Never Let Me Go movie review: ordinary people
I’ve come to realize recently that there’s something more chilling, more eerie than a fictional dystopian world: a fictional dystopian world in which no one understands they’re living in a dystopia.
female protagonist
The Runaways (review)
There hasn’t been a movie like The Runaways, one about women rockers that’s just as raw and earthy and tough and pitiless as the ones about the men are.
Bright Star movie review: cinematic poetry
John Keats is the intruder in Fanny Brawne’s story, and you might be forgiven for assuming that she’s the one who became legendary, for how the film defies convention by lavishing its focus on her.
Julie & Julia movie review: the joy of cooks
It’s just about two women doing something for themselves, for their own amusement and enlightenment, and not even to please their men — hell, they’re not even competing for the same man!
Orphan movie review: John + Kate plus hate
Oh, how I wish this was a knowing parody, not an unwitting one. All the overbaked tropes of the genre are deployed: the “scary” music, the “menacing” camera angles, the telegraphing every boo.
Drag Me to Hell movie review: not your conventional horror movie
I’ve been a fan of Raimi’s forever, since long before he shot to fame with his big-budget *Spider-Man* flicks….
Duplicity movie review: good clean fluff
It’s not that I don’t like fluff: it’s that I don’t like dumb fluff. And yet clever fluff is so very rare. So of course I cheer a hearty “Hoorah!” for Duplicity.
The Duchess movie review
She was the Princess Diana of her day. In fact, she was Di’s 18th-century ancestor…
Burn After Reading movie review: stupid power
I think maybe I’ve figured out how Joel and Ethan Coen do it. How they move so effortlessly from comedy to drama, from fluffy to forceful, from silly to solemn. It’s that they don’t think about tone or genre, at least not at the beginning: they just think about a character, and let him have his lead, and see where he takes them.
Frozen River movie review
The stories of women are so disparaged — or worse, ignored — in our culture unless they have something to do with pleasing men, but here’s one that demands to be seen.
