits around to marry him.
The Dead Lands movie review (London Film Festival)
A tediously clichéd, overblown, badly acted action flick full of bloody movie violence dressed up in Maori drag.
The Riot Club movie review: bad boys never lose
Hooray for a good old-fashioned rich-bastard bashing. But they get the last laugh: These guys are the future masters of the universe. Hooray.
The Giver movie review: give it back
A very simplistic Dystopia for Dummies — with a bit of Terrence Malick for Dummies — and inoffensive enough until it devolves into all kinds of stupid.
If I Stay movie review: you see me, you really see me
Honest, emotional teen melodrama with a great performance by Chloe Grace Moretz that serves as a beautiful metaphor for the choices that teen girls face.
