The Good.film Goodies - October Edition
Oh hai October! Just like that: spring sprung, the Emmys happened, and Halloween costumes are being prepped as we type this (ooh, idea for a new List: Best Ever Halloween Flicks!). There’s a bevy of glossy content dropping to cinemas and streaming this month, and at Good.film we’re all about it.
good.film
2 years ago
Share
Florence and the Media Machine
Even if you haven’t seen it yet, you’ve probably heard about Olivia Wilde’s white-hot sophomore feature Don’t Worry Darling. With rumoured on-set tensions, even more rumoured off-set ones (“Spitgate”, anyone?) and its Vegemite-like response from critics and audiences, it’s been blowing up socials with over 291,000 unique mentions in September alone.
Translation? 291,000 unique mentions is a TON of online chatter (compare this to Steven Spielberg’s newie, Meet The Fabelmans - it debuted just a few days after Don’t Worry Darling and only clocked up 46,000 unique mentions).
Detractors might say all those tweets & hashtags just reflect the glow off a certain Mr Styles, or point to hyped reactions and fake controversies. But the conversations around female body autonomy and women’s rights that emerged from all those mentions tell a different story. Plus, there’s no denying this vivid and stylish throwback is already making serious bank at the US box office and has put star Florence Pugh in the frame for another (well-deserved) Oscar nomination.
To cap that off, Don’t Worry Darling is one of less than a dozen studio films releasing this year that have been written, produced and directed by female filmmakers (shoutouts to She Said, Where the Crawdads Sing, The Woman King, Fresh, and Good Luck to You, Leo Grande!). Brava ladies - it’s great titles like these that have helped catapult Female Empowerment into our cause of the month spot, below.
Lush 50s metaphors ain’t your speed? Okay, keep October 27 free, when a new milestone for LGBTQIA+ representation is set to hit our multiplexes. After what feels like a lifetime of straight actors playing gay roles (since 2000, Sean Penn, Rami Malek and Philip Seymour Hoffman all won Oscars for doing just that), Billy Eichner’s Bros is the first major studio rom-com putting representation front & centre: the full cast of queer characters is played entirely by queer actors. And we’re HERE for it!
Cause and Effect
Did you know that with over 350 matches (and counting), Female Empowerment is one of the Top 3 most-matched causes on good.film? If you’re not sure what to hit Play on first, we get it! Have a peep at the Top 10 Female Empowerment titles: there’s everything from the LOLs of Fleabag to the smarts of Hidden Figures and the hunting prowess of Prey. And if you’re looking for a full fem-power movie marathon, check out the latest Female Empowerment lists, curated entirely by users like you.
Streaming is a Girl’s Best Friend
We were hyped about it last month, now it’s landed like a platinum bombshell: Aussie director Andrew Dominik’s nearly-3-hour, dreamscapey Marilyn Monroe biopic, Blonde. With themes of mental health and female empowerment, there’s plenty of impact juice in the Norma Jeane story - but just which story will be told? There’s already been a ton of pearl-clutching over how truthfully (or otherwise) Marilyn’s life has been brought to the screen. Having terminology like “reimagined” and “blurs the lines of fact and fiction” in the film’s own official synopsis only added fuel to the fire! They say it’s “impressionistic”... We say, what better way to find out than to watch it for yourself.
After some lighter fare? We’re loving the razor-sharp wit of Do Revenge - another all-new, all-female writer & director banger you’ll find in Netflix’s Top 10 that’s already being hailed as “a generation-defining teen masterpiece”. Jam-packed with clever references to absolute classics of the genre like Clueless, Mean Girls, 10 Things I Hate About You, Heathers and Cruel Intentions, it’s seriously unhinged fun. We’d suggest a drinking game watch party*, but take a shot for every high school movie reference here and you’d be calling an Uber before the halfway mark…
*Weird fact, the Japanese government would probably be right behind this drinking game idea: they’ve just launched a contest to encourage young adults to drink more booze to boost their local sake & beer industry!
Not Dancing Around the Issues
If you’ve randomly been hearing “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” in your head recently, it might be thanks to the 35-year anniversary of a little indie movie that just a few people saw back in 1987… okay, we’re totally kidding, it’s Dirty Dancing and it was a monster smash. But apart from being a certified classic romcom , it’s back in vogue for all the wrong reasons: namely the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade in the States. How are they even connected, you ask? A lot of people miss it, but there’s actually a pivotal subplot within Dirty Dancing about a ‘backroom’ abortion and a woman’s right to choose: making this ‘cute dance movie’ more timely than ever. Take another look to understand how Dirty Dancing was one of the first blockbusters to take the conversation around safe abortion out of the corner.
We’d love you to forward this article to a fellow movie-lover to help grow our community! Let them know they can match movies and streaming series to causes they care about… create & share watchlists to keep the conversation going... and inspire others to donate via the good.film platform to support the causes that matter. Thanks!
