New on Netflix: Five Came Back

Posted on March 31, 2017 at 12:00 pm

Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War, is a book by Mark Harris about five of the greatest directors of all time who joined the war effort to document it and to promote morale at home. It is also about how the experienced changed them and inspired them to come home after the war and create richer, more complex, and more powerful films than they had before. George Stevens, Frank Capra, William Wyler, John Ford, and John Huston created films during and after the war that helped shape our views on the war but also on America and what kind of world we would create when the war was over.

The book is now a series on Netflix, narrated by Meryl Streep and featuring commentary from today’s top directors, including Guillermo del Toro, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg, as well as clips from films we know by heart like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Best Years of Our Lives,” and film that has been rarely seen since the war, including stunning documentary footage.

Critics Pay Tribute to a Guilty Pleasure: Ice Castles

Posted on March 29, 2017 at 7:47 pm

As part of rogerebert.com’s annual Women’s Week, three critics got together to pay tribute to one of their favorite films, the ice skating classic, Ice Castles.

Christy Lemire, Sheila O’Malley, and Susan Wloszczyna shared their memories of first seeing the film and acknowledged that despite its cheesiness and some uncomfortable elements, they can’t help loving it.

Released in 1978, it has disco-era signposts aplenty: Melissa Manchester’s unbridled rendition of Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager’s magical Oscar-nominated theme song, “Through the Eyes of Love,” then-It Boy Robby Benson as the hockey hotshot romantic interest and Dorothy Hamill-inspired wedge haircuts galore….

CHRISTY LEMIRE: “Ice Castles” has a really great, gritty sense of place that also keeps it from being teenage nonsense. That town feels so real and so insular. Are there actual bowling alley/ice rink combos in the world?

SHEILA O’MALLEY: I was going to mention that! I totally agree. She really comes from somewhere. It’s very real. The snow, the bowling alley, the frozen pond. A boyfriend who plays hockey. I really hope there are such combos. I’d love to visit. Especially if Colleen Dewhurst is running the show, sipping whiskey from a flask.

CHRISTY LEMIRE: She gives this film so much weight, so much emotional heft.

SHEILA O’MALLEY: She is acting her ASS off, if you’ll pardon the expression. She’s ferocious and filled with emotion and personal regrets and smoking butts and sneaking sips of whiskey at the hockey game. She’s awesome.

Movie Mom Interview on Expressive Mom Blog

Posted on March 28, 2017 at 8:19 pm

Many thanks to Expressive Mom and Miriam Slozberg for interviewing me about the three questions I get asked most often: Why do most movies about children have one or both parents dead or otherwise out of the picture? What do I do when they say, “everyone else at school got to see it?” And what do I do when my child/teen wants to watch the same movie over and over (and over and over)? Check out the interview for my answers.

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists: Movie of the Week — Their Finest

Posted on March 23, 2017 at 8:00 am

I am really enjoying being a part of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists’ panel for their new Movie of the Week feature. This week’s pick is the touching and entertaining “Their Finest,” about filmmakers in WWII England, starring Bill Nighy, Gemma Arterton, and Sam Claflin.

Each week, AWFJ will pick a movie of particular interest to women, either people of the people behind the camera or the story itself. Be sure to check out each week’s selection.

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture

Sandie Angulo Chen: Women Writers on the TV Characters Who Inspired Them

Posted on March 20, 2017 at 10:29 pm

My friend and fellow critic Sandie Angulo Chen has a Women’s History Month column on Mom 2.0 featuring women writers describing the TV characters who inspired them, from Starbuck on “Battlestar Galactica” to the TV moms on “The Cosby Show,” “Roseanne,” “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Speechless,” and “Black-Ish,” to independent, intelligent, curious characters like Murphy Brown, Olivia Pope, and, one of my choices, Mrs. Peel, played by Diana Rigg in “The Avengers.”