Female Film Critics 24/375
For John Lewis: Good Trouble, documentarian Dawn Porter followed the Georgia congressman for over a year. The result is a film that centers on the power of personal conviction, and the importance for individuals to take a stand. In our interview, Porter spoke about why John Lewis is both an icon and a real, thinking man of both his time, and for all time.
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One couldn’t pick a more appropriate film for this moment in history than John Lewis: Good Trouble. The 80 year-old civil rights leader and US Congressman’s life has spanned the Jim Crow south to the halls of power. Dawn Porter’s documentary doesn’t do anything fancy and it doesn’t need to; Lewis’s personal story and the historical footage speak volumes.
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For the first time this summer, I’m not missing all the big loud comic-book movies we’re being bombarded with in an alt-timeline. I like those movies, but they do tend to dominate the pop-culture conversation. With them off the radar this year, there’s room to breathe for a fantastic little pulp comic-book movie like The Old Guard.
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Dawn Porter’s documentary John Lewis: Good Trouble is a stirring tribute to the 80-year-old civil rights hero and Georgia Democratic U.S. representative who eschewed violence while putting his own life on the line during protests in the early ‘60s. The documentary is also a clarion call to warn us that our election this fall, even before coronavirus came into our lives, is in danger of being compromised.
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Since the usual superheroes abandoned theaters this summer, Netflix supplies new super soldiers, an elite band of indestructible warriors led by axe-wielding Andromache of Scythia (Charlize Theron). Andy, as she’s called, has been covertly battling the world’s evil for centuries – and she’s weary.
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Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Old Guard brings a new level of diverse representation to the sci-fi action genre, and a sense of authenticity that comes from action that’s so strongly based in characterization and character motivation.
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As superhero action movies based on a series of comic books go, Netflix’s The Old Guard manages to spin a few new tricks on an overdone genre as it takes its cues from Peter Parker’s motto, “With great power comes great responsibility,” but with a twist at its center. The main quartet of crusaders vanquishing evil in this adventure are centuries-old immortal mercenaries who have the ability to magically heal their own wounds and live to see many more days of do-gooding.
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Filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood brings human drama to the superhero characters of The Old Guard, staging many action and fight scenes with lightening-quick finesse while getting dynamic performances from her e cast. But the heart and soul of the movie is Charlize Theron, gleefully believable as a 6,000-year-old warrior who’s saddled with a ghost that will no doubt figure in the next installment of this franchise.
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In the hands of director Gina Prince-Bythewood, The Old Guard is a far more subtle and introspective superhero movie than we’re used to seeing. That may have something to do with the fact that it’s a straight-to-streaming Netflix original, but its focus on the emotional and physical toll of saving the world offers a welcome change from the consequence-free carnage that usually heralds the arrival of the summer blockbuster season.
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The old saying “still waters run deep” is an apt description of the main character in Ina Weisse’s intensely observed drama The Audition. Anna (Nina Hoss) is a wife, a mother, and a music teacher whose life might look calm and stable from the outside but whose inner life and conflicts threaten to boil over daily. Hoss’ magnetic performance will keep you invested in where Anna’s choices take her.
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