Miss Sharon Jones! documentary review: get up, get on back up
Cheer-worthy portrait of a singer for whom overcoming adversity has been a mainstay, and a testament to the power of music and family to keep a gal going.
girls/women
Into the Forest movie review: end of the world, not as we’ve known it
An atypical disaster movie, less about the failure of technology than the failure — and perhaps the resurgence — of the human spirit in the face of that.
Love Between the Covers documentary review: respect for romance
Delightful. A sharp, affectionate peek inside the cozy, supportive community of writers and readers that drives multibillion-dollar romance book publishing.
Ghostbusters movie review: boo yeah!
Kate McKinnon’s gleefully reckless physicist is brainy comic mayhem, unlike any female character we’ve seen before. And there are more reasons to cheer.
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie review: grab the Bolly, darling
Sends up one-upwomanship, egotistical self-help, and reflexive hedonism with zing. It is a sheer triumph to see two older women being really funny onscreen.
The BFG movie review: that sense of wonder where it all went wrong
Fantasy meandering twists into something more action-oriented, and there’s little magic in it. This is not what we expect from a master cinematic fantasist.
Parched movie review: women finding water in a desert of men’s making
Beautifully photographed, sometimes brutal, ultimately uplifting: a lively and amusing journey of four women pushing back against India’s patriarchy.
Margarita with a Straw movie review: this ain’t no pity party
Open, frank, funny romantic dramedy about a young Indian woman living with cerebral palsy. A perfect antidote to the disability pity porn of Me Before You.
The Boss movie review: hooray for girl power (boo for nowhere near enough)
Plays with hierarchies and rivalries of women’s lives that often aren’t seen onscreen, and embraces women as powerful. But it’s just not very funny about it.
The Conjuring 2 movie review: haunting only in its disjointed bulkiness
“Less Ed and Lorraine” and “more cheese and cardboard” is precisely the last direction a sequel to the classy original should have gone in. Yet here we are.
