Girlfight (2000)
Directed by Karyn Kusama
Diana Guzman, a troubled Brooklyn teenager, decides to channel her aggression by training to become a boxer, all while keeping it a secret from her father.
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What critics compared Girlfight to
Screenwriter Diablo Cody ("Juno") and director Karyn Kusama ("Girlfight") have nth-wave feminism on their minds, but their abundant ideas never jell.
Cody�s script - under the director of Girlfight�s Karyn Kusama, who brings a top-notch visual style - manages to combine those things into something that is a lot of wicked fun.
Directed by Karyn Kusama, who peaked with her 2000 debut Girlfight, it's a paint-by-numbers story about a demon-possessed high school girl run amok in smalltown America, determined to devour boys in all the wrong ways.
Blame could also be on its director Karyn Kusama’s lack of experience, having done just a few things before, such as Girlfight.
I don�t really have that much to say about director Karyn Kusama (Girlfight) and Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody�s ( Juno ) malevolent horror-comedy Jennifer�s Body.
The film is the product of the "girl power" team of director Karyn Kusama ( Girlfight ) and writer Diablo Cody ( Juno ).
For my money and the 2000 indie Girlfight surpasses this awards pandering melodrama.
True to the unspoken desperation and disillusionment that toughens or chews up career-undercard boxers, tinged with post-feminist complexity and rich with classical metaphor, "Million Dollar Baby" has only one competitor for the title of best boxing movie since "Raging Bull" -- Karyn Kusama's fervent, genre-transcending "Girlfight," also about a female fighter.
Set during a mysterious reunion among old friends where something is quite palpably not right, this well-acted, beautifully modulated exercise represents director Karyn Kusama ’s strongest work in years, revealing an assurance of tone, craft and purpose that haven’t been in evidence since her Sundance prize-winning debut, “Girlfight” (2000).
Working from a screenplay by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, director Karyn Kusama (“Girlfight”) creates a tension-filled atmosphere that brings to mind the early, pre-Hollywood films of Roman Polanski.
For the first time since her 2000 debut feature, the Sundance hit "Girlfight," she has taken the steps to make a movie for herself, using her own sensibilities, with the hope other viewers will share in her tastes.
Subverting expectations with former credits like the "Ride Along" movies and "R.I.P.D," writers Phil Hay & Matt Manfredi have crafted a multi-layered psychological thriller which director Karyn Kusama ("Girlfight," "Jennifer's Body") has finessed into cinematic character driven paranoia.
Kusama (“Girlfight,” “Jennifer’s Body”) ratchets up the tension expertly; we, like Will, become increasingly uncomfortable, seeing evil omens everywhere.
I know how important Girlfight was to female filmmakers and leads, the Latino demographic and I have it to thank for Michelle Rodriguez in Furious 7, but I hope Kusama would accept that 15 years after her first movie, I say she’s developed even greater skills.
It's been done a thousand times, including such famous performers as Wallace Beery in "The Champ," Kirk Douglas in "Champion," Sylvester Stallone in "Rocky," Michelle Rodriguez in "Girlfight," Hilary Swank in "Million Dollar Baby" and Mark Wahlberg in "The Fighter."
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The thankless task of starring in this movie falls upon Milla Jovovich ( The Messenger , The Fifth Element), Michelle Rodriguez (Girlfight, The Fast and the Furious ), Eric Mabius (Cruel Intentions, The Crow: Salvation), James Purefoy ( A Knight's Tale , Mansfield Park ), and Colin Salmon ( The World Is Not Enough , Tomorrow Never Dies).