
movies by or about women opening US/Can from Fri Jun 01
Shailene Woodley faces disaster at sea; Claire Danes confronts trouble at home; and more…
film criticism by maryann johanson | handcrafted since 1997
Shailene Woodley faces disaster at sea; Claire Danes confronts trouble at home; and more…
A movie as generous and as nonjudgmental as its protagonists, as frustrated yet as gently questing as they are. Claire Danes and Jim Parsons are extraordinary.
An enlightening portrait that sheds much needed light on a subculture that could do with some demystifying.
We know how it is: You’d like to go to the movies this weekend, but… prezzies! toys! candy canes! snowball fights! big holiday dinner! But you can have a multiplex-like experience at home with a collection of the right DVDs. And when someone asks you on Monday, “Hey, did you see Sherlock Holmes this weekend?” … more…
The best ever love letter/horror story about the seductions and anxieties of life in the theater is the Canadian television show *Slings & Arrows.* This enchantingly bittersweet little film might be the second best.
So, I was raving to a friend about this great new movie I’d just seen, *The Family Stone,* how it’s about this big wacky family getting together for Christmas– And she stopped me right there with a moan and said, Oh God, it’s not like that Jodie Foster movie *Home for the Holidays,* is it? And I said, Why, yes, it’s exactly like that, but even better. She moaned again and said, Oh, I hate that movie.
Beautifully written by W.D. Richter and directed with a sure hand by Jodie Foster, Home for the Holidays wraps all those contradictory feelings up and serves them for Thanksgiving dinner. Perhaps the most realistic holiday movie I’ve ever seen, this oddly charming, poignant, and blackly funny film is a treasure not to be missed.