weekend watchlist: a timely cure for collective cultural amnesia
Plus drone warfare, murder most genteel, and more. (First published May 7th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
Kristin Scott Thomas
movies by or about women opening UK/Ire Mar 06
Stella Meghie writes and directs The Photograph, costarring Issa Rae; more… [This post is for Patreon patrons only for the first month.]
Military Wives movie review: tired choir dramedy needs to change the tune
So aggressively precisely what you think it is that there’s almost no point in seeing it. Flattens a true story into generic pap that isn’t even that successfully, authentically feel-good, either.
BAFTA 2018 winners announced
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri wins big…
movies by or about women opening US/Can from Wed Feb 14
Zosia Mamet, Kristin Scott Thomas, Patricia Clarkson, Maika Monroe, Ellen Burstyn, and Catherine Keener are all starring in new movies this week… but good luck finding them on a screen near you.
The Party movie review: bring your own battle
Sally Potter’s brutally snappy take on the classic British drawing-room comedy hauls it into the 21st century with a cutting takedown of the anxieties and hypocrisies of well-off left-wingers.
Darkest Hour movie review: a surrender to open-and-shut history
A feature-length Oscar clip, two hours of Gary Oldman stomping around in a Winston Churchill suit. There’s too little drama and too much inevitability in what amounts to a reanimated Madame Tussaud’s waxwork scene.
Suite Française movie review: enemy mine to love
An immediate and intimate tale of forbidden romance and other complex emotions and contradictory obligations. This ain’t history but a very human now.
My Old Lady movie review (London Film Festival)
A bitterly funny pas de trois character dramedy performed by three compulsively watchable actors.
The Invisible Woman review: sometimes it’s hard to be a woman
The story of Charles Dickens and his secret mistress is no romance, and no modest costume drama, either.
