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The Color Purple
(1985)
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Monica Raymond
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It's not the color purple we notice so much as the heavy hand of the filmmaker.
Posted May 31, 2023
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The Color Purple
(1985)
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Marti Wilson
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The film is largely true to the book's story line, but the spirit of the novel is missing.
Posted May 31, 2023
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A Love in Germany
(1983)
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Susan Shapiro
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Hanna Shygulla's "great passion" for her Polish prisoner-of-war lover in Nazi Germany is totally unbelievable.
Posted Mar 24, 2020
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The Doctor
(1991)
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Kathi Maio
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[Christine Lahti] is capable of bringing great depth to any part. But how do you plumb a petri dish?
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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Regarding Henry
(1991)
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Kathi Maio
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[Director Mike] Nichols is making brain damage look a little too warm and wonderful.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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Tune in Tomorrow...
(1990)
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Kathi Maio
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Hershey captures her character's brazen insecurity well. And Mr. Reeves... is absolutely charming and surprisingly effective in the role of the innocent, romantic young Martin.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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White Palace
(1990)
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Kathi Maio
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White Palace stands up as an enjoyable film, despite it's many failings, because of the sensitive and sensuous direction of Luis Madoki... and fine performances.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
(1961)
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Kathi Maio
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Not all the women who sleep with men young enough to be their sons die foi their sins, but most of them live to wish they had.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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Madame Sousatzka
(1988)
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Jo MacFarlane
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MacLaine gives a gutsy performance in Sousatzka.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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Postcards From the Edge
(1990)
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Kathi Maio
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The movie of Postcards has very little Edge left on it.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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Plenty
(1985)
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Kathi Maio
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After watching Plenty, I wondered what the point was, since it was obvious that [writer David] Hare meant for there to be one.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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Strapless
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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The strapless gown is but another of David's Hare-brained metaphors for the lives of women.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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The Handmaid's Tale
(1990)
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Elizabeth Pincus
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For a movie about an encroaching fascist regime of horrific dimensions, The Handmaid's Tale is an oddly serene piece of work.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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Where the Heart Is
(1990)
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Kathi Maio
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The silver screen of the '90s continues to present a world populated by the people bom with silver spoons in their mouths and the people who spoon-feed them their pumpkin pie.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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Stella
(1990)
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Kathi Maio
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This is convoluted classist reasoning at its worst.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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Driving Miss Daisy
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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It romanticizes, rather than challenges the racial power politics it presents.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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She-Devil
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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By neutralizing the intensity of Ruth's anger, the filmmakers blow their entire plot.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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Camille Claudel
(1988)
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Elizabeth Pincus
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A big, wet, handsome picture, as sloppy as the mounds of clay from which the film's protagonist sculpts her twisted forms.
Posted Sep 11, 2019
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Rich and Famous
(1981)
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L. Fenichel and J. Kratka
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Director George Cukor has given us... a shallow and unsatisfying movie.
Posted Sep 09, 2019
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Cocktail Molotov
(1980)
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L. Fenichel and J. Kratka
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An exhilarating experience that conveys the emotions and complexities of the '60s, yet is able to leave us much lighter of heart than when we came in.
Posted Sep 09, 2019
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Earth Girls Are Easy
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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It's fluff. Is it ever. But at least it's female-oriented fluff, more or less.
Posted Sep 09, 2019
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Shag
(1988)
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Kathi Maio
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It is sweet and entertaining, but it gives us a tunnel view of its time period... Racism is ignored. So are all other prejudices.
Posted Sep 09, 2019
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Shirley Valentine
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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A marvelous women's film that gives us a '70s heroine instead of an '80s heroine.
Posted Sep 09, 2019
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Married to the Mob
(1988)
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Kathi Maio
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If you're in the mood for mafia comedy with laughs and a rebellious women's viewpoint, check out Married to the Mob on tape or cable.
Posted Sep 09, 2019
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Cookie
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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Cookie will be a real disappointment for almost everyone.
Posted Sep 09, 2019
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Sugar Cane Alley
(1983)
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Kathi Maio
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A treasure of a movie.
Posted Sep 07, 2019
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Distant Voices, Still Lives
(1988)
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Nancy Williamson
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The saddest part of Distant Voices/Still Lives is that we come away understanding no more than we did before about the inner workings of this and similar families.
Posted Sep 07, 2019
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A Dry White Season
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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I only wish that A Dry White Season were a better film, the film that [filmmaker] Euzhan Palcy is capable of making, the kind of movie she has, in fact, already made.
Posted Sep 07, 2019
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Immediate Family
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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This is a movie that means to be serious and compassionate. And it is, in a way. It is also one of the most dangerously elitist films about parenting that I've seen in a long time.
Posted Sep 07, 2019
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Little Vera
(1988)
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Joy Holland
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Images and characters are pungent and complex.
Posted Sep 07, 2019
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Parenthood
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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The glorification of fatherhood in today's films combined with the portrayal of women in the same movies as little more than breeding machines... is a treason against active motherhood and an attack on women who choose not to have children.
Posted Sep 07, 2019
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Look Who's Talking
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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It would certainly be a nice change to see a modem single mom as a film hero, but Mikey, even before birth, is the hero of Look Who's Talking.
Posted Sep 07, 2019
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Heathers
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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Ryder brings such honesty to her high-camp role that you actually believe a kid like this could exist. And, astoundingly, you think you might actually like to meet her.
Posted Sep 06, 2019
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Skin Deep
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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This is not exactly sophisticated or cerebral humor. Nor is it romantic in the least.
Posted Sep 05, 2019
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See You in the Morning
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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Pakula's I'm-Okay-You're-Okay optimism sure beats the cynicism of much of what passes for romantic comedy.
Posted Sep 05, 2019
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Chances Are
(1989)
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Kathi Maio
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By creating a sentimental time-warp, sisters Randy and Perry Howze (Mystic Pizza) managed to write a script that works as a romantic comedy, even as it stretches our credulity to the bursting point.
Posted Sep 05, 2019
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Beaches
(1988)
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Kathi Maio
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Beaches celebrates our friendships. And it's not afraid to be schmaltzy.
Posted Sep 05, 2019
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Working Girl
(1988)
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Kathi Maio
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Some would call that a happy ending. I'm not one of them.
Posted Sep 05, 2019
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Another Woman
(1988)
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Kathi Maio
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Some movie-goers bewail that Woody Allen is turning his back on comedy. Comedy or tragedy, I regret the fact that he is turning his serious cinematic attentions on women.
Posted Sep 05, 2019
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The Accused
(1988)
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Kathi Maio
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It compares very favorably with movies like The Good Mother, in which bad girls/sexual women make their bed, of nails, and are then told they better bloody well lie in it.
Posted Sep 04, 2019
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The Good Mother
(1988)
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Kathi Maio
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Keaton is never completely convincing as either the "before" or "after" Anna.
Posted Sep 04, 2019
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Shame
(1988)
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Kathi Maio
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I didn't want vengeance from Shame. But I did want women, myself included, to feel more empowered when they left the theater than when they went in. The opposite happened.
Posted Sep 04, 2019
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Craig's Wife
(1936)
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Liz Galst
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[Director Dorothy] Arzner played her part to perfection: she added to her films "a woman's touch," while never really challenging the patriarchal stranglehold on cinema. Her 1936 film Craig's Wife bears this out well.
Posted Sep 04, 2019
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At First Sight
(1983)
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Liz Galst
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Then there's the ubiquitous swimming-pool scene without which, it seems, no lesbian film would be complete... Still, Diane Kurys's film is lovely, a story beautifully told, and if you haven't seen it already, you shouldn't miss it.
Posted Sep 04, 2019
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Heller Wahn
(1983)
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Liz Galst
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How many more accolades can I heap on [Margarethe] von Trotta, the greatest of the great German directors?
Posted Sep 04, 2019
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A Question of Silence
(1982)
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Liz Galst
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This film is something else.
Posted Sep 04, 2019
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A World Apart
(1988)
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Pam Mitchell
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Has anyone ever captured that delicate tightrope walk between child and adult as poignantly and delicately as Jodhi May does in her characterization of Molly in this film?
Posted Sep 03, 2019
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A World Apart
(1988)
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Kathi Maio
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Admirable politics, presented in a complex and sensitive manner, is certainly reason enough to recommend A World Apart. But much of the power of this film lies in the fact that it is visually stunning.
Posted Aug 30, 2019
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Crossing Delancey
(1988)
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Mara Math
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It's sort of about love taking an independent woman by surprise, but her "independent" life is shown to be hollow at the core.
Posted Aug 30, 2019
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Big Business
(1988)
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Susan Jhirad
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It serves as a showcase for the wonderful, if diverse, comic talents of Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin.
Posted Aug 30, 2019
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