Female Film Critics 24/375
We’ve seen before how people who seem to have charmed lives can have a whole different view of themselves, but the drama Violet portrays this struggle for confidence in an experimental yet engrossing and sympathetic way.
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What’s the worst that can happen? That’s not a question the voices inside your head will likely answer, because doing so might end the self criticism, judgment, and worry that play like a tape loop in your brain. That isn’t something studio executive Violet Calder (Olivia Munn) has figured out in the film Violet, from actor Justine Bateman in her first narrative feature as writer/directed.
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Violet is a film about toxic relationships, not just with others, but – first and foremost – with ourselves. It makes literal the internal struggles so many of us face on a daily basis: how much do we share? Who do we trust? How do we change our lives? Violet uses the codes and conventions of cinema and weaves them into Justine Bateman’s own strikingly creative approach to filmmaking to address the tricky representational arena of self-sabotage, as the character is pushed and pulled with exhausting frequency between what she feels, what she does, and what the cruel, infantalizing voice in her head tells her about herself. Violet is a film about struggle, about fighting back and taking control, but the way that Bateman brings this internal universe to life makes it not only one of the most memorable films at TIFF this year.
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You hope for a version of Love, Actually or Four Weddings and a Funeral from this British comedy. However, you get mush. The comedy starts out being a bit funny, if vulgar. You give the movie a break because it starts pretty in Italy, in a beautiful setting in summer.
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As this sci-fi franchise continues, Shane Black, who acted in John McTiernan’s 1987 “Predator,” has become its director. The story begins as a former Army Ranger sniper-turned-mercenary spots a UFO crashing into the Mexican jungle. Aboard the alien space ship, McKenna finds a Predator helmet and gauntlet – but not before the creature has annihilated the rest of his troop.
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Olivia Munn has again weathered the storm of speaking out against sexual misconduct.
It’s been a whirlwind week or so for the actor after she went public about her choice to speak out when she learned that an actor with a small role on her new film “The Predator” is a registered sex offender.
Films with women or minorities in lead roles led the box office 11 out of the first 12 weekends this
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