[SoCal Pubbie]

I watched Annihilation with Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh last night. There were two or three major supporting roles than were played by men but for all intents and purposes it had an all female cast. And it as the kind of story that had it been made a few decades ago would have had an all male cast. Since it was a “new” story and not a retread specifically designed to recycle an old movie with the freak show aspect of gender swapping roles like Ghostbusters and Ocean’s 8, I actually gave it a look.

It was bad not because it was all female but because it was a bad film, period ( no pun intended). Pacing was slow, gratuitous flashbacks destroyed the narrative structure, characters were unappealing, the acting was unnatural, and the plot holes were big enough to drive a fleet of hazmat response trucks through side by side.

Apparently the balkanization of society leads to the balkanization of everything else, including movie criticism. Enjoy the brave new world everyone!

[Skywise]

I have no problem at all with female movies or female led movies - so long as the story makes sense.

Divergent, I thought, was a good example of that.
I think Ocean’s 8 could work very well - but Ocean’s 11 was about suave scumbags who would use any trick to get the money. I’m sure in Ocean’s 8 (even though I haven’t seen it) the women are only scumbags because of the patriarchy, aren’t really interested in the money (because greed is bad) and just want to perform some social justice AND will do it all without seducing any men (because that plays into the patriarchy)