“Test Pattern” chronicles a biracial courtship and coupledom as a means of probing larger power asymmetries.
Eileen G'Sell
Eileen G'Sell is a regular contributor to Salon, VICE, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications. In 2019 she was nominated for the Rabkin prize in arts journalism. She teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.
Posted inFilm
9to5 Strikes at a Missing Piece of Feminist History
In the late 1970s and early ’80s, women office workers banded together in a labor movement that sprouted up in 25 cities across the country.
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Two Dramas Plumb the Depths of Women’s Midlife Chaos
Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Time and My Little Sister are complicated films about complicated people.
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Pieces of a Woman Falls to Pieces
What begins as a trenchant exploration of losing a child becomes a Lifetime-esque affair that strays so sharply from a mother’s grief that it feels a bit like a betrayal.
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When Class Conflict Met Queer Romance
Ammonite tells a 19th-century love story that prompts less a tingle through the loins than a chill down the spine.
Posted inArt
A David Wojnarowicz Documentary Honors the Gritty, Glorious Chaos of His Life
In Wojnarowicz’s work, as in his life, testing the limits of artistic categories and systemic and institutional power was central to his impassioned vision.
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A Woman Escapes the Grip of Men in Charlie Kaufman’s Latest Film
Director Charlie Kaufman’s men leech off women for validation, while women attempt to escape their parasitic grip.
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Wacky, Romantic Dramedies to Brighten a Foreboding Fall
Three recent French dramedies boast their own individual je ne sais quoi, less in spite than because of their wacky storylines.
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Relic Joins the New Era of “Mommy Horror”
Relic delves into a darkness beyond filial caregiving, approaching the mother figure as the first, and last, monster, her house a veritable womb for distinctly female trauma.
Posted inArt
Photos That Honor the Interior Lives of Diverse Black Women
In her photographs, Katherine Simóne Reynolds suggests that vulnerability is vital to a full sense of self, but it is a luxury that Black women across age and background are perpetually denied.
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A John Lewis Documentary Probes Tensions Between National and State Power
For any American even mildly ignorant of the rich, complex legacy of Civil Rights within our decidedly disunited country, Dawn Porter’s John Lewis: Good Trouble should be mandatory viewing.
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The Delirium of Female Desire
Across Josephine Decker’s work and in her new film about Shirley Jackson, Decker wants us to ask what right she, or anyone, has to make another’s story her own.