Category: Issue 2: Women in Film
The Women of Halloween
1978’s Halloween is one of the most influential horror films of all time. Where once horror’s danger was avoidable – don’t go into shark-infested waters, don’t stay at a creepy motel with a man and his stuffed birds – Halloween showed viewers that horror could come for them. Mar 8, …
Book Review: Girl Director: A How-To Guide for the First-Time, Flat-Broke Film and Video Maker
GIRL DIRECTOR: A How-To Guide for the First-Time, Flat-Broke Film and Video Maker by Andrea Richards, published by Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, California, 2005 Mar 8, 2022
Review: Frances Ha (2012) – Reshaping Desire
The 2012 film Frances Ha written by partners Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach is great to watch if you are not broke, single and searching for a job or a purpose. If you are any of those things (or perhaps just a Master’s student who is trying not to stress …
Review: The Outfit (2022)
Like a well-tailored suit, The Outfit (2022, dir. Graham Moore) is streamlined and unpretentious. The film follows a former Savile Row ‘cutter’ Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance) plying his trade out of a shop in Chicago. Mar 8, 2022
Review: Death on the Nile (2021)
Kenneth Branagh’s second Agathie Christie adaptation with the famous French detective, Hercule Poirot (of course, played by Branagh himself) brings another well-known story of murder and intrigue in an opulent, faraway setting to the big screen with an undeniably star-studded cast. Mar 8, 2022
Review: Fleabag (2016-2019)
In 2013, Phoebe Waller-Bridge introduced the world to Fleabag as a one-woman show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2016, the show was adapted for the screen for – tragically – only two seasons. Mar 8, 2022
Review: Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
“Just about a year ago I was on my way to Havana; the birds were singing, the sky was blue, and I said to the big mug in the next pew, ‘I need a couple of hundred dollars big boy’, and he said, in my pants pocket.” Mar 8, 2022
Review: Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022)
You’d think with a decades-long career under her belt, Emma Thompson would be out of ways to surprise us, but she proves us wrong with Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022, dir. Sophie Hyde). Mar 8, 2022
Review: All About Eve (1950)
All About Eve (1950, dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz) has one of the most memorable film lines. Bette Davis in full anger mode, eyes flashing, says ominously: “Fasten your seatbelts – it’s going to be a bumpy night.” Mar 8, 2022
Review: The Last Duel Fails to Vanquish #MeToo Controversy
Ridley Scott’s 2021 film The Last Duel really tries to convince its audience that it is a feminist film. The story is centered around the rape of Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer), and it recounts this event from three perspectives. First, the husband Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), then the …
Review: The Souvenir (2019)
The Souvenir (2019, dir. Joanna Hogg) is a different take on what it means to love someone with a substance addiction. The film follows Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne), a privileged young filmmaker who falls for Antony (Tom Burke), a functioning heroin addict. Mar 8, 2022
Review: Rain (1932)
I can say with confidence that 1932’s Rain is a film that changed my viewing habits forever, encouraging me to delve deeper into 1930s Hollywood and discover the tough, smart women at its heart. Mar 8, 2022
Review: Innocence (2004)
Lucile Hadzihalilovic导演的作品《纯真》（2004）讲述的是以艾瑞斯（Zoé Auclair）和比安卡（Bérangère Haubruge）为代表的一群少女的故事。 Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s film Innocence (2004) tells the story of a group of girls represented by Iris (Zoé Auclair) and Bianca (Bérangère Haubruge). Mar 8, 2022
Little Women: The Rehabilitation of Amy
Amy March is a pain. Even her creator, Louisa May Alcott, more or less describes her as such in her much-loved novel, Little Women. The novel follows the four March sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy – as they come of age in Concord, Massachusetts. Mar 8, 2022
The Power of the Dog: Reshaping the Gaze
Director Jane Campion regularly champions female protagonists in her work, situating her characters, such as Ada McGrath (The Piano, 1993), Frannie Avery (In The Cut, 2003), or Robin Griffin (Top of the Lake, 2013) in hostile environments. Mar 8, 2022
Greta Gerwig: The Progressively Conservative Woman in Film
Greta Gerwig seems to have been the woman in film of the past decade. Starting out as an actress and writer, she has fully morphed into a writer-director with her solo cinematic debut Lady Bird (2017). Mar 8, 2022
Jennifer’s Body: Watch Out Boys, She’ll Chew You Up
I was 11 when I first saw Jennifer’s Body (2009), and I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. As I got older, I realized there were other films that also use the young woman becoming monstrous as a metaphor for coming of age – Ginger Snaps …
The Influence of Amy Dunne
David Fincher’s 2014 adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s hugely successful crime novel, Gone Girl, starring Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne, arguably created a domino effect in female focused narratives, especially in the crime genre. Mar 8, 2022
The Toxicity of Taken
Even if you haven’t watched Taken (2008, dir. Pierre Morel), either of its two sequels or seen the meme it inspired, you are likely to be dimly aware of the film’s premise. Mar 8, 2022
Promising Young Woman: The Myth of Empowering Trauma
Emerald Fennell’s 2020 film, Promising Young Woman, was marketed as “a #MeToo rape revenge thriller with bite”. However, if you’re expecting a cathartic rape revenge thriller with violent vigilante justice, Promising Young Woman will “bite” you. This film both subverts the conventional representation of trauma, causing a phoenix-like moment in …
Censor and Nasty Censorship
Prano Bailey-Bond has gained international attention for her first long feature film, Censor (2021), a dark and gritty horror about the strong relationship between cinema and the human mind. Grown on a diet of Twin Peaks, in the depth of a strange Welsh community, Bailey-Bond has always brought to life …
