Review: Harriet
Harriet Tubman was an extraordinary woman and she deserves to have her story told (and to be on the $20 bill.) She was a tiny, illiterate slave, but she was…
Review: GIFT
When I was in grad school, the first book we had to read was Lewis Hyde's "The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World." It's a beautiful meditation on…
Arty Chick’s Middleburg Film Festival Download 2019
Another super tiring weekend in the bucolic Virginia hamlet of Middleburg watching more films than I should! I predicted early on that this festival would outgrow itself and I think…
Review: Britt-Marie Was Here
We've seen this one before. An older woman finds out her husband has been having an affair and leaves him. First she struggles with it and then she finds herself.…
Review: Ms. Purple
This stylish drama set in L.A.'s Koreatown tells the story of a young woman's dedication to family at the expense of her own happiness and her gradual return to a…
Review: Midnight Traveler
Stories of refugees and immigrants are all over the news these days. But mostly they're about numbers and policy while the people are faceless and nameless. What this gritty documentary…
Review: Neither Wolf Nor Dog
This ever so indie film was funded with a Kickstarter campaign and then self-distributed. And right now it is the longest-running US theatrical release in more than a decade, having…
Review: Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins
If you don't know who Molly Ivins was, you'll be a fan by the end of this doc. If you do remember her, you'll fall back in love. And after…
Review: This is Not Berlin
In this coming-of-age film set in Mexico City in the 80s, 17-year-olds Carlos and Gera are on the cusp of adulthood. And when they're invited to the coolest club in…
Review: Vita & Virginia
Vita Sackville-West was a British socialite and a popular writer in the 1920s. She was also fond of scandalizing the society in which she lived, especially with her female lovers.…
Review: Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché
She was there at the very beginning of the film industry. She directed hundreds of popular films and built her own studio that rivaled all the others of the day.…
Review: The Peanut Butter Falcon
Most movies with Down syndrome characters treat them with kid gloves, painting them as lovable but limited people. But in The Peanut Butter Falcon Zak (Zack Gottsagen) is anything but…
Review: Cold Case Hammarskjold
In this thoroughly odd documentary, Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger heads to Zambia after hearing conspiracy theories and tall tales about how UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold was murdered in 1961. In…
Review: Piranhas
In this adaptation of Roberto Saviano's (Gomorrah) coming of age novel a group of fifteen-year-old boys in Naples transform themselves from one of the city's many adolescent street gangs into…
Review: Tel Aviv on Fire
You might not think that there's much humor to be found in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But Palestinian director Sameh Zoabi has crafted a very amiable farce that spans the borders…