This Korean teen romance is a sweet story with characters that are very hard not to like. Kim Yoo-jung lights up the screen in 20th Century Girl as an independent and strong-minded teenager with a generous heart. She and co-stars Byeon Woo-seok and Park Jung-woo are totally believable as high schoolers discovering life, love, and loss. They're also funny and prone to exaggeration, infusing the film with moments of both comedy and melodrama. Set in 1999 -- captured in first email accounts, pagers, baggy clothes, girl bands, and Y2K worries -- the period carries a whiff of innocence. The South Korean location, filmed in shades of green and yellow, couches the characters in a safe and gentle setting, allowing them to focus solely on matters of the heart. Spoiler alert: the unexpected ending is a tearjerker. Read the full review at Common Sense Media. Images courtesy of Netflix.

Capitalizing not just on proven source material (the book series) but also on tried-and-tested school-set, teen-starring fantasy formulas, nothing about this film feels particularly original. But Netflix knows the audience it's aiming for with The School for Good and Evil. And judging by the open-ended finale of this movie and the number of books in the original series, the platform is also presumably hoping those audiences will come back for more. (This begs the question: why not a miniseries?) These are the viewers who won't be deterred by the two-and-a-half-hour run time or the film's overly-packed intro. A mishmash of characters, accents, and ideas, including an on-again/off-again narrator (voiced by Cate Blanchett), are other potential deterrents for newcomers to this Harry Potter meets Disney Princess world. Having said that, if you stick with it, the movie has some positive messages and a satisfying resolution. Technical aspects like wardrobe, setting, and fight choreography are all well done under Paul Feig's direction, bringing the books' atmosphere to vivid life. Some modern, female-heavy music adds to the soundtrack. What this film also has that many others don't is an A-list adult cast. They bring gravitas, and Washington is especially convincing as the head of the School for Good, but they're largely underused. This means the teen stars take the spotlight. Wylie's Agatha is the real center of the film and a character that allows for a truer and less theatrical performance than Sophie's, embodied with gusto by the petite Caruso. Here's hoping the adults, and other teen characters like Hort and Beatrix, get more screen time in the next movie. Read the full review at Common Sense Media. Images courtesy of Netflix.

This spooky film feels a little unsure of who its audience is, resulting in some inconsistencies in tone and content, but it has plenty of Halloween creepers, and some laughs thanks to Marlon Wayans. He plays a dad with a big heart and some goofy phobias in The Curse of Bridge Hollow. Stranger Things' Ferguson plays his brave and independent 14-year-old daughter, who saves the day more than once. Her character, and her high school friends, might suggest the film is aimed at their age group, but the violence -- ridiculous as it may be in premise -- can get pretty intense. If you're scared of clowns, stay away. The lead actors are backed up by a great yet mostly underused supporting cast, including Kelly Rowland, Rob Riggle, John Michael Higgins, Lauren Lapkus, and Nia Vardalos. This is fine but forgettable Halloween fare. Read the full review at Common Sense Media. Image courtesy of Netflix.

With the recent retirements of both Roger Federer and Serena Williams, professional tennis has lost two of its titans. Headlines have celebrated their exceptional careers and rued their pending absence on the pro circuit. Tennis is a sport whose top players often earn icon status on a global level. From McEnroe to Borg, Federer to Nadal, and Williams to Osaka, its athletes inspire awe. Maybe this is because tennis, unlike so many other sports, is such an individual endeavor, and one that involves a combination of extreme psychological resilience with physical endurance. It’s also entirely international; no single country dominates the circuit or its winners, meaning the next Federer or Williams could come from just about anywhere. Documentaries about tennis icons are multitude, like Showtime's new "McEnroe" or Netflix’s upcoming Grand Slam series. But fiction films about the sport are few and far between – possibly due to those same factors that make the game so special. How do you capture the physicality of a match as well as the interior battles players endure? Spoiler alert: internal monologues are common, court play is staged and choreographed and scripts often use the complexities of tennis as a premise to explore aspects of character. Following last year’s five-time Oscar-nominated “King Richard” about the Williams family, the culture feels ripe for more tennis movies. Here are a few, all available to stream in the US, which have tried to do the real ‘beautiful game’ justice. Perseverance and Skill Will Smith’s on-stage slap at the Academy Awards last year overshadowed his win as best actor for “King Richard,” which was also nominated for a coveted best film Oscar, among others. The movie paints a detailed picture of the dedication of the full Williams family in prioritizing Serena and sister Venus’s chance at professional careers over all else in their lives. It also touches on issues of classism in the sport, as Richard champions his daughters and secures opportunities not naturally open to them at the time as Black girls from a low-income area. Another film, 2017’s “Battle of the Sexes,” highlights the changing norms of the game last century, reenacting Bobby Riggs’ macho ‘70s-era challenge of leading female player Billie Jean King, who was also struggling at the time with her own sexual orientation. Mental Game Swedish feature “Borg vs. McEnroe” portrays another historic rivalry, that of Björn Borg (played by Sverrir Gudnason) and John McEnroe (Shia LaBeouf) at the 1980 Wimbledon final, this time focusing on the psychological toll the game can have on top-tier tennis players and those closest to them. From superstitious rituals to temper tantrums and the stresses of fame, the two players are depicted as ‘not quite right in the head,’ possibly a requisite for this level of tennis. Borg is Nordic cold, McEnroe New York hot, the hammer versus the stiletto, the gentleman and the rebel. They’re told they must block out their emotions and hide their rage, fear and panic. Tennis isn’t just about winning like other sports, a young Borg is told, it’s the way you win that’s just as important. The film sets up their classic showdown patiently, through flashbacks and an increasingly tense musical score. “The tension is almost like torture,” a commentator of the match notes, a reality so difficult to show on screen but which this film does admirably well. Luck and Thrills After “Annie Hall’s” tennis-set meet cute, Woody Allen returned to the game in 2005’s “Match Point,” using tennis as a backdrop for a murder mystery. The film opens on a tennis court with a ball sailing over the net. A voiceover reflects on the chance involved when the ball hits the top of the net and could land on either side, foreshadowing the sinister luck a character has later in the film. The story turns on an Irish pro turned instructor who falls in with a pair of high-class London siblings and gets caught up in a doubles love story that ends in murder. One day he runs into a former tennis rival who recalls his old pal’s game as ‘cool under pressure, but creative.’ Is Allen suggesting the qualities that make for a successful tennis player are the same ones a murderer possesses? The film takes a nod from Hitchcock’s psychological thriller “Strangers on a Train,” which also exploits tennis for thematic concepts. A classic scene shows one character staring ominously at another from the stands, the only motionless head in a crowd tracking the back-and-forth play. Love-Love In romantic comedy “Wimbledon,” an aging player has fallen steeply in the rankings as he nears retirement. When he meets a young rising superstar, their relationship kindles a newfound competitive fire in him, but it risks throwing her off her game. Genteel Wimbledon, and its on- and off-court friendships and rivalries, serves as setting for the budding romance, and the film offers entertaining insights into the game, the mindsets of championship players and their handlers, and even some of the behind-the-scenes promotional fanfare of pro tennis. McEnroe and others make cameos. “Tennis uses the language of life – advantage, service, fault, break, love… every match is a life in miniature,” Andre Agassi once said. Maybe that’s why tennis makes such an attractive backdrop for any film genre. Versions of this article originally ran in The Seattle Times and The Daily Record. Images courtesy of WB Pictures, SF Studios and Amblin.

This emotionally taxing film is likely to spark debate about the portrayal of both sexual and school violence and its repercussions, and Kunis' compelling lead performance drives that portrayal. Kunis plays the main character of Luckiest Girl Alive, who calls herself a "victim" rather than a "survivor," as full of barely contained rage. This comes out in scenes where she loses control of her anger as well as through a viciously cynical voiceover. Her inner monologue is full of self-shaming and name-calling, making her a character who is difficult to like until you come to understand what has made her this way (even then she's not exactly likeable, just more understandable). Kunis was a good choice – she transforms here into a sharp-edged, intelligent ball of nerves – and Chiara Aurelia captures the same energy as her teen self. But some of her cynicism comes across as excessive, like when she stuffs pizza into her mouth out of sight of her boyfriend after admitting she hasn't eaten lunch in six years. The idea is that hers is a carefully curated and performative life that obfuscates severe trauma bubbling under the surface. Her divided identities are depicted in a scene from the film where she is prepping for a TV interview and her image is reflected back at her in a diversity of different mirrors. The tale is initially set up as a mystery, with hints that Kunis' Ani has committed violent acts herself in the past. Once it comes to light that as a high schooler she suffered both sexual violence and a deadly school shooting, the film begins weaving back and forth between her present and her tormented past, building up to a breakdown and a breakthrough. It's hard not to find parallels between this story and real events, like the accusations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, #metoo revelations and calls for justice, and real school shootings (so often perpetrated by young men) like Columbine. That's a lot to pack into one movie, perhaps undermining some of the intentions here (evident in Netflix's wannatalkaboutit initiative and a heavy-handed ‘everywoman' end scene). Read the full review at Common Sense Media. Image courtesy of Netflix.

This film will appeal to tweens and younger, fans of the monster dolls who will likely appreciate the costuming rather than find it a distraction from the sweet relationships at the story's core. In the vein of Disney's popular Zombies films, Monster High: The Movie lets characters work out typical teen angst and identity issues under the guise of fantasy figures from the monster world. These allow for some pretty great puns ("she's got mummy issues," the "ghouls" become "beasties"), and a few pokes at teenage behavior (Frankie struggles to make friends via social media while others communicate solely via their coffin-shaped cell phones, and even vampires have to deal with overbearing parents). Despite the characters' monster "identities," their get-ups (the boys' costumes and powers are especially weak), and their overly staged song-and-dance numbers, they just want what humans want -- to fit in and feel free and loved in one's skin. A brief epilogue hints a sequel is in the works. Read the full review at Common Sense Media. Image courtesy of Paramount+.

The idea of time travel, or getting stuck (in this case, purposefully) in a time loop, has become a popular concept in recent times, and Groundhog Day is the ever-present reference. Meet Cute might even be poking fun at its '90s-era predecessor when Sheila suggests it would be "creepy" if she were returning repeatedly to the same night with Gary in order to win him over, precisely Bill Murray's intentions in the earlier film. Instead, Sheila is repeating the same night as a lifeline, because it's the only thing stopping her from killing herself, giving this film a much darker undertone. That mood is matched in the film's late-night urban ambiance and Davidson's Gary, who is coping with the results of an unhappy childhood. But Meet Cute also aims for a humorous tone at moments, shifts the actors manage well. Davidson is mostly reactive to Cuoco's Sheila, who swerves between manic and depressed, but he carries an emotional final scene. Craig is also engaging as the droll June. Oddly, this is the second movie of the season (following Mack & Rita) where a tanning bed serves as a conduit to a different place. Sheila has to kill her "other" self in order to keep coming back -- one of several unexplained aspects of how the time travel works and what can be done and undone in the past. When Gary takes matters into his own hands, it's better to just stop asking questions of the script and focus on the relationship, which leaves the film's enjoyment factor mostly up to how appealing you find Cuoco and Davidson. Read the full review at Common Sense Media. Image courtesy of Peacock.

Location, location, location is perhaps this film's biggest appeal, set in gorgeous Puglia on the azure coast of southern Italy. The pleasant, sun-baked setting provides a stark contrast to the inner turmoil of Jumping from High Places' main character, Sole. Federica Torchetti gives a credible performance as a twenty-something held back by anxieties, despite a loving family, a strong community, two possible suitors, and an attentive therapist. With the camera constantly on her, and a now-trendy breaking of the fourth wall, Torchetti does create complicity with viewers and offers an endearing performance reminiscent of a young Audrey Tatou. But Sole is no Amélie, and Jumping lacks the kind of whimsy and charm that made that earlier French film about a comparable misfit so beloved. The story unfolds pleasantly but mostly predictably. It moves slowly, and Sole's hesitancy to move forward in her life could frustrate viewers with no sympathy for or familiarity with struggles like hers. One panic attack is memorably visualized with the camera circling and circling around her, then pulling away slowly as a crowd fills in the foreground and she remains stuck in the same spot. Sole's complicit looks at the camera are repetitive, but the lovely and lovable Torchetti pulls them off. Those who can relate or empathize will find truth in Sole's tale, and in the way she draws people to her and teaches them about the everyday courage of facing one's fears. And if not, you can always just bask in the beauty of the setting. Read the full review at Common Sense Media. Image courtesy of Netflix.

It's always a relief when a sequel doesn't let down the legions of fans of a cult original, and in this case, the new film surpasses its predecessor in entertainment value. Hocus Pocus 2 plays to its followers with some references to the 1993 original, but you certainly don't have to have seen that film to enjoy this one, and the addition of modern-day teenagers could help draw in new followers. They might appreciate the feminist undertones, the dull-witted football boyfriend (deemed the "village idiot" by the Sandersons), and the present-day jokes involving technology like Alexa, Roomba, and the gazillion elixirs of the "youth and beauty industry." Peak is especially good as the leader of the teen pack (Hocus Pocus 3 material?), Hale is always a delight, and Ted Lasso's Hannah Waddingham makes a glorious cameo as the "Witch Mother." But the real star here is Midler. She corrals her clueless sisters and steals the spotlight at every turn. "I bet you're looking for a stage," a character asks her as the sisters stumble upon a drag costume contest of, you got it, the Sanderson Sisters. "Always," she purrs, before breaking into song and dance and hypnotizing the townspeople into a zombie-like flash mob to do her bidding. This film tones down some of the cringier aspects of the original (like Parker's dumb blonde act), but keeps the camp, and even adds a touchingly emotional farewell (again, via Midler). And somehow, these "gothic Golden Girls" still look the same as they did 29 years ago. The blood of children must really work. Read the full review at Common Sense Media. Images courtesy of Disney+.

Director Andrew Dominik has crafted an ambitious and daring but overly long fictionalized biopic centered around a remarkable lead performance from Ana de Armas. Dominik clearly intended for Blonde to overwhelm and even feel cruel at times, ostensibly to mirror the life experiences of the fictionalized Marilyn Monroe/Norma Jean. De Armas is excellent in the role, embodying Marilyn to a tee. If anyone complains about her (very slight) Cuban accent, just remind them of the countless times American actors have played other nationalities. But this Monroe is essentially one-note: she's anxious, vulnerable, emotionally tortured, always unsatisfied, abused, and misunderstood. She moves from man to man (calling them all "daddy") and seems on the constant verge of a nervous breakdown. Many scenes in Blonde are both fantastical and intentionally provocative. The film is narratively and visually inventive, including a sex scene where bodies appear to be floating, stretching, and melting, or camera angles meant to be looking out from inside a vagina or a toilet. Camera angles, focus, color, and sound all conjure Marilyn's mindset and mood. Some of these techniques are quite effective and memorable, others just feel showy and more about form than content. Ultimately, for the viewer, less would have been more. At almost three hours long, the exercise is exhausting. Perhaps we are meant to feel as disoriented and drained as this fictionalized Marilyn, who asks where dreams end and madness begins? Read the full review at Common Sense Media. Images courtesy of Netflix.

Jennifer Green | September 12, 2020 The "Cancel Netflix" campaign and outrage over the French movie "Cuties" is misguided, in my opinion. I'll try to explain why here and offer some links for further reading, if you're interested. (Beware: if you haven't watched the movie, there are some spoilers in here.) Maïmouna Doucouré, a French filmmaker of Senegalese descent, premiered "Cuties" at the Sundance Film Festival last January to positive reviews. She went home with a Director's Award. What does this tell us? That a jury of her peers (presumably experts) felt her work was award-worthy above all the others presented in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at this internationally renowned festival. Yet before the film premiered in the US last week on Netflix, the streamer stumbled with a marketing campaign that showed the girls dolled up and twerking but which failed to contextualize these images or even hint at the film's social messages. Thousands of people have now joined a boycott of Netflix under the hashtag #CancelNetflix. Their online comments suggest many of the outraged have not actually watched the film. “Cuties is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children," Netflix tried to clarify. "We’d encourage anyone who cares about these important issues to watch the movie.” The Film "Cuties" is about an 11-year-old girl, Amy Diop, who has just moved with her Senegalese family into a housing block in a majority immigrant and low-income area of Paris. She becomes fascinated by a group of rule-breaking girls at school who, she finds out as she makes her way into the group, are vying for a spot in a local dance competition. Inspired by images and videos they find online, and motivated by the online attention they're getting and the fact that they make it into the competition, the girls' dress, behavior and dance moves get increasingly more sensual. Doucouré does not shy away from filming this sensitive subject up close, the camera capturing the girls' scantily-clad bodies as they primp and pose and dance. In one scene, the protagonist clumsily posts a picture of her private parts on social media in a desperate attempt to counter the embarrassment of a photo a schoolyard bully has posted of her ratty underpants. In other scenes, the girls flirt with older boys and show their moves to two security guards, clearly unaware they could actually be putting themselves in danger (none comes, fortunately). These are not easy scenes to watch – for a parent or for anyone. And that's precisely the point. Doucouré intends for us to be scandalized by the girls' behavior, a reaction she captures in a climactic scene when the girls dance publicly. All but one fascinated young man in the audience appear shocked and repelled by the girls' overtly sexual dancing. The #CancelNetflix folks seem to believe we are all that one young man. In fact, Doucouré has said the film was inspired by a dance competition like this in Paris that she witnessed. I'd add in here that I've seen surprisingly sexy dance routines from slightly older girls in public settings myself, as I imagine a lot of people have. This isn't entirely fiction. The Message In a 6-minute video for the Netflix Film Club on "Why I Made Cuties," Doucouré says that the performance she witnessed inspired her to go out and speak with "over a hundred pre-teens" to gather their perspectives. She's added in other interviews that she wanted to investigate whether they were "conscious" of what they were doing. In the film, she shows they are not. This is a key point: "Cuties" is not about little girls discovering their own sexuality. It's about little girls exploiting the existing cultural sexualization of their bodies for their own purposes (attention, a spot in a dance competition) without really understanding the possible repercussions or even the basics of how sex works (at age 11, they're curious but uninformed and easily grossed out). Another subtlety of the film: Doucouré's girls lack attention from precisely the people who could help them redirect that behavior. We see that their parents are absent, over-worked or stressed out. The girls run all over town with no supervision. Nobody seems to ask about where they've been or what they're up to. No adults are observing what they're posting online. As New Yorker critic Richard Brody noted, the film (which he calls "extraordinary") suggests girls – "especially poor and nonwhite children" – are particularly vulnerable to online messages when they lack guidance and open family discussions at home to counter them and to help find "the line between liberation and exploitation, between independence and imitation." This is especially true for the film's main character, Amy, who – like Doucouré herself – comes from a Senegalese family whose traditions and expectations for women contrast starkly with the Western culture around her. She's trying to make sense of her place between the two cultures and the two sets of values. The film helps you understand why a girl like Amy might question or even rebel against the expectations of her community, where women are taught to cover their entire bodies and "obey" their husbands, where a man like Amy's father can take on a second wife even as it breaks his family's heart. In the Netflix Film Club video, Doucouré suggests that the objectification of women in Western society is another form of oppression for young girls trying to define what being a woman means to them. In the end (major spoiler alert), Amy seems to suddenly become aware that what's she doing doesn't feel right. Her mother, too, seems shaken out of a submissive trance and stands up for her daughter. The closing scene, which is quite symbolic, suggests a happier and more wholesome future for Amy. Doucouré calls her film "deeply feminist" with "an activist message." She says: "My film 'Cuties' is a mirror of today's society – a mirror sometimes difficult to look into and accept but still so true." Calling on Netflix to censor this film is to not want to look in the mirror. It's to turn a blind eye on the social problems "Cuties" asks us to face, consider, think about and discuss. Let me know what you think of the movie if you watch it! Read my parental review for Common Sense Media here. Images courtesy of Netflix. Follow-up on the controversy in The Daily Record (click on the photo below):

This thriller is all about mood, and it's successful in building suspense through enigmatic characters, gory action, eerie music, and a rainy wooded setting. We're introduced to title character Lou from low angles and often within frames, making the statuesque Janney appear even more imposing, but also potentially boxed in. Details to explain this, and other characters' actions, are only slowly revealed, allowing the film to focus on action but keep the viewer curious about motivation. The constant rain infuses the Pacific Northwest setting with a damp, muddy greyness. Indigenous fauna is also used for effect, from a broken butterfly to predator birds and animals devouring other animals. Eerie music and regular thunderclaps add to the tension. A film like this can succeed in ambiance but still fail if the actors aren't up to the job, which in this case requires emotional as well as physical performances. Janney brings gravitas to every role, and she's interestingly cast against type here as an irascible and fierce loner living alone in the woods with her dog. It's a role typically written for men (think Eastwood, Costner, or Neeson), but it has a uniquely female twist here (no spoilers). Smollett is also believable as a woman trying to escape her past and build a future for herself and her young daughter. The characters' backgrounds and the historical events alluded to in the film could have been exploited more, and some gratuitously violent scenes skipped. Read the full review at Common Sense Media. Image courtesy of Netflix.