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Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.

Sean Penn

Five Films About Nuns

06/21/2017

The Indie release, The Little Hours, coming out on June 30, takes place in a medieval convent where a young, runaway, servant (Dave Franco) takes refuge. The early buzz on the film has been good and it will be joining a cinematic tradition of nuns and convent life on screen.

The Bells of Saint Mary’s (1945) Directed by Leo Carey (The Awful Truth, An Affair to Remember), starring screen legends Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman as respectively a priest and nun who despite a good-hearted rivalry work together to save an inner city school.  It was a massive commercial success grossing over $8 million on its initial run making it the highest grossing movie of 1945 and the most profitable film in the history of RKO. It also won the Academy Award for Best Sound Recording and was nominated for Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Director.

Agnes of God (1985)  Norman Jewison (In the Heat of the Night, Fiddler on the Roof, and Moonstruck) directed this mystery drama based on the stage play of the same name. Young novice Sister Agnes (Meg Tilly) is found directly after giving birth with a dead infant she insists was the result of a virgin conception. Psychiatrist Martha Livingston (Jane Fonda) is assigned to assess Agnes’s state of mind and she quickly comes to clash with Mother Superior Miriam (Anne Bancroft). Tilly won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and was also nominated for an Academy Award in the category as well.

Sister Act (1992) Emile Ardolino (Dirty Dancing) directed this American musical comedy. Whoopi Goldberg stars as Deloris a Reno lounge singer who sees her married mobster lover shoot a guy. The local police decide the safest place for her is to hide her in a convent in San Francisco under the alias of Sister Mary Clarence. ‘Sister Mary’ soon becomes choir director and begins turning things upside down in the parish as her ex-flame seeks high and low to find her. It was a huge box office smash grossing over $200 million worldwide on a $30 million budget and generally well received by critics.

Dead Man Walking (1995) Tim Robbins directed and adapted the screenplay for this movie from the non-fiction book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean who has worked as a spiritual counselor to death row prisoners. Susan Sarandon stars as Sister Helen in a role that won her an Oscar and Sean Penn gives an astonishing performance as unrepentant killer Matthew Poncelot. The movie holds a current fresh rating of 95% from Rotten Tomatoes and was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Song.

The Madgalene Sisters (2002) Peter Mullan wrote and directed this heart-breaking and infuriating Irish-British drama about three teenage girls sent to the Magdalene Asylums (otherwise known as Magdalene laundries) for ‘fallen women.’ The cast includes Anne-Marie Duff (The Virgin Queen, Suffragette) as young heroine Margaret and five time Olivier Award nominee Geraldine McEwan as the evil Sister Bridget. The characters themselves are composites, but their stories horrifically are quite real. It was one of the biggest commercial successes in Ireland that year, won the Golden Lion at Venice, and holds a 90% fresh rating on the Tomatometer.

LGBT Movies for Harvey Milk Day

05/21/2016

May 22nd is Harvey Milk Day an occasion celebrated by thousands of members of the Equality Movement around the world on Harvey’s birthday. In the spirit of the occasion consider holding a movie night with some of the following films.

Gay USA (1978) Directed by Arthur Bressan Jr. who was mostly known for his gay porn but who also wrote and directed Buddies the first feature film about the AIDS epidemic, Gay USA focused on the burgeoning gay rights movement of the 70’s just at the time it faced its first organized backlash courtesy of Anita Bryant and her campaign to repeal anti-discrimination policies in Dade County.

Milk  (2008) This incredible biopic directed by Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting) detailing the last years of Harvey’s life including his move to San Francisco, his rise as a community activist and politician, and his untimely death by assassination is quite simply a masterpiece. Sean Penn in the titular role deservedly got most of the attention for his extraordinary performance but he was bolstered by a stellar supporting crew including James Franco as Milk’s longtime lover Scott, Allison Pill as Harvey Milk’s campaign manager Anne Kronenberg, and a chilling turn by Josh Brolin as murderer Dan White. It won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor for Sean Penn as well as being nominated for six more Oscars.

Stonewall Uprising (2010)  This excellent documentary (not to be confused with the widely panned 2015 film Stonewall)  was directed by married filmmakers Kate Davis and David Heilobroner, tells the story of the massive police raid of Stonewall in June 1969, where to the cops surprise the patrons fought back, thus kicking off the gay rights movement as we know it.  The movie features eyewitness accounts of the incident including NYPD deputy inspector Seymour Pine and activist Martha Shelley, as well as archived film of the subsequent riots. It originally aired on PBS.

How to Survive a Plague (2012)  This directorial debut by journalist David France chronicles the early years of the AIDS epidemic and the efforts of the activist founders of ACT UP and TAG to lobby the government for effective medical research and treatment. It features interviews with Larry Kramer, Garance Franke-Ruta, Spencer Cox and more. It was awarded Best Documentary by the Gotham Independent Film Awards and the Boston Society of Film Critics, as well as a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Documentary and a Peabody.

Pride (2014)  Directed by Matthew Warchus (Simpatico) Pride, tells the true story of how in the summer of 1984, gay rights activists partnered with miners during their lengthy strike reasoning after all that they were both victims under the Thatcher administration.  Pride is a remarkably sly and witty look at issues of intersectionality that dominate the Left to this day. The all star cast features, Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Andrew Scott, and more.  The sequence where Dominic West discos on top of tables alone justifies Pride which is both hysterically funny and inspiring at the same time.

To learn more go to the website for about Harvey Milk Day. 

Top photo:  A bust of slain San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected public official in the U.S., is posted outside his former legislative chamber in San Francisco. Bigstock photo.