Assuming they can get through writer/director Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman without it triggering a PTSD reaction, scores of women who have a part of their brain unwillingly dedicated to the memory of their own sexual harassment or assault will relate to lead character Cassie (Carey Mulligan). So too will the friends of those who experienced that …
AWFJ.org
Calamity, A Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary AWFJ.org review
Rémi Chayé returned to the latest Annecy Festival, where his first full length feature Long Way North won the Audience Award in 2015, with the film Calamity, A Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary, where the film won the Cristal Best Feature Award, the fest’s highest honor. He had his hand in many aspects of this colorful and arty …
Herself AWFJ.org review
It’s a good thing Phyllida Lloyd felt it was high time to helm a small indie film. She’d already broken all box office records with the feature film version of Mamma Mia, only to subsequently direct The Iron Lady, which garnered yet another much deserved Best Actress Oscar for Meryl Streep. Lloyd had been directing for theater …
Farewell Amor AWFJ.org review
It’s quite the achievement to create a movie that feels as fluid as a dance. Writer/director Ewa Msangi achieves just that with Farewell Amor, a film that tackles the challenge of articulating reintroduction, second chances, and the risks and rewards of chosen intimacy for a family reuniting after 17 years. It is a rich character study …
Rebecca AWFJ.org review
For those who know and revere the novel by Daphne Du Maurier, which is one of the great classics of gothic romance, this new incarnation of Rebecca, from director Ben Wheatley, is a valiant reinterpretation that is truer to the book than it is to the Hitchcock film, which is as is should be. While some …
Blithe Spirit Middleburg Film Fest AWFJ.org review
A new film adaptation of Noel Coward’s famously ‘spirited’ 1941 play Blithe Spirit is coming to a (insert however the hell we’ll be seeing movies in December) near you, starring pretty pretties Isla Fisher, Dan Stevens, and Leslie Mann, and the Middleburg Film Festival offered a drive-in screening of this fluffy farce, this celebration of cynicism, on …
Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story AWFJ.org Review
I’m not sure how much more proof the world needs that women can be total badasses, and yet, based on the sort of continued bias and sexism being discovered and exposed in nearly every crevice of our society, it would seem more. Much, much more. Thank the Amazon goddesses for director April Wright’s new documentary Stuntwomen: …
Tenet AWFJ.org review
Fans of writer/director Christopher Nolan are not strangers to bent time, trippy constructs in physics, or highbrow filmmaking. Being a fan myself, I’ve loved all the elements we’ve grown to expect and enjoy in Nolan movies, beginning with Momento, and reaching its zenith with Interstellar. His new release Tenet has all those, and for a film that, as always …
Howard AWFJ.org Review
Fans of Disney as well as those interested in American history will be fascinated by writer/director/producer Don Hahn’s documentary Howard, now streaming on Disney+. They will also experience a host of emotions spanning from heartbreak to joy in the process. A love letter to the complicated, driven, inspired playwright and lyricist Howard Ashman, Howard is an intimate portrait …
And She Could Be Next Documentary AWFJ.org review
If you want to be both inspired and spitting mad in equal measure, the documentary And She Could Be Next will definitely do it for you. Co-directed and produced by Grace Lee and Marjan Safinia, And She Could Be Next chronicles the burgeoning movement of candidates and organizers who are women of color, giving the spotlight to powerhouse candidates …