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2000s

Trial by Fire and My Days of Mercy movies review: two (rare) new dramas about the US death penalty

Thu, May 23, 2019
9 comments

Two very different films, replete with emotionally engaging performances, examine the impact of the American death penalty from the large-scale legal and political to that of intimate personal grief.

| 9 Comments

A Private War movie review: this is not fake news (LFF 2018)

Tue, Nov 13, 2018
1 comment

A moving and important portrait of legendary Times of London foreign correspondent Marie Colvin. We need more movies like this, about fearless, badass women this outrageously good at their vitally necessary work.

| 1 Comment

Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. documentary review: the multiple identities of a modern artist

Wed, Sep 26, 2018
no comments yet

A tremendous backgrounder, intimate and personal, on the massively popular — and massively political — hip-hop artist. Here is the source of all her anger and passion, and here is why she needs to be heard.

| Leave a comment

Jane Fonda in Five Acts documentary review: the political is her personal

Sun, Sep 23, 2018
2 comments

An extraordinarily intimate and perceptive new biography of the legendary actor and activist. Fonda reveals insecurities and anxieties that are achingly raw and very personal, but which many women will see themselves in.

| 2 Comments

Whitney documentary review: an 80s icon contemplated, venerated, mourned

Tue, Jul 03, 2018
1 comment

Deeply moving, truly tragic; a biography with a keenly journalistic but hugely sympathetic eye. Powerful compassion and a get-up-and-dance deployment of Houston’s music may well bring her a new generation of fans.

| 1 Comment

Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist documentary review: counterculture’s wise elder woman

Sun, Jun 10, 2018
2 comments

There’s nothing fawning and plenty ironic about this essential first documentary to cover a major female fashion designer, a woman whose life is almost a perfect reflection of the trajectory of 20th-century feminism.

| 2 Comments

McQueen documentary review: the tragedy of the fashion provocateur

Fri, Jun 08, 2018
no comments yet

There’s so much fresh air in this stunningly good biography that it feels like you’ve never encountered a rags-to-riches, tortured-artist story before. Not just for fashion lovers.

| Leave a comment

RBG documentary review: though she be but little she is fierce

Mon, Apr 30, 2018
6 comments

A marvelous, funny, deeply moving biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg from her rise as a legal champion of women’s rights in the 1970s to her ascension as a Supreme Court justice and social-media hero “Notorious RBG.”

| 6 Comments

12 Strong movie review: America enters the “graveyard of empires”

Fri, Jan 26, 2018
5 comments

Tense but never sensationalized action adventure about the first post–9/11 US foray into Afghanistan, an extraordinary culture clash and mashup of medieval and modern technologies.

| 5 Comments

Molly’s Game movie review: absolutely aces

Fri, Dec 29, 2017
15 comments

Bold, tough, hugely entertaining. Like a new GoodFellas, except about a woman caught up in her own impudence and daring. Jessica Chastain is badass.

| 15 Comments
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