Female Film Critics 24/375
Barbara Miller’s eye-opening documentary, #FemalePleasure, is dedicated to empowering women worldwide as it examines the state of female sexuality in the 21st century and the cultural and political obstacles we still face.
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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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Michel Ocelot’s Dilili in Paris isn’t your standard animated kids’ fare — not by a long shot. And that’s a good thing. With its sophisticated Belle Epoque setting and parade of cultural and artistic figures and references, it’s almost like taking a trip to a colorful, informative, interactive museum. Which is somewhat apropos, given that we first meet young Dilili (voiced by Prunelle Charles-Ambron) when she’s participating in a living cultural exhibit of the Kanak people.
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Recently playing at Austin’s Fantastic Fest after competing for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival (and winning Emily Beecham Best Actress award), Jessica Hausner’s English-language debut feature Little Joe in many was recalls her 2004 feature Hotel with its particular utilization of genre as a way to explore the relationship between women, identity and labor
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Draug has more gore in store for you.
A chiller marking the feature debuts of writer-directors Klas Persson and Karin Engman, Draug mixes familiar horror elements — including those oh-so-trendy walking dead — with mythology straight from an old Viking saga.
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With the recent US premiere of her latest film Pelican Blood at Fantastic Fest, Katrin Gebbe returns once again to appreciative audiences in Austin after her fearless 2013 debut film Nothing Bad Can Happen. With the latter devastating audiences across the globe since its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, Pelican Blood reveals Gebbe to be a filmmaker now in full flight, more than capable of tackling confronting difficult questions around cliché-defying representations of mother-child bonds.
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What a pleasure it is to meet Jim Allison in Bill Haney’s excellent documentary. Jim Allison: Breakthrough starts with Allison playing the harmonica and ends there, too. In between, there’s plenty of music, but also a lot of medicine and quite a bit of admirable and rugged persistence.
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Mostly aimed at the 10 and younger crowd, the movie offers plenty of eye-popping and ear-pleasing spectacle for all ages, from gorgeous scenes at the Leshan Giant Buddha in Sichuan, where Yi plays a violin cover of Coldplay so beautiful that it conjures natural wonders, to a glitzy sequence on the Shanghai Tower, where the kids use the mega-skyscraper’s daily light show to ditch Burnish’s thugs.
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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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Simply titled Judy, director Rupert Goold’s film tackles the last year of Judy Garland’s life, 1968 to 1969. On the whole, it is not a happy one, given Judy’s reliance on alcohol and pills, a self-destructive addiction explored in flashbacks to MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer’s abusive treatment of her during the 1939 shoot of The Wizard of Oz.
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