Linda Stirling Unmasked: The Black Whip




AGORA
: Dragged from her chariot by a mob of fanatical vigilante Christian monks, the revered astronomer was stripped naked, skinned to her bones with sharp oyster shells, stoned and burned alive as possibly the first executed witch in history. A kind of purge that was apparently big business back then.


CRITICAL WOMEN HEADLINES

4/10/11

The Conspirator Movie Review: Sins Of The Mothers?


If the corporate media is notorious for reporting only what they deem politically or personally expedient - and other stuff, even if involving up to a million protesters at an event, never happened - the official historical record may be even worse. Take for instance, the military trial and execution by the feds for conspiracy in President Lincoln's assassination of the first woman in history, Mary Surratt. Mary who?


Mary Surratt On Exhibit, National Museum Of Crime & Punishment, Washington D.C.


And not mentioned in the movie, is that she was shackled and hooded, Abu Ghraib fashion statement style, every minute of her several months incarceration...And tickets for the public throngs to attend her outdoor execution were a hot item indeed. While pieces of the rope that hanged her and locks of her hair, were then sold as souvenirs.

CONTINUE TO READ REVIEW HERE

4/9/11

Are You Surprised By Movies Anymore? Deciphering Werner Herzog

2011-05-05-Image51.jpg
Werner Herzog is one filmmaker who defies the trailer, the reviewer and whatever formula you want to put on him. When I walk into a Herzog movie I never know what's going to happen. And when I walk out of one, I often question
 how to put into words what I just saw....

By Logan Nakyanzi Pollard

CONTINUE TO READ CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS COMMENTARY HERE


Logan Nakyanzi Pollard is a featured commentator at The Huffington Post, and has reported for ABC News and The Guardian. Logan is also a member of the Women Film Critics Circle.

4/8/11

TCM Film Fest: Classic Stars Walk Red Carpet for 60th Anniversary Of An American in Paris

                                                 Leslie Caron in Gigi, 1958


Leslie Caron Opens TCM Film Fest & Stars from Classic Era Walk Red Carpet for 60th Anniversary of An American in Paris

by Penelope Andrew

The evening began auspiciously with Leslie Caron walking the red carpet to Grauman's Chinese Theatre, which opened in 1927 and contains around 200 celebrity handprints, footprints, and autographs embedded in the concrete of the building's forecourt. Flying all the way from Paris and showing no signs of jet lag, the still lovely and energetic 79-year-old was in Hollywood for the premiere screening of the 60th-anniversary restoration of her very first film, An American in Paris....

CONTINUE TO READ ARTICLE HERE


Penelope Andrew was in Hollywood covering the TCM Film Festival for The Huffington Post and Arts Express Syndicate. She also writes for Bright Lights Film Journal, WestView News and Critical Women on Film. Penny Andrew is a member of The Women Film Critics Circle.

3/11/11

Mars Needs Moms? Pear-Shaped Shrewish Aliens Not 'Hip'

animation, sci fi, Seth Green,Dan Fogler,Aliens,stay-at-home moms,nurturing,motherhood,matriarchy
Crone, left, Warrior Chick Martian

In Mars Needs Moms, odd stereotypes raise their big alien foreheads.


'...If sci fi plots allow their creators to work out real-life issues, then here we see a bunch of angry Hollywood males crying out against their feelings of emasculation with nostalgia for a reinstatement of the nuclear fifties family. Hmmm.'

CONTINUE TO READ REVIEW HERE


Thelma Adams
ThelmaAdams.com
Us Magazine




From The Housing Wars: WBAI Woman On The Front Lines: Mary Ann Miller with sister cellmate Claire Birmingham and State Senator Bill Perkins, discussing the status of the rent regulations.

And...Midnight In Paris: A conversation with Woody Allen. Woody talks icons, inspirations, pharmaceuticals, communism, Gertrude Stein, Groucho, Bergman, Fitzgerald, related literary time travel in the movie, and the closing of famed artist gathering place, Elaine's.

Tenant justice cellmates Miller and Birmingham will report on May Housing Actions, when they chained themselves to Cooper Union site of the Rent Regulation Board Meeting. And give updates on their May 30th court hearing. 





While movies have grown increasingly generic to appeal to all demographics and nations in a cynical bid for maximum box office cash appeal, Woody Allen still stubbornly resists such financial imperatives by moving in the opposite direction. Which translates in Midnight In Paris, his latest cinematic voyage to other realms both foreign and in the imagination, as determined egghead sci-fi fantasy. And in supremely bon apetit, arty 'Unblockbuster' mode, where the PG level rating could actually indicate Post-Graduate degrees as helpful.... 



Woody's guy Cinderella, spaced out sci-fi tale is the best yet among his collection of lunatic satirical travelogues. And the furthest that the director has taken a stroll himself lately out of his own more characteristic insular ivory tower world, among all those peculiar swells. While toning down the interactive punchline dialogues for a refreshing, heartier gourmet narrative stew. Even if the supernatural sightseeing literary references at times overstay their welcome, and are more high IQ insider jokes than they need be.

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Acclaimed Latina author Isabel Allende talks slavery and memory, the Middle Passage, and revolutionary uprising in 18th century Haiti in her current novel, Island Beneath The Sea. And her own journey into political and emotional exile after the 1973 CIA orchestrated coup in Chile; remembering Salvador Allende, her uncle and the president of Chile, and the tragic victim of that Pinochet coup; and why she gets mad whenever she reads history.

And...Anthony Weiner was considered to win the future mayoralty easily. But now he will never be an 'Oscar Mayor Weiner.' Mary Ann Miller takes a look at the other 113 men - and they've all been men - who have held that office. And here to discuss that is Ralph Caliendo, who has written a book on the subject.

Also...Rent Regulations Update.

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From The Housing Wars: WBAI Woman On The Front Lines. A Rent Regulations Update.

Mary Ann Miller [far right] with rent hike activists, just prior to their arrests last month for protesting new Regulations Board rent hikes.

From The Housing Wars: WBAI Woman On The Front Lines. Tenant justice activists assembled during May Housing Actions, when they chained themselves to Cooper Union site of the Rent Regulation Board Meeting. A rent fightback and court hearing update.

2/16/11

Desperado Housewives: The Honeymooners' Joyce Randolph Revisits Trixie


The Honeymooners: A Conversation With Joyce Randolph
: The Honeymooners' Joyce Randolph aka Trixie, takes a trip down memory lane with NYC Classic Movie Sites Tours [Screentours.com/classics], and reminisces during this conversation, about Alice, Ralph and her small screen spouse, Ed Norton. She also sheds light on the enduring appeal of the show in its unique depictions of genuine workingclass people, the first ever small screen feminists in a sea of doting housewives and Barbie bimbos, and the inner sourpuss of funnyman Jackie Gleason. Here's Joyce Randolph, mulling the itinerary of those upcoming Classic Movie Sites, and the very few traces of The Honeymooners around town:

Listen To The Interview Here: