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girls/women

Widows movie review: the women left to clean up men’s messes (LFF 2018)

Fri, Nov 09, 2018
29 comments

A heist movie that is gripping and badass, elegant and assured. You could ignore all the social-justice-warrior stuff and just enjoy this as a popcorn thriller. But what makes this so special is how it reexamines the genre’s clichés.

| 29 Comments

Prospect movie review: frontier sci-fi with a working-class vibe

Sat, Nov 03, 2018
no comments yet

Smart, gritty-stylish indie science fiction that is actually about ideas, and about building a future world that is authentic and lived-in. It has a really memorable teen-girl protagonist, too, who is badass but still a real kid.

| Leave a comment

What They Had movie review: family ties and lies

Sun, Oct 28, 2018
no comments yet

Simultaneously sharp and tender portrait of longstanding family squabbles and resentments finally coming to a head. Achingly affecting performances and poignant details ground it in melancholy authenticity.

| Leave a comment

Halloween (2018) movie review: all tricks, few treats

Tue, Oct 16, 2018
60 comments

A minor fan-fiction take on the franchise’s mythology: Hey, maybe middle-aged Laurie Strode likes guns LOL? Nowhere near as feminist or as psychologically incisive as it thinks it is. And it’s not even scary.

| 60 Comments

Sadie movie review: coming of age the hard way

Sat, Oct 13, 2018
no comments yet

This tale of a teenaged girl’s crossing the boundary from childhood to too-early adulthood, simultaneously a portrait of a society quietly yet inexorably collapsing, has a disturbing power that sneaks up on you.

| Leave a comment

Pili movie review: the trials of women are many, and universal

Fri, Oct 12, 2018
no comments yet

A wholly remarkable film, just barely fictionalized from the lives of its cast of nonprofessional actors, about the indomitable spirit of the women of East Africa. Pili’s life isn’t unrecognizable to women worldwide, though.

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Bad Times at the El Royale movie review: bad times indeed

Thu, Oct 11, 2018
30 comments

A self-indulgent, faux-woke mashup of noir crime, black comedy, and Tarantino-esque ultraviolence. Some great performances, including a spectacular feature debut from Cynthia Erivo; shame they’re so wasted.

| 30 Comments

A Star Is Born movie review: a perfect movie in all ways

Mon, Oct 01, 2018
27 comments

Instantly sweeps us up in its passion, its electricity, its music, and characters to fall in love with. Lady Gaga is a revelation. It’s impossible to believe Bradley Cooper has never directed before. I adore this movie.

| 27 Comments

All About Nina movie review: a woman owning her anger

Sun, Sep 30, 2018
4 comments

Hail Mary, full of rage. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is utterly incendiary in this own-worst-enemy dramedy that gender-flips a tired genre to give angry new voice to a woman speaking her own truths.

| 4 Comments

Little Women (2018) movie review: sisters weird

Thu, Sep 27, 2018
10 comments

This modern update of the beloved classic novel is embarrassingly misjudged, so earnest and on-the-nose a transfer to today that the March sisters feel not like modern girls but odd, out-of-step transplants from another time.

| 10 Comments
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