RBG

— “RBG” should be required viewing for anyone who isn’t really sure how Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed America! It’s a compelling look at the life of a judicial giant who’s petite, soft-spoken, and brilliant. Now at 85, she's something of a “rock star,” seen as a little bit feisty thanks to her well-written dissenting opinions from a court grown more and more conservative. Of particular interest to me were her arguments before the Supreme Court as an attorney, successfully laying the groundwork for a shift in understanding gender discrimination. This is a woman who slowly and methodically worked, seemingly in the background from a layman’s point of view, toward equality. The film may be a bit of a love poem from a fan, but it’s still well worth seeing and I imagine even more so for a person too young to remember how far we’ve come in the course of Ginsburg's life.

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[2018. 98 min. Directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West.]
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/movies/rbg-review-documentary.html

Top 22 of 2018

— Here are my 22 favorite films from 2018:

• "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"
• "BlacKkKlansman"
• "Boy Erased"
• "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"
• ”Cold War"
• ”Eighth Grade"
• ”The Favourite"
• "First Man"
• ”First Reformed"
• "Green Book"
• "The Hate U Give"
• "Hereditary"
• ”Lean on Pete"
• ”Leave No Trace"
• "A Quiet Place"
• ”Roma"
• ”A Star Is Born"
• ”Vice"
• "Western"
• ”Widows"
• "The Wife"
• "Wildlife"

Had I included documentaries, ”Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” would definitely have made the list, and five more documentaries and quasi-documentaries would also have been in or almost in the list:

• ”McQueen"
• ”The Price of Everything"
• ”RBG"
• ”The Rider"
• ”Three Identical Strangers"

Six other films just missed the list:

• ”Black Panther"
• ”If Beale Street Could Talk"
• "Isle of Dogs"
• ”Mission Impossible—Fallout"
• ”The Old Man & the Gun"
• ”The Sisters Brothers”

On the Basis of Sex

— This is a film for all the RBG fans in the world, and for all the women who remember how they were perceived in the eyes of the law in the 1960s. It may not be the best film of the year, but it’s a crowd-pleaser and rightfully so. Concentrating on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s early career, the film focuses on a landmark case Ginsburg argued, putting the first chink in legal gender discrimination and changing the world forever. It offers an interesting take on Ruth and her husband Marty’s relationship too, depicting it as one of shared responsibilities and mutual support. The story is compelling and it’s good to have a vision of Ruth circa 1972, before the rock-star fame she’s acquired as a Supreme Court Justice. It’s also good to be reminded that cursing and protesting and electing people who only claim to favor change may not be as effective as hard, methodical work, done in the background to bring change within the current system. It’s well worth seeing, particularly if you have an interest in Ginsberg or the struggle for gender equality.

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[2018. 120 min. Directed by Mimi Leder. Starring Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux, Sam Waterston, and Kathy Bates.]
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/on-the-basis-of-sex-2018