By Tom Moore DreamWorks’ new film “Abominable” has the animation and voice acting chops to be another hit for the studio but lacks the story details and development to be anything more than just okay. The film follows Yi (voiced by Chloe Bennet), a young girl who is determined to gather enough money in order to go on a trip that she was supposed to … Continue reading Review: Abominable
“Ad Astra” is more drama than it is sci-fi; this is a rumination on whether or not the pursuit of knowledge is worth the expense of one’s humanity. Admirers of contemplatively mournful futuristic films like “Solaris”, “Gravity”, and “Arrival” will have much to stare at with wonder here. The film is also a provocative meditation on masculinity and how it’s defined by most people today. Continue reading Ad Astra And The Evolution Of Masculinity In Film
This upcoming Wednesday, (2nd October), is when this year’s LFF (London Film Festival) will be starting. Yours truly will be attending for a few days and doing her best to cram as many films as possible. This year’s festival is quite remarkable in the fact that 60% of films which have been selected for the competition have been directed or co-directed by a female. This is a great achievement for female representation in the industry, especially when we recall how this year’s Venice Film Festival only two films in competition were from a female filmmaker. Continue reading LFF 2019: A Celeberation Of Female Filmmakers
It’s been over 40 years since the film critic Laura Mulvey first coined the term male gaze, in her essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975). The male gaze is referred to as a way of seeing women and the world through a masculine perspective and point of view. Continue reading Feminist Film Theory 101: Defining The Male Gaze
With a title like “Badass Beauty Queen” one would expect this to be the title of some fast-paced action flick set in the world of Beauty Pageants. However, it is actually the title of an incredibly inspirational and thought-provoking documentary about a young woman who took on an entire governmental regime. The Badass Beauty Queen that the documentary is named after is Miss Canada, Anastasia Lin who was set to represent the country at the Miss World Pageant in Sanya, China in 2015. Lin, who has been outspoken about China’s appalling human-rights record, was declared ‘persona non grata’ by the Chinese authorities preventing her from gaining access to the country. Continue reading Review: Badass Beauty Queen
From sports to comic books, fandom has become a pivotal part of pop culture and for some people it’s an integral part of their daily lives. However, no fandom has transcended through generations more rapidly and with greater force than that of Boy Band fandom. Since The Beatles hit the music scene back in the 60s, fangirls have come from near and far to simply just be in presence of their favorite boy bands and have gone so far as to make them a part of their who they are as a person. Normally, most girls are told that this is a phase in their lives and that when they’re older they’ll look back and think that they were just immature – but is this really true.
Well, this is what Australian filmmaker Jessica Leski uncovers in her new documentary “I Used to Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story,” and the result is a very engrossing film that expertly covers the positive and negative effects boy band fandom can have and the roles they’ve played in women’s lives for generations. Continue reading Review: I Used to Be Normal: A Boy Band Fangirl Story
While the focus of this movie is of course Judy Garland and primarily the last year of her life, “JUDY” opens with a behind the scenes look of with a young Judy Garland (Darci Shaw) being berated by her publicist/handler and MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer. Not allowed to eat, not allowed to have friends, working 18 hour days and most notably, the start of her pill addiction that would eventually take her life. Continue reading Review: “JUDY” (2019) ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS
When I tell friends, family, colleagues, and the occasional random stranger that Amy Heckerling’s 1995 off-the-wall, colorful, and downright entertaining teen comedy, “Clueless” (starring Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Stacey Dash, and Brittany Murphy), is an adaptation of a Jane Austen novel, “Emma” (published 1815), most are shocked. Flabbergasted, if you will.
In fact, most of these people are not familiar enough with the story of “Emma” itself to note the similarities between Heckerling’s film and the novel. Continue reading “As if!:” How Amy Heckerling’s Clueless Pays a Lovely Tribute to Jane Austen’s Emma
One man – three (and more) women – coming from one female and one male writers, the hope for a lampooning of an archaic romantic-comedy trope is possible. Regrettably, this isn’t the case. “American Fango” (2017) sees a young Italian man, besotted over a visiting American, follow her back in a bid to win her heart. As he begins to soak in the culture, his passion for acting, life and yes, women, take over as he finds a new life in America. Rapidly, we see a mess of ideas, storylines and icy performances litter what was potentially a romantic recapturing of Europe’s love for New York City. Continue reading Review: American Fango
Christine is drawn to the mask covering the face of the strange man playing the organ in front of her. What is behind it? She must know. She reaches and pulls it away…….
One of the most famous scenes in film history is the reveal of Lon Chaney’s face in “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925) It single-handedly created film make up as an art form and recognized Chaney as its master. Since then, a handful of others have shown the inventiveness of Chaney, but they have been mostly men. That is until Ve Neill arrived in Hollywood and proceeded to make her own creations by her own rules. Here is an overview of her amazing career. Continue reading Ve Neill: An Enduring Inspiration for Creative Women
In Their Own League 