Today there are many challenges to reproductive justice. HBO’s The Last of Us raises important questions about those human rights and justice.
Tag: Film and TV Reviews
‘Wakanda Forever’ Lifts Up Black Women—But Only So Far
Clearly, Wakanda Forever did something right, since it was the only source of nominations and the solitary triumph for Black women at the Oscars this year. Yet the film is also an ironic case study demonstrating how Black women are marginalized in the film industry.
‘Judy Blume Forever’ and the Enduring Power of Books
Judy Blume is most at home surrounded by books. That’s the predominant impression of a new documentary on the author’s life directed by Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok, Judy Blume Forever, which premiered at Sundance last month and will begin streaming globally on Prime Video in April.
The film relies heavily on interviews with Blume herself, a wonderfully charming presence throughout the documentary. (“I could be fearless in my writing the way I couldn’t in my life,” Blume explains in the film, referring to the complexities of her own personal life, where she chafed against the confines of her early marriages.) But one of its best components is its emphasis on the readers and how they were and still are affected by her novels.
Sundance 2023: Indigenous Drama ‘Fancy Dance’ Explores the Complexities of Family, Care and Community
A Native and queer filmmaker, Erica Tremblay—director of Fancy Dance was eager to make a feature film that deals with real issues facing Indigenous women and families, but also one that focused on the “joy and happiness in Indian Country, which often gets lost in mainstream portrayals of our communities.” Reflecting on obligation, family, parenthood and the responsibilities thrust upon us by love, the film asks viewers to reckon with the complex ways joy and grief intertwine and refuses easy answers to any of its necessary questions, in a way that’s as profound as it is memorable.
Pondering ‘Women Talking’: What if Women Left Society?
Sarah Polley’s Academy Award-nominated film Women Talking imagines a world where women and trans people must reckon with intolerable violence perpetrated by cis men. Is it really so different from our own?
‘The Stroll’ Showcases the Lives of Trans Sex Workers Through Their Own Eyes
The Stroll is a feature-length entry into Sundance’s U.S. Documentary competition that won this year’s Special Jury Award for Clarity of Vision. The film is about several blocks of 14th Street in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, colloquially called as “The Stroll,” where trans sex workers, mostly women of color, were known to gather.
Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker’s compassionate and authentic portrayal is about solidarity and hope—asking viewers to understand the past while looking forward into the future.
Sundance 2023: Inventive Working-Class Drama ‘Scrapper’ Reflects on the Complexities of a Child’s Grief
There’s something both familiar and fresh about Scrapper, the debut feature of writer and director Charlotte Regan, who’s been directing music videos since her teens. Winner of Sundance’s World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic category, Regan’s working-class British drama has a straightforward premise that belies its nuanced commentary on imagination, grief, love and family.
‘Close’: The Oscar-Nominated Movie that Names the Threat in Our Sons’ Lives
Lukas Dhont’s new film, Close, is sparking a conversation about why we must protect and defend our sons and all our children’s powerful capacities for connection.
Sundance 2023: In Indigo Girls Documentary, Music, Nostalgia and the Search for Belonging Take Center Stage
One of the best things about director Alexandria Bombach’s documentary about folk rock duo The Indigo Girls, It’s Only Life After All, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is its easygoing intimacy. Singer-songwriters Amy Ray and Emily Saliers’ rapport, with both each other and the director, shines through a series of present-day interviews, concert footage, archival videos and recollections that foreground their music and their partnership over the last 40-plus years.
Sundance 2023: Mother and Daughter Learn to Understand Each Other in Innovative Comedy ‘The Persian Version’
An uplifting and engrossing film that manages to hit just the right notes in both its comedic and dramatic registers, The Persian Version won this year’s Sundance Film Festival Audience Award in the U.S. Dramatic category and garnered writer, director and producer Maryam Keshavarz the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.
It borrows the conventional immigrant narrative of resilience and molds it into a nuanced reflection on mother-daughter relationships, cultural difference, and the power of choosing your own story.