Female Film Critics 24/375
For 20 years, Mary Mazzio has been creating films that spotlight the underprivileged. A Most Beautiful Thing, a documentary film, centers on America’s first all-black High School rowing team of the gang-infested Manley High School, in Chicago, IL in the late 90s. Mazzio, an Olympic rowing athlete, has found her niche.
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April Wright’s Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story covers a topic that needs both awareness and recognition. Based on Mollie Gregory’s eponymous nonfiction book, the documentary is a historical look at female stuntwomen, with a modern take on today’s filmmaking environment, in which stunt coordinators rehearse multiple viewpoints of a stunt, mapping out all of the moves before the camera begins to roll.
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Director, Bryce Dallas Howard set out to create a tribute film to her father, Ron Howard, but through the process, produced a movie to which we can all relate. Dads features Hollywood celebrity dads telling funny and serious anecdotes about their kids with sure-fire delivery that brightens your spirits. Here’s what principal dad Ron Howard has to say about his daughter’s directorial debut.
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Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always gives us a wake-up call regarding teen girls in this country and how they are required to navigate our nation’s system regarding abortion. The powerful, enlightening Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, should be seen by all teens and adults as a lesson in what happens to teen girls without a safety net.
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Unfortunately, this movie is a prime example of the half-baked idea that Stephen Gaghan, a director known for filmswith intense violence, can cross over into classic children’s literature genre. The beloved “Dr. Dolittle,” books originating in 1920 by Hugh Lofting, were written and intended for children ages nine and ten. There are two reasons why I can’t recommend this film: the fear-provoking violence of animals fighting one another, and an actual ‘dark tonal’ problem with the character of Dr. Dolittle.
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Tracy Letts, currently starring in two highly acclaimed award-contending films — James Mangold’s Ford vs Fararri and Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, chats about his Chicago theater roots, his writing process, his admiration of Greta Gerwig and why everyone should see Ford v Ferrari on the big screen.
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Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers? Yep, it works—it works so well you’ll start shaking your head in utter wonderment as Tom Hanks has channeled Fred Rogers—his mannerisms, his quiet demeanor, his uncanny listening abilities, his deep curiosity into people’s lives, and his perceptive insight into a person’s soul.
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Honey Boy, her first narrative feature film, premiered in the dramatic competition at Sundance 2019, where Alma Har’el won the Special Jury Award for Vision and Craft. Honey Boy is based on the volatile upbringing of actor Shia LeBeouf, who wrote the script during his ordered re-hab stay. He reached out to Har’el and asked her to direct the feature film about his life, with him playing the character based on his father, a rodeo-clown, haunted with regrets.
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The painfully sad backstory transformation of a depressed, clinically ill Arthur Fleck, to that of a sociopath killer, a.k.a. Joker is extremely tough to view. He’s prescribed seven different medications for depression, and tells his caseworker he wants more meds so he can stop feeling so awful. He’s told that the government is cutting back funds, and that she can do nothing more to help him, and that she’ll not be seeing him in the future. Here, society turns it’s back again on Arthur, sending a statement about mental health care.
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Now, film enthusiasts will be able to see Phoebe Waller-Bridge’ work first-hand in her one-woman monologue through the sixty-five-minute event titled, National Theater Live: Fleabag, playing in theaters in London, and beginning this Saturday in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center, with more theaters to be announced.
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