Month: April 2024
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Drive-Away Dolls: totally inappropriate
Drive-Away Dolls is a raunchy, ridiculous road trip movie from director Ethan Coen. The name Coen doesn’t always inspire me to want to watch something, but this pulpy masterpiece features women in the lead roles so I felt compelled to take a look.
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Rewatching Killing Eve with a little perspective
The last episodes of Killing Eve aired in April of 2022, about a year ago. I loved every minute of the series and dreaded the coming of the end. Mostly, I was dreading what would happen to Eve (Sandra Oh) and Villanelle (Jodie Comer) because I thought the season 4 writers were going to do…
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Anna, an action movie starring a woman
Anna puts a woman at the front of an action packed spy thriller. It’s full of fight scenes and assassinations, double crosses and underhanded tricks. Most everything about the plot is unrealistic, because action movies by definition are unrealistic. But this one is carelessly unrealistic.
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Snapshots, three generations of women work it out
Snapshots begins when a grandmother, mother, and daughter all gather for a weekend together at the family cabin by the lake. Rose (Piper Laurie) is the grandmother, and content with her life living alone by the lake. Patty (Brooke Adams) is damn mad about everything and drinks too much. The youngest generation, Allison (Emily Baldoni),…
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The Persian Version: Iranian-American family comedy
The Persian Version, written and directed by Maryam Keshavarz, tells the story of Leila and her Iranian-American family. Especially important are her mother and grandmother. Leila speaks directly to the viewers in 4th wall breaking voice overs throughout the entire movie. This unique and clever film uses animations, dance sequences, and straight drama to explain…
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Big Mood, a tour de force for Nicola Coughlan
Big Mood brings a dark comedy to the streamer Tubi. Two women in their late 20s who are loyal long time friends struggle with personal issues in ways that aren’t always helpful to each other. There are six short episodes in the series, which originated in the UK.
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Fallout, apocalyptic sci-fi based on a popular game
Fallout sets up a world a couple of hundred years in the future. Pods of people have been living underground in fallout shelters (or vaults) since an all out war turned earth into a nuclear desert. The series sets up a situation where a woman from Vault 33 goes topside to the wasteland to rescue…
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Culprits, British action series has love, revenge, danger, and big money
Culprits is a British heist series. I was hooked on the people from the first minute to the end of the last episode. Unlike an action movie I reviewed just the other day, this series has some interesting qualities. The lead character is a gay man. There are plenty of self-powered women characters. The purpose…
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The Bricklayer: the exact opposite of a chick flick
The Bricklayer is a total dude bro flick about an ex-CIA agent who gets pulled in for one last job. I thought it was anti-CIA and anti-American, and the women’s parts were a throwback to the Neanderthals.
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No Pressure, a folksy Polish comedy
No Pressure (Nic na sile) on Netflix is a Polish film. It’s basically a silly plot involving folksy country types, but manages to be enjoyable. A grandmother concocts a scheme to get her granddaughter – a chef in the city – to come home to the family farm and take it over.