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Battle of the Sexes-sp

Most of you may know about the story of the tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in 1993. We have memories of the time and the famous event that took place. However this movie does capture more than a battle between a talented, skillful female tennis champion standing up to an older male, retired professional tennis player who was a male chauvinistic showman who thought he could laugh his way to making money and putting down women. This story and this well-done film shows us the beginning of the Women’s Movement and also the glimmer that eventually grew to a shining light where gay women could eventually be themselves. This goal still had a long way to go in the 1970s when this story took place.

Emma Stone was excellent as Billie Jean King and Steve Carell could not have been better as the clueless self-proclaimed, “Man” of the hour. Andrea Riseborough was very good as Billie Jean’s intimate confidant and hair dresser. The excellent supporting casts included Nathalie Morales, Bill Pullman, Elizabeth Shue, Alan Cumming and Eric Olsen. The movie was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris with the screen play by Simon Beaufoy. The dramatic tennis matches which were shown in the film may have used actual archived footage, which certainly added to the excitement of the movie. This story deserved to be told and we are sure that it will have an important place in cinematic history about the role of women in sports and in American culture as well as memorializing an exciting key moment in time. (2017)

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Any Day Now- rm   This film clearly highlights the homophobia.and the discrimination against  gays in the 1970s which unfortunately still lingers in our modern society. The story which supposedly is inspired from a real life situation tells of a gay couple that wants to adopt an abandoned child with Downs Syndrome. The reaction of the legal system , specifically the judges interpretation of the law reflects the cruel bias of much of society which in this case deprived a child, who nobody else wanted from being cared for by a loving responsible couple. The film was a tour  de force for Alan Cumming, currently well known for his role as a political consultant  in the television series The Good Wife. He plays Rudy Donatello a flamboyant female impersonator who displays great sensitivity, anger, a great sense of humor and also shows that he is a talented singer. The film is directed by Travis Fine who co wrote the script with Arthur Bloom. Garrett Dillahunt plays Paul Fleiger, a quiet laid back recently divorced lawyer who works in the DA’s office and falls in love with Rudy during his first outing and their first meeting. Isaac Leyva realistically portrays Marco,   the child with Down’s Syndrome, who says few words and is usually happy except when he realizes he is being abandoned. While the film makes the social and political points that are certainly worth making, there is something to be desired in the contrived story line even if based on reality. We see the unlikely couple falling in love although we don’t really get a glimpse at their chemistry. We also don’t initially see what draws them to this child other than our inference that he is misunderstood and treated unfairly as they are also being treated by society. The film is good enough to stir people up about the injustice portrayed and the variations on it that are still around us. (2012)