Female Film Critics 24/375
The Power of the Dog sweeps the 2021 AWFJ EDA Awards with Wins in 11 out of 25 Categories. Multiple EDA Awards also go to Belfast and Encanto, and curator Maya Cade claims the Outstanding Achievement Award for founding the Black Cinema Archives. Dame Judi Dench and Ms. Rita Moreno are our Grande Dames, and guess who captured the She Deserves A New Agent Award.
Read more
It has been 12 years since film titan Jane Campion released a feature film. Now, with The Power of the Dog, the New Zealand director shows she has lost not a step. Her adaptation of Thomas Savage’s 1967 Western novel offers the vivid landscapes and hothouse emotions reminiscent of the film that put her on the world map, The Piano (1993). A piano even serves as an important plot point.
Read more
While she won’t speculate on her own awards prospects, Ari Wegner recently told me how happy she is to see the way women are now being more welcomed in the field of cinematography. She hopes this will continue to increase as female DPs start to see the recognition that has eluded them for so long. She discusses both the art and science of filmmaking with such a degree of passion and poetry, that her love for the medium is contagious. She is a leader, a champion, and a gifted artist, giving the world not only beautiful images, but a sense of hope and fascination too.
Read more
You’ll keep waiting for the axe to fall…and it doesn’t…and it doesn’t…and the tension builds to the bursting point. Perfectly benign moments take on sinister hues in The Power of the Dog, you know something is deadly wrong, tensions hang over your head, and when the axe finally falls it’s a hell of a payoff.
Read more
Jane Campion takes a tactile approach to exploring her characters. But in this milieu, not given to gentleness and intimacy, a glimpse of hands working with strips of woven cowhide can take on a transgressive charge.
Read more
Utilizing myriad metaphors, writer/director Jane Campion (Oscar-winner for 1993’s The Piano) subtly crafts a kinky, compelling thriller, working with cinematographer Ari Wegner, who transforms New Zealand’s barren South Island into stark, sparsely populated Montana in 1925. Tt’s visually stunning with a spine-chilling score by Radiohead, Jonny Greenwood.
Read more
New Zealand director Jane Campion has a knack for isolating individuals in a remote, harsh location, applying pressure, and watching civilization unravel. That’s exactly what she does in The Power of the Dog, set on a vast Montana cattle ranch in 1925 where two brothers, the wife, and her son will become immersed in an unnerving psychological battle. The Power of the Dog is one of this year’s most haunting, well-executed films.
Read moreGeena Davis celebrates 25th anniversary of ‘A League of Their Own,’ while Alicia Silverstone reflects on the legacy of ‘Clueless.’
Read more
With her sixth feature, Sofia Coppola can no longer be denied the appellation of auteur… if she ever could. The lush visuals, sultry atmosphere, and almost serene sense of the sinister that infuses The Beguiled add intriguing new layers to the distinctive signature approach to cinematic storytelling Coppola has been developing since her debut with 1999’s The Virgin Suicides. Continue reading…
The original 1971 “The Beguiled” pitted Clint Eastwood’s wounded Union solider Corp. John McBurney against the residents of a Southern
Read more