Movie notes Oct. 2020
Oct. 14th, 2020 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sasha_featherThe Secret Life of Bees, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood
I liked this: lots of women, lots of Black characters, beautiful cinematography. The first few minutes are emotionally rough, though, and it needs content warnings.
Lily is a 14-year-old white kid living in the Jim Crow-era South. Her father is abusive, and her mother is dead. When the hired woman, Rosaleen, gets beat up and arrested in front of Lily, she plans a rescue and escape. Rosaleen and Lily make their way to a safe haven, a pink house where three Black women are living independently and making honey.
Content notes: suicide, child abuse, racist abuse, gun violence, kidnapping
Starring: Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys, Dakota Fanning. I got this out from the library.
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Free Fall / Freier Fall, German with English Subtitles. Hulu.
A beautifully shot, quiet movie about two cops who fall in love. The main conflict is that Marc has a pregnant girlfriend, and he thinks he's straight, all while having an affair with his male co-worker Kay. The two actors have great chemistry and the sex scenes are really good. There are lots of longing glances and forbidden trysts. This is a low-dialog movie where much is shown rather than spoken.
The last 15 minutes were unnecessary, and could have been cut out; they were just slow angsty scenes where Marc realizes he's fucked up his life, and it went on too long. So, it's not a happy ending. There was a crowd-funding campaign for a sequel, but who knows if that will ever happen.
Content notes: lots of smoking, drug use, cheating, sex that is under-discussed and probably does not involve condoms.
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Fast Girls. A British sports movie that I got out from the library. This is family-friendly and heart-warming, just a nice movie starring lots of Black women. Shania is poor, Black, basically an orphan, has a hot temper, and she's extremely talented at sprinting. She gets recruited to run relay, where her rivalry with rich-girl Lisa flares up. They have some strong Harry/Draco energy, but of course the movie has an unnecessary hetero relationship with an awkward white dude, extremely in the vein of Bend it Like Beckham.
The main problem with this is that the sound mixing is TERRIBLe, and there were no subtitles on the library DVD. The British accents and the background noise made certain parts impossible to hear.
Content notes: drinking
I liked this: lots of women, lots of Black characters, beautiful cinematography. The first few minutes are emotionally rough, though, and it needs content warnings.
Lily is a 14-year-old white kid living in the Jim Crow-era South. Her father is abusive, and her mother is dead. When the hired woman, Rosaleen, gets beat up and arrested in front of Lily, she plans a rescue and escape. Rosaleen and Lily make their way to a safe haven, a pink house where three Black women are living independently and making honey.
Content notes: suicide, child abuse, racist abuse, gun violence, kidnapping
Starring: Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys, Dakota Fanning. I got this out from the library.
---
Free Fall / Freier Fall, German with English Subtitles. Hulu.
A beautifully shot, quiet movie about two cops who fall in love. The main conflict is that Marc has a pregnant girlfriend, and he thinks he's straight, all while having an affair with his male co-worker Kay. The two actors have great chemistry and the sex scenes are really good. There are lots of longing glances and forbidden trysts. This is a low-dialog movie where much is shown rather than spoken.
The last 15 minutes were unnecessary, and could have been cut out; they were just slow angsty scenes where Marc realizes he's fucked up his life, and it went on too long. So, it's not a happy ending. There was a crowd-funding campaign for a sequel, but who knows if that will ever happen.
Content notes: lots of smoking, drug use, cheating, sex that is under-discussed and probably does not involve condoms.
---
Fast Girls. A British sports movie that I got out from the library. This is family-friendly and heart-warming, just a nice movie starring lots of Black women. Shania is poor, Black, basically an orphan, has a hot temper, and she's extremely talented at sprinting. She gets recruited to run relay, where her rivalry with rich-girl Lisa flares up. They have some strong Harry/Draco energy, but of course the movie has an unnecessary hetero relationship with an awkward white dude, extremely in the vein of Bend it Like Beckham.
The main problem with this is that the sound mixing is TERRIBLe, and there were no subtitles on the library DVD. The British accents and the background noise made certain parts impossible to hear.
Content notes: drinking
no subject
Date: 2020-10-16 10:00 pm (UTC)O! I misheard you and thought you were reccing Akeelah and the Bee so that might explain why I was all "awwwww."
Have you seen Desert Hearts? MPL has it, and there's snappy clothes.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-16 10:48 pm (UTC)Yes, I really liked Desert Hearts! It was probably 10 years ago that I watched it though, it'd be good to see it again.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-16 11:10 pm (UTC)I'm on Autostraddle's mailing list, so I just learned they're featuring an overview of queer movies from the past while, since no movie theaters are in the near future.
https://www.autostraddle.com/tag/lost-movie-reviews-from-the-autostraddle-archives/
So here's Chutney Popcorn
https://www.autostraddle.com/chutney-popcorn-is-the-south-asian-dyke-romcom-i-always-wished-bend-it-like-beckham-had-been/
99 cents on Prime.