Dolores Jane Umbridge: Page, Screen, and Stage

Umbridge works as Undersecretary to Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge. Through her position in the patriarchal wizarding government, Umbridge enables job discrimination, segregation, incarceration and harsh sentencing, and physical violence and genocide against marginalized people. She not only politically supports these efforts, but personally enacts violence against marginalized people and their allies, including children.

‘White Bird In A Blizzard’: A Storm of Crime, Carnality, and Coming of Age

For months, Kat idly notes her mother Eve’s increasingly odd behaviour, but is too busy falling in love and losing her virginity to care, until, suddenly, one day, Eve disappears without a trace. Kat assumes she ran away because she didn’t love them, and attempts to go on with her life, but a police investigation slowly begins circling her family. As an audience, we’ve been conditioned to see a movie with thriller or mystery elements in it as a thriller or mystery story. But Gregg Araki’s film, ‘White Bird in a Blizzard,’ is only part mystery, part coming of age story, and part haunted dreamscape, and refuses to be easily categorized as any of the above.

2012 Golden Globe Nominations

Here they are! I don’t have much to say about these (yet), but if we’ve reviewed them or commented on them, I’ll link you up. Best Motion Picture — Drama “The Descendants”“The Help”“Hugo”“The Ides of March”“Moneyball”“War Horse” Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama Glenn Close, “Albert Nobbs”Viola Davis, “The Help”Rooney … Continue reading “2012 Golden Globe Nominations”

Sheila E.’s Agency as an Artist in ‘Krush Groove’ and Beyond

But Sheila E. represents a woman’s creative musical power in an early hip hop film dominated by male artists. … As we consider hip hop’s presence in U.S. films and documentaries spanning the globe, it is also reasonable to consider that Sheila E. has one of the biggest roles for a woman that was written in the spate of films that began portraying hip hop culture.

‘Pinky’ and the Origins of Interracial Oscar-Bait

‘Pinky’ is best understood at the starting point for a new Hollywood trajectory for interracial relationships onscreen: the worthy Oscar-bait drama that claims to enlighten as it entertains and serves as a conduit for fostering tolerance in the presumed white audience.

‘Crimson Peak’: Guillermo del Toro’s Gothic Romance Offers a Gorgeous Chill

‘Crimson Peak’s connection to the “women’s pictures” of the ’40s and ’50s, and particularly Hitchcock’s ‘Rebecca,’ is instructive in reading it as a feminist film. Del Toro takes the tropes of a goodhearted, innocent protagonist, an oily older suitor, and a dangerous female rival whose hostility to the heroine is in part motivated by an “inappropriate” sexual desire, and recontextualizes them.

Sex Positivity: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our Sex Positivity Theme Week here.

Lies The Government–and Movies–Tell Us: ‘(T)ERROR’ and ‘Me and Earl and the Dying Girl’

To see a portrait of the inner workings of the FBI we have to look to films like the new documentary, ‘(T)ERROR’ co-directed by Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe, showing this Sunday, June 14 as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. In a highly unusual coup, an FBI informant Saeed aka “Shariff” (who used to be Cabral’s neighbor) agrees to be followed by the camera (though he complains to Cabral during closeups “You’re always getting the fucking headshots”) as he talks about his past cases and sets up a current one.

‘Ever After’: A Wicked Stepmother with Some Fairy Godmother Tendencies

As an orphan of common origins, Drew Barrymore’s spunky protagonist, Danielle de Barbarac, is forced into a life of servitude to her father’s widow, the Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent, and the Baroness’s two natural daughters, Jacqueline and Marguerite. As Baroness Rodmilla, Anjelica Houston is equal parts breathtaking as she is fearsome, as cruel as she is oddly sympathetic.

Carey Mulligan on Her Feminist Character in ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’

Following are highlights from the press conference with Carey Mulligan, where among other things, she talked about her character, her collaborative work with her co-stars and director, the elaborate costumes, and how expert she became handling sheep.

‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’: Bollywood Hurts Men, Too

By supplying excuses all around, ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ upholds the status quo while venting its resulting frustrations; the performances lovingly celebrate female feistiness, while the plot constantly punishes and suppresses it in favor of traditional ideals of self-sacrifice and emotional martyrdom. Cue predictable feminist outrage. You already know everything I would write. So instead, I’d like to focus on another aspect of the film: its utter contempt for male agency. Yes, male.

Seed & Spark: #EarlyCinemaSoBlack

But they did not do it for fame or hardware, they saw a new industry that they could use to instill pride and confidence in their community and propel the race forward. So for this Black History Month, we can proudly say #EarlyCinemaSoBlack.