An exceptional movie
A prostitute falls in love for the first time and this new feeling puts her survival strategy at risk. When she asks the man she loves about it, he answers: “How am I supposed to know heavy stuff like that?”
Actors: Jô Shishido, Kôji Wada, Yumiko Nogawa
Director: Seijun Suzuki
Writers: Taijirô Tamura (novel), Gorô Tanada
Music: Naozumi Yamamoto
Cinematography: Shigeyoshi Mine
Editing: Akira Suzuki
Between love and sexual passion, sexual passion wins in the long run
Cast: Asia Argento, Fu’ad Ait Aattou, Roxane Mesquida, Claude Sarraute, Yolande Moreau, Michael Lonsdale, Anne Parillaud
Written and directed: Catherine Breillat
Based on the novel by Barbey D’Aurevilly
Strong: message + gender
Weak: minorities
Actors: Andrea Anders, Matt Passmore, Cloris Leachman
Director: Matt Cooper
Writer: Matt Cooper
Music: Tom Howe
Cinematography: Armando Salas
Editing: Luis Colina
A most intelligent cry of revolt against violence perpetrated on women
SPOILERS AHEAD
Inanna (Amy Ferguson) joins an experimental theater group that works on the Mesopotamian myth of Inanna, and more specifically on the liberation of enslaved women. After a few rehearsals, she comes to the conclusion that she does not possess the primal rage and the raw longing for freedom that the other women in the play possess. In a most upsetting scene, these women tell how they have been victims of extreme sexualized violence.
At the same time, Inanna falls head over heels in love with Derek, a mask maker (Morgan Spector), and marries him. Right from the start, she adapts her life to his, while he refuses to change anything in his own life. He doesn’t even stop the affair he had with his assistant (Antonia Campbell-Hughes), claiming that she was there first.
Inanna soon realizes that she is losing her identity while getting nothing in return. Profoundly wounded and feeling like drowning, she is now able to express the primal rage and the raw longing for freedom that the play requires from her.
Cast: Amy Ferguson, Morgan Spector, Anna Mouglalis
Director: Deborah Kampmeier
Writers: Deborah Kampmeier, Deborah Kampmeier
Music: Leslie Graves, Michelangelo Sosnowitz
Cinematography: Alison Kelly
Editing: Siobhan Dunne
Cast: Annette Bening, Lucas Jade Zumann, Billy Crudup, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig
Director: Mike Mills
Writer: Mike Mills
Cinematographer: Sean Porter
Editor: Leslie Jones
Composer: Roger Neill
Cast: Samantha Robinson, Gian Keys, Laura Waddell, Jeffrey Vincent Parise, Jared Sanford
Director: Anna Biller
Writer: Anna Biller
Editor: Anna Biller
Director of Photography: David Mullen
Music: Anna Biller
A notch above other coming-of-age movies for its very accurate portray of the egocentric worldview that characterizes adolescence
Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, Haley Lu Richardson, Blake Jenner, Kyra Sedgwick, Woody Harrelson, Hayden Szeto, Alexander Calvert
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Writer: Kelly Fremon Craig
Cinematographer: Doug Emmett
Editor: Tracey Wadmore-Smith
Composer: Atli Örvarsson
strongest: originality + direction + music + minorities
weakest: message
Cast: Imogen Poots, Michael Shannon, Justin Long, Rosanna Arquette, Michael Nyqvist, Emmanuelle Devos
Director: Matthew M. Ross
Writer: Matthew M. Ross
Cinematographer: Eric Koretz
Editor: Jennifer Lilly, Rebecca Rodriguez
Composer: Danny Bensi, Saunder Jurriaans
strongest: humor
weakest: script + message
Cast: Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent, Gemma Jones, Patrick Dempsey
Director: Sharon Maguire
Writer: Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer, Emma Thompson
Cinematographer: Andrew Dunn
Editor: Melanie Ann Oliver
Music: Craig Armstrong
Director: Aisling Walsh
Writers: Peter Ransley (screenplay), Sarah Waters (novel)
Actors: Elaine Cassidy, Sally Hawkins, Imelda Staunton