AWFJ 2020 EDA Awards winners announced
And the winners are…
AWFJ
Farewell Amor movie review: family ties undone, and forged again (LFF 2020)
Achieves that rare cinematic feat of being specific and universal at the same time. A lovely film, plaintive and poignant, with exquisite performances from a beguiling cast, and ultimately hopeful.
Proxima movie review: the work of the world
Brings a fundamental new humanity to the story of those who court great danger in order to advance human knowledge. Eva Green is immense. Writer-director Alice Winocour’s compassion is achingly acute.
Blackbird movie review: the bell tolls, ever so tastefully
The to-die-for cast can’t quite save this melodrama from its trite obviousness, in which rage and grief are matters of tasteful, upscale lifestyle. But they at least make it passingly watchable.
Mulan (2020) movie review: girl (and film) at war with the world
Acceptably inoffensive, if less than wholly engaging. At least Liu’s strong, stately Mulan is a wonderful role model for girls who aren’t much interested in conformity and adhering to expectations.
Radioactive movie review: science, bitch
Rosamund Pike is perfection in this intellectual romance, an unsentimental portrait of a woman striving to be appreciated for her mind at a time even more anti-woman than today. Feminist and flinty.
John Lewis: Good Trouble documentary review: how to bend the arc of history
Essential portrait of the US Congressman and civil-rights activist, for its lessons in the power of passive resistance to injustice, and its underscoring of how America has regressed in recent years.
my 2020 film ranking at the year’s midway point
A sneak peek at my FULL ongoing ranking of 2020’s new movies. (This post is free for all. Join my Patreon to keep up with the list as it grows over the rest of the year.)
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch documentary review: the destruction of our planet, in pictures (EIFF 2020)
Astonishing: sometimes oddly beautiful but mostly like sci-fi horror. An anti-meditation nightmare, a call to arms if only we were ready to finally address our thoughtless impact on planet Earth.
Miss Juneteenth movie review: ordinary lives drawn with extraordinary grace
A beautiful cinematic experience, delicately subtle and bursting with a gorgeous sense of place and character. There is wonderful intimate suspense in every moment of Nicole Beharie’s performance.
