The radical notion that women like good movies
So few superheroines are given their own movies. I’m officially declaring that it’s high time we had more superhero movies starring women. The first in a series of posts, I’m starting with a list of my top 10 picks for super babes who deserve their own flicks.
Children have always figured prominently in ‘Game of Thrones,’ but their presence seems especially meaningful this [fourth] season, as we get a clearer glimpse of the war’s effect on bystanders, people not entrenched in political intrigue and behind-the-scenes strategizing.
The story of a family burdened by salacious and supernatural secrets in 1962 Louisiana, the movie has become one of the finer American films in the Southern gothic tradition; but with a Black director and an all-Black cast, ‘Eve’s Bayou’ has been unceremoniously booted from its deserving recognition as the fantastic, moody art film it is.
The first season of the British sci-fi show ‘Black Mirror’ frames its stories through an unintentionally narrow and myopic point of view, just like the first season of HBO’s ‘Girls.’ For some reason, though, ‘Black Mirror’s extremely specific point of view is mistaken as being universal, while the extremely specific point of view offered by ‘Girls’ is not.
Though clearly based on the novel, ‘Bride & Prejudice’ is a successful piece of transnational cinema, which uses the interracial relationship between the Bakshi’s second eldest daughter Lalita and white American Mark Darcy to discuss differences in race, tradition, and cultural imperialism.
Both ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ and ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ examine Indian women and their romances with white men. Within the interracial relationships explored in these respective films, both Jess and Rita… are burdened with navigating deeply impressed racial boundaries as they move through a modern society.
‘West Side Story’ could be read as a warning to Latinas: stay away from white men. If María listened to her older brother, obeying his wish to keep her obedient and virginal, María would be safe and free from grief. This notion is exceedingly disappointing, especially considering that there are not many Latina main characters in Hollywood movies.
If only ‘Carol’ the much lauded movie from director Todd Haynes (adapted by Phyllis Nagy from Patricia Highsmith’s novel ‘The Price of Salt’) were as good as its trailer, a one minute ten second masterpiece of close-ups, pitch-perfect period detail and barely contained emotion.
I was surprised at how enjoyable and skillfully made ‘Brooklyn’ is: I cried when everyone else did and gasped when the rest of the audience did too, but in spite of its excellent art direction and affecting performances the film is mostly hokum. New York in the 1950s is a place where no one the main character hangs out with smokes (when all of the men and the majority of women were smokers). Most of the characters barely drink (just one glass at Christmas) and, except for a child’s brief outburst at a family dinner table, (“I should say that we don’t like Irish people”) none of its white, working-class, ethnic characters have any problem with any other ethnic group.
Marc Silver’s documentary ‘3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets’ which airs on HBO Monday, Nov. 23, won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance and is an attempt to remind us of the particulars in the shooting of Black, suburban teenager, Jordan Davis, on the third anniversary of his death.
“Redemption is always something that comes up, and I never understand that — why we need to find redemption or have redemption in books or movies.”
From the GBF to the pretty-ugly conformist-nonconformist girl, from positional superiority to “Hubble,” ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ expertly raises every clichéd plot twist and trope in the romcom playbook, before stripping them bare in favor of honesty, moral courage and the belief that life really does go on without a man. Surely that’s a message we can get behind?
