Review: Little Women

By Lynn Lee

Did we need another one?

That question hangs over any movie based on a novel that’s already been adapted multiple times – even moreso if there’s a previous adaptation that’s particularly beloved.  It may not, however, be the right question.  As potential movie material, perhaps great books should be treated more like great plays are for the stage, in the sense that if the work has enduring appeal, every new era deserves its own adaptation.  So perhaps the better question is whether this adaptation speaks to us, the viewers of today?

As applied to Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, the answer is yes…with a few caveats.  Full disclosure: I came to the movie as someone who read Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age classic so many times that my copy literally fell apart at the seams, and my devotion to Gillian Armstrong’s near-perfect 1994 adaptation starring Winona Ryder (which you should absolutely see if you haven’t) is a matter of TFE record .

While Armstrong’s version remains my favorite, I found a lot to like and admire about Gerwig’s...

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Review: "Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker"

by Cláudio Alves

"Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to." were the desperate words of an angry man. "The greatest teacher, failure is." was the philosophy of a wise master. Somewhere in between the two sentiments, those of Kylo Ren and Yoda, lies the ethos of Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi. There's no place for toxic nostalgia in that director's vision of the Star Wars universe, though a critical look at what came before is necessary or else we're bound to never grow. Independently of Episode VIII's other faults, one would think such a theme would be unanimously celebrated and generate little to no controversy. One would be mistaken. 

Johnson's Star Wars feature sparked a wave of antagonistic discourse that's still active two years after its release. While the perpetual litigation of that production's merits is no one's idea of a good time, it's crucial to consider its themes when analyzing the latest episode in the saga. If every film in a franchise is having a conversation with its brethren, The Rise of Skywalker represents a repudiation of The Last Jedi's core ideals. JJ Abrams' return to the saga is an open celebration of uncritical nostalgia. Indeed, it appears to have been conceived more as a cowed response to fans' complaints than as a satisfying narrative…

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Animated Feature Contenders: "This Magnificent Cake!"

by Tim

With no more new animated releases coming up for a while, this round-up is changing focus: we'll spend the next few weeks looking at some of the more noteworthy titles eligible for the Best Animated Feature Oscar this year. And "feature" barely feels like the right word to describe the 44-minute This Magnificent Cake!, but it just makes it according to the Academy's rules (which state that a feature is more than 40 minutes long).

So it might make it to "feature" on a technicality, but it's unquestionably noteworthy. This is the longest collaboration to date from Belgian directors Emma De Swaef & Marc James Roels, who have made a cottage industry over the last decade with some of the most distinctive-looking films in the world. Not a claim to make lightly, but it's hard to come up with any other way of putting it. The duo's characteristic style is to fashion puppets out of wool and other craft material, and then give them life through stop-motion animation; it's basically what you'd get if you were told to make a movie using only the things you could find in a fabric store...

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Review: Uncut Gems

by Chris Feil

In recent years, director duo Josh and Benny Safdie are cornering a market all their own of thriller of toxic neons and fatal consequence, after the deeply grim exploits of Heaven Knows What and Good Time. Nobody makes films quite in the way that the Safdies are making them right now, even if their particular brand of originality swims in back alley, off-putting aggressiveness. This round, their Uncut Gems is a dose of high anxiety filmmaking that’s partly Shakespearean tragedy of hubris and part underbelly crime saga in another unexamined pocket of New York City life.

Their best and most subversively accessible, it’s something enervating, infuriating, and compulsively watchable, all centered on a complex protagonist that also embodies all of the film’s contradictory qualities. That man is diamond dealer Howard Ratner, arrogantly betting off his assets and dwindling goodwill in the hopes of one massive payout, brought to exhilarating life by a possessed Adam Sandler.

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Review: Bombshell

by Murtada Elfadl

Bombshell takes a while to show us the crimes of abuse that Roger Ailes committed. But when that moment comes it’s as gross, as unpleasant and as horrifying as we thought it’d be. Instead at the beginning we follow Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) as she is fired from Fox News and decides to sue the network and Ailes for sexual harassment. As that is happening two other narratives begin to formulate. A young producer named Kayla (a composite character played by Margot Robbie) tries to get invited into Ailes’ inner echelon so that she can speed up her rise to a news anchor role. While in another part of the building Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) becomes embroiled in a nationally televised juvenile on air battle with then Candidate Trump. The film - directed by Jay Roach and written by Charles Randolph - starts building a network of misogyny stories within the three narrative threads showing how powerful men completely disregard and exploit women. 

Naturally Carlson needs witnesses to help win her case and this is when the three narrative threads come together hinged on Kelly's decision to testify against Ailes or not...

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