All I Wish (aka A Little Something for Your Birthday) movie review: sassy birthday
It’s too predictable and too disingenuous about the realities of what it means to be an “older” woman. But Sharon Stone is totally charming.
Los Angeles
Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts 2018 (90th Academy Awards) review
My pick: “Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405,” a marvelous portrait of artist Mindy Alper, one that challenges us all to know ourselves as well as she seems to, even when it’s incredibly painful.
Black Panther movie review: absolute Marvel
Classic comic-book stuff made fresh by drawing on underexplored mythologies and cultures, yet still deeply resonant and deeply universal. An exhilarating pulp-fiction dream that ups the ante on the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Please Stand By movie review: fan trek
A lovely, gentle geek adventure that appreciates the importance of fandom as a source of inspiration and comfort, with a subtle and resolutely unsentimental performance by Dakota Fanning as an autistic fan.
movies by or about women opening UK/Ire from Mon Jan 01
Jessica Chastain and Maggie Q. get centered in their own stories, while Michelle Williams is this week’s Best Supporting Mother.
movies by or about women opening US/Can from Fri Jan 05
Molly’s Game goes wide, and a few foreign films about women arrive (in limited release) on US shores.
Molly’s Game movie review: absolutely aces
Bold, tough, hugely entertaining. Like a new GoodFellas, except about a woman caught up in her own impudence and daring. Jessica Chastain is badass.
Bright movie review: every little thing it does is the opposite of magic
Trolls the viewer and condescends to genre fans. A smirking, tone-deaf parable about racism that is itself racist, including about its made-up orcs and elves.
#LFF2017: Blade of the Immortal, Gemini, Makala
Quick takes from the now-wrapped 61st London Film Festival.
Blade Runner 2049 movie review: a rickety retro replicant
Visually, this dying future world is immersively hellish. Intellectually, though, its ideas haven’t kept up with the rapidly evolving science-fictional conversation.
