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Malcolm & Marie
(2021)
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Candice Frederick
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With its terrific performances, resonating dialogue, and elegant single-setting production, the film compels us to see beyond a couple clamoring across the house and acknowledge that a perpetually underestimated woman has found her voice.
Posted Feb 23, 2021
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Audrey
(2020)
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Candice Frederick
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Hepburn confronted challenges both in front of and away from the camera, and Audrey shows she's an icon not because she's the archetype of what every woman should be.
Posted Jan 15, 2021
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Promising Young Woman
(2020)
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Candice Frederick
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Promising Young Woman is more profoundly a devastating reflection of a woman consumed with grief.
Posted Jan 14, 2021
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Pieces of a Woman
(2020)
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Candice Frederick
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Pieces of a Woman is a rather blunted depiction of an endlessly complex subject that deserves much more contemplation. Despite impressive performances, it fails to truly hit that mark.
Posted Jan 14, 2021
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Premature
(2019)
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Candice Frederick
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Premature is the kind of confident, remarkably vulnerable drama to which even veteran storytellers aspire.
Posted Mar 06, 2020
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again
(2016)
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Judy Berman
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Ortega's production is full of curious directorial choices like this. A few hit. Many miss.
Posted Jun 11, 2018
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Colossal
(2016)
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Estelle Tang
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It's unfortunate that this startling story about toxic masculinity is marred by an insensitive racial dynamic and a lack of awareness that who Oscar and Gloria's victims are is a problem. But in some ways, that's not a surprise at all.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
(2017)
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Estelle Tang
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Bombshell is often pure fun-it doesn't have much choice, given the robust bites its subject took out of life.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Two Weeks Notice
(2002)
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Estelle Tang
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But for this independent, intelligent, and typically professional woman to fall to pieces simply because she's drunk and recently broke up with her boyfriend is very annoying.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi
(2017)
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Estelle Tang
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Far from Star Wars' laddish origins, The Last Jedi puts women at the forefront-amazingly, without congratulating itself for doing so-and treats them as equals. How refreshing.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Love & Mercy
(2014)
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Ben Dickinson
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[John] Cusack, in particular, doing some of the best work of his impressive career, captures the subtlest manifestations of Brian's off-kilter wit and wobbliness in exquisite detail.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Far From the Madding Crowd
(2015)
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Ben Dickinson
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But the absolute best thing about Far from the Madding Crowd s Carey Mulligan's Everdene.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Boyhood
(2014)
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Ben Dickinson
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The transformation in Mason that we witness makes this film nothing short of astonishing-in the same way that kids can be in real life.
Posted May 18, 2018
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While We're Young
(2014)
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Ben Dickinson
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Baumbach succeeds in vividly depicting how the people who occasionally serve as catalysts in our lives inevitably do so with results we cannot imagine beforehand-but, if we're lucky, leave us with a little more self-knowledge than we started with.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
(2015)
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Ben Dickinson
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I never said this movie wouldn't wring you out. But, reluctant moviegoer, you won't regret it-not for a second.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Grandma
(2015)
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Ben Dickinson
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There's lived-in wisdom in Reid's bluff honesty, and at the closing shot, of her marching off across L.A., we're left to conclude hopefully that she's got a lot more marching in her.
Posted May 18, 2018
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The Martian
(2015)
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Ben Dickinson
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The Martian marks a wonderful return to grand filmmaking for the prodigious producer and director Ridley Scott after his humorless and joyless recent outings...
Posted May 18, 2018
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Room
(2015)
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Ben Dickinson
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A rarity: a fairly lurid, ripped-from-the-headlines fiction that isn't played for cheap, cheesy thrills but rather, with insight and wisdom, explores the extremes of human experience that it would give rise to.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Carol
(2015)
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Ben Dickinson
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Carol notably soft-pedals the tragedy that the novel arrives at, but it improves on Highsmith's formulation when Carol brilliantly, tormentedly summarizes the hopelessness of her struggle to keep her daughter.
Posted May 18, 2018
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The Danish Girl
(2015)
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Ben Dickinson
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The Danish Girl admirably illustrates how sexuality reaches to the very root of the human spirit.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Tumbledown
(2015)
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Ben Dickinson
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It all tends to stick with you-more than just a little bit.
Posted May 18, 2018
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A Bigger Splash
(2015)
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Ben Dickinson
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To behold him mansplaining rock 'n' roll inspiration to the legendary Marianne Lane is horrible and hilarious; Harry is a unique high-low point in [Ralph] Fiennes's oeuvre.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Money Monster
(2016)
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Ben Dickinson
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Let's just say it's a helluva ride.
Posted May 18, 2018
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Our Kind of Traitor
(2016)
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Ben Dickinson
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[Susanna] White... has taken a marvelously lucid script by veteran screenwriter Hossein Amini and jumped her career way up to the next level by making one of the more inspired Le Carr adaptations ever shot.
Posted May 18, 2018
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The Birth of a Nation
(2016)
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Ben Dickinson
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In The Birth of a Nation, Parker has put forward a purposeful and uncompromising provocation.
Posted May 17, 2018
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Florence Foster Jenkins
(2016)
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Ben Dickinson
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Leave it to Streep to find the Jenkins in herself-and to make us care, even a little, about this epic misadventuress who made it all the way to Carnegie Hall. Once.
Posted May 17, 2018
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Loving
(2016)
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Ben Dickinson
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The lead performances here are humble and powerful, and the storytelling and camerawork in the service of their story is granular and pointillistic in its unerring detail.
Posted May 17, 2018
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Fences
(2016)
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Ben Dickinson
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An enduring, indelible interpretation of this conflicted figure and the family that surrounds him.
Posted May 17, 2018
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Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds
(2016)
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Ben Dickinson
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The marvellous thing about Bright Lights is that it is not at all a conventional Hollywood hagiography-far from it. Carrie would never have acceded to that in a million years .
Posted May 17, 2018
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Elle
(2016)
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Laurie Abraham
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Elle is unpredictable, disturbing, disturbingly funny...and acknowledges that baser sexual urges are not always bad, not always good, sometimes arousing, and probably being engaged in more than we think.
Posted May 17, 2018
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Elle
(2016)
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Ben Dickinson
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Ending notwithstanding, the bottom line is that Elle is standard "ironically" transgressive radio-shock-jock stuff gussied up for tony audiences as that art-house staple...
Posted May 17, 2018
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Maya Angelou and Still I Rise
(2016)
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Ben Dickinson
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There's so much else to be savored in And Still I Rise...
Posted May 16, 2018
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Rough Night
(2017)
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Ben Dickinson
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Rough Night pinballs along according to its own demented internal logic, with a series of perfectly executed twists and reveals, as it gathers speed toward its spectacular climax.
Posted May 16, 2018
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The Last Word
(2017)
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Ben Dickinson
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Ah, Shirley MacLaine-it's been way too long!
Posted May 16, 2018
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Battle of the Sexes
(2017)
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Ben Dickinson
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Steve Carell was born for the role, and he aces it.
Posted May 16, 2018
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The Big Sick
(2017)
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Ben Dickinson
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[Holly] Hunter, in particular, commands our rapt attention in every scene she's in as a mama bear moving to protect her daughter in full DEFCON 1 mode...
Posted May 16, 2018
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Ingrid Goes West
(2017)
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Ben Dickinson
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Perhaps not since the heyday of Lucille Ball has a female comedian had the kind of resourcefully crazy eyes that Plaza flashes; her kohl-lined saucers silently express eloquent volumes about the absurdities of life and human relationships.
Posted May 16, 2018
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Professor Marston & the Wonder Women
(2017)
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Ben Dickinson
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Rebecca Hall's edgy, bristlingly intelligent turn as Holloway is a central pleasure of Robinson's film; it is gratifying to see her, finally, in a role that does full justice to her major talent for inhabiting dark, conflicted psyches onscreen.
Posted May 16, 2018
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I, Tonya
(2017)
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Ben Dickinson
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[Margot Robbie's] portrayal vividly spans the vast, desperate chasm between Harding's life of chronic domestic violence and the sheer joy and élan of her on-ice performances...
Posted May 16, 2018
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Phantom Thread
(2017)
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Ben Dickinson
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A work about a master craftsman, by a master craftsman, starring a master craftsman; it exerts a gravitational disorientation, an atmospheric approximation of insanity, that lingers with you long after you wander back into your own mundane life.
Posted May 16, 2018
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The Party
(2017)
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Ben Dickinson
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The Party is a departure: a wide-ranging snapshot of our besieged, bewitched, and bewildered cultural moment and a metaphor for the foibles of well-intentioned liberalism facing the chaos of Brexit...
Posted May 16, 2018
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Before the Rains
(2007)
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Karen Durbin
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The movie's intelligence and capacity for surprise keep things exhilarating.
Posted May 16, 2018
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Tropic Thunder
(2008)
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Karen Durbin
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Tropic Thunder is very funny. So much so that I didn't mind until afterward that the only noticeable female in it is on-screen for maybe four seconds and has no lines.
Posted May 16, 2018
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The Duchess
(2008)
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Karen Durbin
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The result is lush entertainment that's also insightful and wrenching and strikes a contemporary chord.
Posted May 16, 2018
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Vicky Cristina Barcelona
(2008)
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Karen Durbin
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Vicky Cristina Barcelona is one of Woody Allen's most charming comedies, and not just because Penélope Cruz all but steals it out from under him.
Posted May 16, 2018
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Happy-Go-Lucky
(2008)
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Karen Durbin
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Movies this good are a privilege.
Posted May 16, 2018
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Rachel Getting Married
(2008)
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Karen Durbin
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Rachel Getting Married has a wild Blakean expansiveness: Like life itself, it contains both heaven and hell.
Posted May 16, 2018
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Synecdoche, New York
(2008)
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Karen Durbin
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Watching Synecdoche, New York, you're always in Kaufmanville, a stylized universe that keeps its fictional distance yet retains the power to tap your emotions.
Posted May 16, 2018
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Milk
(2008)
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Karen Durbin
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Funny, moving, and full of truth...
Posted May 16, 2018
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Slumdog Millionaire
(2008)
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Karen Durbin
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For all its romanticism and buoyant humor, what gives this propulsive movie heft is its fearless streak of realism.
Posted May 16, 2018
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