Loren King – Page 2 – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

STEAL THIS STORY, PLEASE! – Review by Loren King

April 7, 2026April 12, 2026 Loren King Amy Goodman, Carl Deal, Democracy Now, documentary, juan gonzales, Steal This Story Please, Tia Lessin

It’s fitting that a film about about independent journalist Amy Goodman, founder and host of the TV and radio news program Democracy Now!, would be this timely and revelatory. Steal This Story, Please! chronicles Goodman’s life and career and the many groundbreaking stories she’s reported on for Democracy Now! It also serves as a powerful argument that corporate ownership of the news doesn’t serve the public. That’s clear from the great opening with Goodman literally chasing Trump’s climate advisor, P. Wells Griffith III, at a conference in Poland. She asks direct but basic questions that he refuses to answer; his one response is to tell Goodman that she is harassing him.

Reviews

THE INQUISITOR – Review by Loren King

February 17, 2026February 22, 2026 Loren King alfre woodard, Angela Lynn Tucker, Angela Tucker, Barbara Jordan, dan rather, independent lens, pbs, The Inquisitor

Fimmaker Angela Tucker’s astute documentary portrays Barbara Jordan in all her complexity and as a woman of her time. She got things done by compromising with the white men who made up nearly all of Congress in the 1970s yet she fearlessly used her intellect and oratory skills at key moments when democracy itself was on the line. Such moments included the impeachment hearings of President Richard Nixon. This film is a much-needed portrait of political leadership, intellectual curiosity and backbone.

Reviews

H IS FOR HAWK – Review by Loren King

January 12, 2026January 18, 2026 Loren King brendan gleeson, charlotte bruus christensen, claire foy, Denise Gough, Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, Emma Donoghue, H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald, Lindsay Duncan, Philippa Lowthorpe

It’s a tall order to translate to the screen what’s delicately layered on the page. But what the film has is Claire Foy, as a version of memoir writer Helen Macdonald, a prickly nature-lover and academic who, in the wilds of grief over the sudden death of her beloved father, photojournalist Alisdair Macdonald (Brendan Gleeson), adopts and trains a goshawk she names Mabel. Mabel is a dangerous predator who must feed on birds and animals and whose icy stare is actually scary. An emotional support pet she is not.

Reviews

GOODBYE JUNE – Review by Loren King

December 16, 2025December 23, 2025 Loren King Andrea Riseborough, Goodbye June, helen mirren, Joe Anders, Johnny Flynn, Timothy Spall, toni colette

Kate Winslet makes her directing debut and stars in Goodbye June, from a script by her son Joe Anders. He’s crafted a moving story about a large family forced to cope suddenly with a dying matriarch during the Christmas season. Messy, tender, funny — the film will be relatable for anyone who’s cared for a declining elder or spent time with loved ones in hospital rooms and experienced the gamut of bittersweet emotions that come with facing mortality.

Reviews

LEFT-HANDED GIRL – Review by Loren King

November 4, 2025November 9, 2025 Loren King Esther K. Chae, Left-Handed Girl, motw, Nina Ye, sean Baker, Shih-Ching Tsou, Shih-Yuan Ma, Teng-Hui Huang

Anchored by the extraordinarily expressive, angel faced Nina Ye as the 5-year old title character I-Jing, the film follows a mother Shu-Fen and two daughters, college age I-Ann, and sweet but feisty I-Jing back to Taipei. As Shu-Fen sets up a noodle shop in the city’s bustling, night market, I-Ann and I-Jing also struggle to find their footing in their new surroundings. The film weaves the stories of several generations, there’s Shu-Fen’s mother who favors an absent brother over her dutiful daughters; her father, whose superstitions cause I-Jing to think of her dominant left hand as “the devil’s hand”; and I-Ann’s inner turmoil over her past, revelations that come to a head late in the film.

Reviews

BELÉN – Review by Loren King

October 27, 2025November 1, 2025 Loren King argentinian films, Belén, Camila Plaate, Dolores Fonzi, false conviction, reproductive rights, Soledad Deza, truth-based

This powerhouse film couldn’t be more timely which makes it both urgent and enraging. Director and star Dolores Fonzi’s Belen immediately draws the viewer into the shocking case of a young woman (Camila Plaate)from the Argentina provinces who, before Argentina passed a law legalizing abortion, suffers a miscarriage while being treated for abdominal pain in a local hospital. A scene where police barge into the hospital room while she’s being medically treated and handcuff and arrest her as she cries out for her mother will be jarring for US viewers in the post-Dobbs era.

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RATIFIED – Review by Loren King

October 5, 2025October 19, 2025 Loren King Andrea Miller, Deborah Riley Draper, documentary, Eileen Davis, Equal Rights Amendment, ERA, Jennifer Carroll Foy, Jennifer McClellan, Kati Horning, pbs, phyllis schlafly, Ratified, Sabaah Folayan, Ting Ting Cheng

Kudos to directors Deborah Riley Draper and Sabaah Folayan for bringing, with vitality and a razor sharp perspective, 100 years of history up to the present and making it fascinating, relevant and, yes, infuriating. Ratified succinctly traces the the birth of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the year 1924 through gains and losses, always with a focus on the pivotal but, unsurprisingly, neglected role unfailingly played by women of color.

Reviews

THE MASTERMIND – Review by Loren King

October 5, 2025October 16, 2025 Loren King Alana Haim, Bill Camp, Cate Marquis, Hope Davis, James Mooney, jennifer merin, josh o'connor, Kelly Reichardt, motw, The Masterpiece, Worcester Art Museum

There’s the heist movie and its glorious sub-genre, the swaggering ‘70s heist movie with such diverse titles including Dog Day Afternoon, The Getaway, and even Barbara Loden’s great Wanda. With her distinct style, writer-directorKelly Reichardt delivers her own spin on that genre. It may be the heist — in this case, a horribly executed museum art theft — that catches our attention but it’s the perfect, shambling atmosphere of 1970 New England including the cars, clothes and languorous characters that keeps us enthralled.

Reviews

THE LIBRARIANS – Review by Loren King

September 23, 2025October 28, 2025 Loren King Amanda Jones, book banning, documentaries, Julie Miller, Kim A. Snyder, Moms for Liberty, Suzette Baker, The Librarians

It’s disturbing to say the least to watch Moms for Liberty members, male and female, routinely attack librarians as “pedophiles” in public meetings or online while convicted or credibly accused sexual abusers at the highest levels of government walk free. The hypocrisy is glaring and chilling. But The Librarians isn’t just about exposing injustice; it’s also about the courage of the librarians who stand up for young people who deserve access to books and a clarion call for anyone who cares about free speech and public education.

Reviews

A NEW KIND OF WILDERNESS – Review by Loren King

August 19, 2025August 23, 2025 Loren King A New Kind of Wilderness, documentary, Maria Vatne, Nik Payne, norwegian films, POV, Silje Evensmo Jacobsen

At just one hour in length, A New Kind of Wilderness is one of the most searing and honest meditations on grief and resiliency that I’ve ever seen. What starts, seemingly, as a cinema verite look at a Norwegian couple, Maria Gros Vatne and Nikolaus Payne, living off the land and homeschooling their four young children in an idyllic commune with nature, soon changes as we learn that Maria, a professional photographer, has cancer.