ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Female Film Critics 24/375

Reviews 

AWFJ Women On Film – Releasing August 14, 2009

Jennifer Merin
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AWFJ highlights films made by and about women:

Friday, August 19

  • Bandslam – Summit Entertainment, 111 mins. – Teenage girls in a rising rock band battle the boys.
  • District 9 – Sony Pictures, 111 mins.
  • The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard – Paramount Vantage, 89 mins.

  • Grace – Anchor Bay, 85 mins, limited NY, LA – a horror drama about birthing

  • It Might Get Loud – Sony Pictures, 97 mins., limited
  • Ponyo – Walt Disney Pictures, 101 mins. – Hayao Miyazaki’s animated feature, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Little Mermaid.,“ focuses on a girl goldfish, named Ponyo, who wants to become human. Fab female voices include Cate Blanchett, Tina Fey, Cloris Leachman, Lily Tomlin and Betty White.
  • The Time Traveler’s Wife – New Line Cinema, 108 mins. – Rachel McAdams as the unfortunate wife who loyally and lovingly stands by her time-traveling man.
  • I Sell the Dead – IFC, 85 mins.
  • Spread – Anchor Bay, 97 mins.
  • Mein Fuhrer – First Run Features, 89 mins.
  • Taxidermia – Regent Releasing, 91 mins.
  • Earth Days – Zeitgeist, 100 mins – Rachel Carson and other women conservationists are pivotal characters in Robert Stone’s documentary about the early days of the environmental movement.
  • The Pool Boys – Seven Arts Pictures, 89 mins.
  • Cloud 9 (Wolke Neun) – Music Box Films, 98 mins – In this German feature, a middle aged woman must choose between her husband of 30 years and a new paramour who’s renewed romance and excitement in her life.
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Jennifer Merin

Jennifer Merin is the Film Critic for Womens eNews and contributes the CINEMA CITIZEN blog for and is managing editor for Women on Film, the online magazine of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, of which she is President. She has served as a regular critic and film-related interviewer for The New York Press and About.com. She has written about entertainment for USA Today, The L.A. Times, US Magazine, Ms. Magazine, Endless Vacation Magazine, Daily News, New York Post, SoHo News and other publications. After receiving her MFA from Tisch School of the Arts (Grad Acting), Jennifer performed at the O'Neill Theater Center's Playwrights Conference, Long Wharf Theater, American Place Theatre and LaMamma, where she worked with renown Japanese director, Shuji Terayama. She subsequently joined Terayama's theater company in Tokyo, where she also acted in films. Her journalism career began when she was asked to write about Terayama for The Drama Review. She became a regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor after writing an article about Marketta Kimbrell's Theater For The Forgotten, with which she was performing at the time. She was an O'Neill Theater Center National Critics' Institute Fellow, and then became the institute's Coordinator. While teaching at the Universities of Wisconsin and Rhode Island, she wrote "A Directory of Festivals of Theater, Dance and Folklore Around the World," published by the International Theater Institute. Denmark's Odin Teatret's director, Eugenio Barba, wrote his manifesto in the form of a letter to "Dear Jennifer Merin," which has been published around the world, in languages as diverse as Farsi and Romanian. Jennifer's culturally-oriented travel column began in the LA Times in 1984, then moved to The Associated Press, LA Times Syndicate, Tribune Media, Creators Syndicate and (currently) Arcamax Publishing. She's been news writer/editor for ABC Radio Networks, on-air reporter for NBC, CBS Radio and, currently, for Westwood One's America In the Morning. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association in the Film, Documentary and TV branches and a voting member of the Black Reel Awards. For her AWFJ archive, type "Jennifer Merin" in the Search Box (upper right corner of screen).