Flix Not to Miss: Stories We Tell
One of the best documentaries this year comes from Sarah Polley, already an accomplished narrative director (if you haven’t already, go watch Away From Her and Take This Waltz). In Stories We Tell, Polley turns the lens on her own family secrets and potentially devastating personal revelations. It is a fantastic film that seamlessly uses actors and old family movies to tell...
READ MOREWebisodes Not To Miss: Ghost Ghirls on Yahoo!
Ghost Ghirls Trailer Television programming continues its march online, and with Halloween just around the corner, it’s a great time to check out Yahoo Screen Originals‘ new series, Ghost Ghirls, a comedic web series featuring Angelica and Heidi, two ghost-busting women solving paranormal cases. Created by and starring Amanda Lund and Maria Blasucci, each episode features not only the bumbling ghost...
READ MOREFlix Not To Miss : Una Noche (One Night)
(warning some spoilers) Una Noche, a powerful new film written and directed by Lucy Mulloy looks beyond romantic Lonely Planet images of Cuba’s white talcum powder sand, quaint colonial buildings’ creeping mosaics of peeling paint and colorful vintage cars to show the restless desperation of young people living in grinding poverty among crumbling infrastructure. The...
READ MOREFlix Not to Miss: Katy Perry: Part of Me
When my daughter begged me to rent Katy Perry: Part of Me, I was skeptical; but she was insistent, and I like Katy Perry’s music. I was expecting a slick, packaged, overly long concert flick. I was pleasantly surprised. The movie is loosely structured around the arc of Perry’s marriage to and subsequent break-up from...
READ MORETV Not To Miss: Director Michelle MacLaren’s Breaking Bad
Be warned, if you haven’t caught up to season 8 of Breaking Bad, there may be some spoilers below. The final eight episodes of Breaking Bad are here. In its fifth and final season on AMC, the show has attracted an avid fan base (the first episode of the final eight was the highest rated in cable...
READ MOREFlix Not To Miss: The To-Do List
The film summer isn’t complete without the teenage sex romp film. Running the spectrum from crude (Sex Drive and American Pie) to dramedy (The Sure Thing and Losin’ It ), rarely do these genre movies portray teenage girls eager to lose it with as much gusto and determination as teenage boys; that has now changed with...
READ MOREFlix Not To Miss: Blackfish
Before you take the kids to Sea World this summer, watch Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s documentary exposé Blackfish (2013). Blackfish focuses on the dangerous job of Sea World trainers, which has been the subject of OHSA review for more than 20 years. Numerous trainers have been seriously injured or killed at aquatic parks, such as Sea World, all...
READ MOREFlix Not To Miss: Women Who Rock
Along with movies, rock-n-roll is one of America’s greatest exports. So this summer, let’s celebrate two of the best rock-roll-movies. Before she showed us The Kids Are Alright, Lisa Cholodenko wrote and directed Laurel Canyon, a great rock movie with one of the best parts written for an actress. Christian Bale plays Sam, an uptight doctor who...
READ MOREFlix Not To Miss: An Action Trio of Kathryn Bigelow
Last week Entertainment Weekly published a list of the 100 All Time Greatest Movies. It is interesting to note that out of the 100 films, sadly only three were directed by women– Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (#74), Jane Campion’s The Piano (#92), and the Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstal’s Olympia (#84). None of these film made...
READ MOREFlix Not To Miss: Fill The Void
Immerse yourself in the culture and traditions of an orthodox Hassidic Israeli family in Rama Burshtein’s excellent Fill The Void. Burshtein’s film follows Shira (Hadas Yaron), an 18 year old Israeli girl looking forward to her proposed pairing and arranged marriage to another boy her age. When her older sister Esther dies in childbirth leaving behind her husband...
READ MOREFlix Not To Miss: We Need To Talk About Kevin
The summer blockbusters are here to thrill and delight us with special effects; however, the psychological thriller is an overlooked genre that can deliver twists as jarring as any action movie. One such thriller We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011), a film based on the best selling book by Lionel Shriver, can easily be placed...
READ MOREFlix Not To Miss: The Bling Ring & Spring Breakers
Young women turning to a life of crime for kicks – a popular subject in two recent films that make a great double bill. In theaters now, The Bling Ring is Sophia Coppola’s follow up to the spectacular Somewhere (2010). The Bling Ring tells the true story of a group of California teenagers who break into celebrity homes while...
READ MOREFlix Not to Miss: Fish Tank
Fish Tank written and directed by Andrea Arnold was a break out hit for one of its stars Michael Fassbender and it put Arnold on the map as a director when it won a BAFTA award for Outstanding British Film. Fish Tank stars Katie Jarvis (Mia) as a 15 year old girl living in a...
READ MOREFlix Not to Miss: ‘Take This Waltz’
I’ve been a fan of Sarah Polley as an actress from the early days of her career as Atom Egoyan’s muse in The Sweet Hereafter and Exotica, and later, in the lovely My Life Without Me by Isabel Coixet. I heard wonderful things about her first feature, Away From Her, so I was excited to see her sophomore effort, Take...
READ MOREFlix Not to Miss: ‘Eden’
Eden is a harrowing look at the sex trafficking industry here in the United States. Directed by Megan Griffiths, Eden won Griffiths the 2012 Chicken & Egg Emergent Narrative Director Award at SXSW Film Festival. Based on a true story, the film follows Eden (played by Jamie Chung), a young Asian teenager living in the United States lured...
READ MOREFlix Not to Miss: ‘Top of the Lake’
If you enjoy The Killing, currently on AMC, then the Top of The Lake, an original mini-series that aired recently on the Sundance Channel should be at the top of your list. Currently on Netflix, the series is written and directed by Jane Campion and features hypnotically, spectacular cinematography by Adam Arkapaw. Taking a break from Madison Avenue’s...
READ MOREFlix Not to Miss: ‘The Heat’
I can’t remember the last time I saw a funny female buddy movie. “The Heat,” starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, looks to be that movie. Directed by Paul Feig of “Bridesmaids,” the film appears to have the hi-jinx of its predecessor, but less “raunchy” by the looks of the trailer. The film arrives in theaters on June 28. —...
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