Female Film Critics 24/375
Fulfilling Sylvia Plath’s observation: “It’s a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It’s easier to be somebody else or nobody at all”…Noah Baumbach’s bittersweet buddy movie Jay Kelly explores regret and missed opportunities – on a rarefied level.
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Famous actor Jay Kelly (George Clooney) continually asks after filming a scene, “Can I go again?” That question takes on a whole new meaning by the end of Noah Baumbach’s latest dysfunctional family meets Inside the Actor’s Studio character study of an aging star having second thoughts about his choices in life.
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The New Look delves into Coco Chanel’s and Christian Dior’s history. Some individuals enjoy name recognition even though biographical details may not be well known. This occurred to me as I watched the series The New Look which informatively and compellingly chronicles haute couture icons Christian Dior and Coco Chanel during and briefly after the WWII Nazi occupation of Paris. Poetic license is taken, but confirmed biographical details are, nevertheless, significant.
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With Relic, director/screenwriter Natalie Erika James has crafted a taut horror flick that incorporates aging and dementia into its storyline. The clever use of music and lighting in the film, particularly those long shots of the dimly lit hallways in that creaky old house, really ramp up the fear factor and provides several well-earned jump scares
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At first, Relic plays like any number of supernatural thrillers but writer/director Natalie Erika James and co-writer Christian White incorporate genre tropes in smart ways that play into their larger theme. The idea to physically manifest the concept of dementia as a supernatural entity is nothing short of brilliant.
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Children will love the color, the movement, and the story, but grown-ups will bring more to Mary Poppins Returns. They will bring memories of Mary Poppins, the 1964 film with Dick van Dyck and Julie Andrews, or even the 2013 film, Saving Mr. Banks, the story of making Mary Poppins with Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks.
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If you’re looking for a jolly holiday gift that’s “practically perfect,” take everyone – kids and grandparents included – to see this enchanting, utterly delightful Disney sequel. It’s set in 1930s London, long after Mary Poppins original 1964 visit. Grown-up Michael Banks is now a widower, and his labor-activist sister Jane has come to help him with his three little children.
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The Bookshop reveals the character of a community. Some films aspire primarily to be a charming and cautionary story of political machinations that devastate kind characters striving to make constructive contributions to their community. That’s the case with The Bookshop, in which Florence Green, a widow of sixteen years, decides to transform her old stone house into the first bookstore for the fictitious town of Hardborough, East Anglia.
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In this slow-moving British period piece, Emily Mortimer plays Florence Green, a widow who moves to a sleepy coastal town in England to open a bookshop in an old abandoned house. It’s the 1950s, though, and outsiders — especially those who would be considered liberal elites today — are simply not welcome.
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A woman’s modest but passionate dream of running a book store goes up against small-town politics in Isabel Coixet’s The Bookshop. With stunning performances by Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Bill Nighy and yong Honor Kneafsey, this intimate English-to-the-core drama reveals darkness at the heart of a storybook village.