Among people who keep an eye on movie news, Tulip Fever has been a bit of a folk tale. It was announced in 2013, and screened at the 2015 Venice film festival, but then its release dates kept getting pushed back and back and back. When Fandango actually put up a release date, it was for the last weekend in August, but in reality it opened on Labor Day weekend. It’s a weird movie with … Continue reading Movie Review: Tulip Fever
Our September Smart Bitches Movie Matinee is the black-and-white classic with Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday! I love this movie, even though there has been some debate whether it’s a “proper” romance. I do know there’s a bunch of fanfic adding another chapter to the story. Many people have probably seen this one, but if you haven’t, or you need a refresher, here’s the plot synopsis: Overwhelmed by her suffocating schedule, touring European princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) … Continue reading September Movie Selection: Roman Holiday (1953)
Based on a Russian novella, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, this movie takes a bunch of tropes that we know and love in Romancelandia, turns them inside out, and then takes them to a (semi) logical conclusion. We are familiar with the coupling that starts off with the bride essentially being bought because she comes with a chunk of land, and we’ve seen heroines married to someone who’s got a weird dominant vibe. What we don’t … Continue reading Movie Review: Lady Macbeth
NB: Sometimes you just need to work out your frustrations with writing an F-grade, and Rhode Red did just that! Not to be confused with RedHeadedGirl in Boston, Rhode is a redheaded feminist in Providence. She works in business (aka trade) publishing by day, reads romances and SFF by night, buys more art than her house can hold and grows vast quantities of flowers. “I’ve tried not to keep this film in my mind, and … Continue reading Guest Movie Review: Maudie
A Quiet Passion is a strange little movie about Emily Dickinson. It works best if you don’t think of it as a biopic but rather as a meditation on the life of a prickly, strange, and brilliant person. This movie came out in limited release early this year and is finally available on iTunes for those of us who missed it on the big screen. A Quiet Passion kicks off with young Emily, played by … Continue reading Movie Review: A Quiet Passion
When I first started seeing the previews for Atomic Blonde (Charlize Theron IS Jason Bourne!) there was a collective question of, “Is this super male gaze-y or not? I can’t tell from these two minutes but I think I’m gonna watch the shit out of this.” This is a spy thriller set in Berlin around the week the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Every intelligence agency in the world has people in Berlin, and … Continue reading Movie Review: Atomic Blonde
This is a movie that starts tense, stays tense, and ends… still pretty tense. It’s also a masterclass in film structure, and I would put it up there with Hell or High Water as one of the best constructed movies of the modern age. It also had one of the most effective teaser trailers I’ve ever seen. Dunkirk tells the story of the Miracle at Dunkirk, a week at the end of May and beginning of … Continue reading Movie Review: Dunkirk
Sarah: For all the fond memories I have of this movie, they’re collectively rather vague. I clearly remember two scenes: the one with the scarf and the sword, and the one where she’s got a tin foil hat on. So this will be an interesting rewatch to see if my fond romantic memories of what probably amounts of 2 minutes of screen time match the full feature-length film however many years later. Carrie: I have … Continue reading Smart Bitches Movie Matinee: The Bodyguard
Spider-Man: Homecoming is simply adorable due to a storyline and cast that stays firmly rooted in the crisis of adolescence. I didn’t find Spiderman to be as emotionally compelling as some other Marvel movies but I enjoyed it, and the young teens I took with me LOVED it. It’s the first Spiderman movie I’ve seen that really feels like a Spiderman movie. Spider-Man: Homecoming takes place right after the events of Captain America: Civil War. … Continue reading Movie Review: Spider-Man: Homecoming
Our Smart Bitches Movie Matinee for July is the very famous The Bodyguard, starring Whitney Houston and that skyrocketed the song “I Will Always Love You” into pop culture history. Here’s the plot synopsis: Best-selling pop diva Rachel Marron (Whitney Houston) has a stalker whose obsession has risen to the level of disturbing threats. At the urging of her manager (Gary Kemp), Rachel hires former secret service agent Frank Farmer (Kevin Costner) as her bodyguard. Initially resented … Continue reading July Movie Selection: The Bodyguard (1992)
NB: This is a wonderful guest post from Rose, who recently saw the film Wonder Woman. To see the site’s grade, check out Redheadedgirl’s review of the film. We also did a Wonder Woman-only Links post and some book recommendations for before or after screening the film! … Wonder Woman is, start to finish, an absolute dream. I took one breath before the movie started and one breath after the credits, and have no memory of any taken … Continue reading Guest Post: The Power of Wonder Woman
