Female Film Critics 24/375
If you’d enjoy an Agatha Christie-like whodunit mystery that’s set in someplace like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, visit Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club. Adapted by Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote from erudite Richard Osman’s best-sellers, it’s cleverly cast and deftly directed by Chris Columbus. Hopefully, the caper will become a miniseries.
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Art, poetry, love, longing, and gorgeous Irish landscapes come together in director Polly Steele’s poignant romantic drama Four Letters of Love. Based on the same-named novel by Niall Williams (who also wrote the screenplay) — and boasting talented stars including Pierce Brosnan, Gabriel Byrne, and Helena Bonham Carter — the movie is unabashedly sentimental in telling its story of destiny, with a dash of the divine thrown in for good measure.
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David Koepp and Steven Soderbergh step into the world of British Intelligence with the spy thriller-romantic drama Black Bag. Starring Michael Fassbender as the cerebral George Woodhouse and Cate Blanchett as his glamourous and capable wife, Kathryn St. Jean: Black Bag is a winning combination of style and game playing reminiscent of John le Carré. The puzzles are plenty in Black Bag and the world of these fundamentally untrustworthy people in charge of a shadow milieu that goes beyond conventional politics and morals is a blast to inhabit. Black Bag proves Soderbergh has a lot of juice left in his genre game and it invites the audience to play with him. Go to the party.
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It’s mindless, meaningless mayhem but, if you want CG-action, it’s non-stop! And – if you’ve remained stoic through the perfunctory two hours+ – stay for the ‘revealing’ credits, featuring a cameo by a much beloved DC hero, setting up a future franchise confrontation.
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Barbara Broccoli epitomizes what a great producer should be: smart, creative, passionate, tenacious, and successful. Along with her half-brother Michael G. Wilson, she oversees one of the longest-running, most acclaimed, and most financially successful film franchises in the world. But she is not content with that achievement alone and consistently seeks to produce other films and theatrical stage productions as well as engage in philanthropy and activism. As a teenager she knew she wanted a career in the film industry and she set out with fierce determination to achieve that end and has risen to the top in her field with the awards, critical acclaim, financial success and respect of her peers to prove it.
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Happily ever after? That’s for losers. “You’re going to know my name!” is Cinderella’s new rallying cry, according to the latest interpretation of the fable available on Amazon Prime. The overall experience of this all-singing, all-dancing version of Cinderella is a bit like an extended episode of American Idol, with some High School Musical and a bit of Hamilton thrown in for good measure.
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I feel like the mean stepmother saying this but I think it’s time for the clock to strike midnight on Cinderella movie adaptations. There’s no doubt Kay Cannon’s new version for Amazon Prime is well-intentioned. I’m sure there are plenty of young girls who will love seeing pop princess, Camila Cabello, in the title role and I’m all for the modern, female empowerment messages.
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Because Cinderella is likely to be seen by legions of youngsters around the globe, we wondered how kiddos would interpret this latest screen adaptation of the classic fairy tale. We asked Betsy Bozdech McNab’s daughter, Katie, a savvy tweenager who knows a lot of fairy tales and sees a lot of movies, to review Kay Cannon’s musical live action production. Here’s Katie’s take on the show:
Read moreBeginning in 2008 in Montenegro on the shores of Lake Geneva, retired CIA agent Peter Deveraux (Pierce Brosnan) is recruited
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