Popcorn and Sexual Politics: Movie Reviews

1991, possibly first edition, from The Crossing Press
Kathi Maio
Popcorn and Sexual Politics: Movie Reviews
Original price $8.95, purchase price $4.95
Very worn paperback
B-

I found this equal to Feminist in the Dark, although I used to prefer it, perhaps because I'd seen more of the movies.  This time of course, due to the quirks of alphabetization, I kept comparing it to Kael's Movie Love, which seems to cover roughly the same period.  Although the two of course don't agree on everything (Maio surprisingly is the one who likes Heathers), they are in accord on Another Woman, The Good Mother, Postcards from the Edge, and Working Girl, if not always for the exact same reasons, at least syncing up more than either does with Ebert.  My favorite moment in this collection is when she tells of a coworker who "suggested in no uncertain terms that I review Working Girl and 'tear it apart.'  Okay, Laura, this one's for you."  (When I saw the movie recently, it made me much angrier than Fatal Attraction did a week later, but that's partly because I prefer comedies and in an odd sort of way take them more seriously than dramas.)

A few years after this book came out, Maio landed here:  http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/dkathimaio.htm.  She seems to post a few sci-fi/fantasy movie reviews a year, most recently zapping Oz the Great and Powerful on the grounds of both feminism and fandom.  It's good to know she's still fighting the good fight.