Where Are the Women? The Dressmaker
The female protagonist’s story is all about beauty as a metaphor for women’s power and confidence, without ever reducing her to a decorative object.
Kate Winslet
The Dressmaker movie review: haute couture as a tragicomic weapon
So entertaining, so unexpected, so wonderfully oddball, so damn good. Witty genre-busting simmering with pathos, humor, and calamity.
Where Are the Women? Steve Jobs
The female characters here support the journey of the male protagonist, but they are not especially supportive: they are too challenging of him for that.
Steve Jobs movie review: insanely great (LFF 2015)
You’ve never seen such a compelling, entertaining movie about a genius jerk. As smart and as sleek as a Macbook Pro, and a compulsory bit of modern history.
Where Are the Women? A Little Chaos
For its complicated female protagonist, wifehood and motherhood and new romance are only a part of her full, rich life. [This post is not behind the paywall.]
A Little Chaos movie review: necessary fantasy
Romantic and funny and smart and wise and just plain different. This is a historical costume dramedy romp about gardening. How cool is that?
The Divergent Series: Insurgent movie review: being human
Sneakily undercuts tropes of the young-adult hero’s journey. But in a more adventurous movie environment, this wouldn’t feel this fresh as it does.
Divergent review: girls just wanna do everything
No, it’s not wildly different than other science fiction, hero’s journey, and adventure movies. Sometimes we call such stories archetypal. Mythic, even.
movies that pass the Bechdel Test make more money than movies that don’t
If Hollywood were truly all about money, Hollywood would know this already.
Labor Day review: Stockholm-syndrome romance
A gooey nostalgic look back at that time a young boy’s mom fell in love with their kidnapper, presented under a sexy sweltering summer haze.
