Female Film Critics 24/375
Symptoms of PTSD – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – permeate Heart of the Beast, a treacherous survival story about a military veteran and his combat dog in Alaska’s wilderness. Yet it’s also a love story about the devotion between a man and his loyal canine companion, joining classics like Rin Tin Tin, Old Yeller and Lassie.
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Subtitled – “Greed knows no limits” – all four of its leading characters are thoroughly dislikeable and so selfish that you really don’t care who survives the ‘lost in the wilderness’ ordeal. Secretive siblings Lee and Cheryl are a study in contrasts. For a recently released ex-con, he’s deceptively sensitive and friendly, while she’s evasive and openly hostile.
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Practical Magic 2 begins with “I’m sure you’ve heard tell of the Owens sisters,” reminding viewers of the spellbinding 1998 campy fantasy about a Massachusetts family of witches. Nearly three decades later, widowed Sally Owens has two grown daughters – Kylie and Antonia – who are totally unaware of their mystical. matrilineal curse: Any Owens woman who falls in love condemns that person to an early death. When heartsick Kylie discovers the mysterious ‘Book of the Raven’ and learns the truth about the tortured legacy that permeates her bloodline, she takes off for the Owens’ ancestral home in England, determined to break the ancient curse once and for all.
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Mayday premiered on Apple TV earlier this month and has already become one of the ‘most watched’ action/buddy comedies of the season. Set in 1987, Ryan Reynolds stars as cocky U.S. Navy pilot Troy ‘Assassin’ Kelly who is forced to eject from his top-secret Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane to avoid a deadly collision over the Siberian forest during the last days of the Cold War. Wounded and stranded behind the Iron Curtain, he’s befriended by Kenneth Branagh, playing Nikolai ‘Nik’ Ustinov, an eccentric ex-KGB officer who is obsessed with American pop culture and dreams of defecting with his estranged daughter Anna (Maria Bakalova).
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Coyote vs. Acme is a delightful late summer surprise. This live-action/animated misadventure originated in Ian Frazier’s 1990 humorous anti-corporate New Yorker satire, a mock court case in which Looney Tunes’ resilient Wile E. Coyote sues the Acme Corporation for all the defective mail-order products (rocket-propelled roller skates, jet-boosted pogo stick) that have malfunctioned as he relentlessly chased the Road Runner
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Netflix’s intriguing Danish psychological thriller The Secret Woman introduces a lady with amnesia who learns that she’s not only a missing heiress but also married and the mother of a young son. The story begins in Denmark as an adult female is climbing over the railing of a huge bridge with someone in pursuit; terrified, she jumps off, just as a cargo ship passes below. Cut to: Louise Andersen who runs a small café on the idyllic Norwegian island of Hidra with her novelist fiancé Joachim. Their peaceful life is shattered when a stranger appears, insisting that her real name is Helene, not Louise.
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I’m glad I waited to see The Invite on Prime Video because – while Olivia Wilde helms this forebodingly unpredictable sex comedy – it’s not worth a trip to the multiplex. Adapted by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones from the Spanish film Sentimental (2020), it’s basically a four-hander, set in San Francisco. What happens is for you to discover – as all four actors play their parts convincingly. Reminiscent of but not nearly as good as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? it’s yet another deep dive into a tense, troubled, middle-age marriage.
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With the Emmys approaching, attention must be paid to Wednesday: Season 2 with 12 nominations; it has become the second most-watched English language series in Netflix history – with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman as Morticia and Gomez with Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley. In the title role, Jenny Ortega’s nomination as Outstanding Comedy Series Lead Actress is a notable achievement in Latina representation since she’s the third and youngest Latina to receive this honor, following America Ferrera and Rita Moreno. Focusing on macabre horror, Wednesday re-visits the gothic world of the Addams family’s morbidly stoic daughter as she navigates teenage life at Nevermore Academy while sinister forces – both outside and inside the school -conspire against her.
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Jason Sudeikis’ hit comedy series <em>Ted Lasso</em> took a three-year hiatus – now it’s back for a fourth season. Last seen – the ever-optimistic American coach Ted left London to co-parent his young son in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. So he’s really surprised when team owner Rebecca Welton, marketing chief Keely Jones and operations head Leslie Higgins unexpectedly arrive stateside, ostensibly to see KC Current, the first stadium designed and built specifically for professional women’s sports.
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The End of Oak Street is – perhaps – the perfect popcorn picture to conclude the summer – an action-filled, sci-fi creature-feature. It’s 1982 in middle-class suburbia where the Platt family is celebrating an idyllic block party with their neighbors. Frustrated Denise is an aspiring novelist, Greg earns extra money delivering pizza, while the kids – Audrey and Brian – romp with their feisty dog Starbuck. The End of Oak Street is absurdly entertaining
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