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Penelope Andrew
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Penelope Andrew is a writer and editor with a special interest in film, culture, the arts and social justice issues. She is a member of the Women Film Critics Circle, and a certified psychoanalytic psychotherapist with a private practice in New York City.

Her work has appeared in The Huffington Post, WBAI.org, Critical Women on Film, Universal Press Syndicate, Hellenic Voice, and New Manhattan Review. She is active in The SaveDarfur Coalition and a member of The Phi Beta Kappa Society, Amnesty International, The Film Forum, and The American Association for Psychoanalysis/CSW. She is also a Fellow of the NYSSCSW.

A former reporter and associate editor of H Proini (a Greek-American daily newspaper), she also served as editor of the newsletter for The Association on American Indian Affairs. She was an Adjunct Lecturer/Field Instructor for Columbia University's GSSW from 1999 to 2001.

Ms. Andrew is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Brandeis University and completed a certification program of study at The Psychoanalytic Training Institute of NYCC in New York City. She is also a film school dropout having studied film theory, history and criticism at The New School for Social Research.

She can be reached at PeneAndrew@aol.com.

Blog Entries by Penelope Andrew

Augustine vs. Charcot: Transference and Countertransference in the Struggle for a Voice and a Cure

(2) Comments | Posted May 22, 2013 | 5:06 PM

Augustine, an accomplished feature film debut by French director/screenwriter Alice Winocour, explores the disturbing treatment process and fraught relationship between neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (Vincent Lindon), and a 19-year-old patient, Augustine (Soko), who is suffering from "hysteria," marked by violent seizures and partial paralysis. These and other corporal manifestations underscore the...

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The Man Who Loved Movies (and Women) Andrew Sarris Honored by MoMA, American Academy of Arts & Letters

(2) Comments | Posted September 19, 2012 | 3:22 PM

Even before Andrew Sarris passed away on June 20, 2012, he was the recipient of multiple tributes and honors including the National Board of Review's 2008 William K. Everson Award for Film History, which was also given to author/film historian Molly Haskell (Andrew's beloved wife of more than 40 years)....

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A Myth Is Replaced By a Miracle in New Doc, Searching for Sugar Man, Resurrecting Work of Elusive Musician Sixto Rodriguez

(2) Comments | Posted August 13, 2012 | 4:46 PM

It's not often enough that I enter a movie theater to see a film about which I know nothing and emerge feeling so delightfully surprised. Luck was on my side in having had a good friend with noble taste in film orchestrate a Friday afternoon outing at the Lincoln Plaza...

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A Tenacious Japanese Teacher & Her Students Resurrect the Spirit of a Czech Girl Lost to the Holocaust

(1) Comments | Posted April 23, 2012 | 11:44 AM

Aided in part by the book Hana's Suitcase, filmmaker Larry Weinstein takes an intimate look at the Holocaust, a topic the veteran of 25 documentaries -- mostly "quirky ones" about music -- thought he'd never undertake. The director of Mozartballs (2006), Beethoven's Hair (2005), Ravel's Brain (2001) and The Music...

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2012 TCM Fest: Cabaret's Liza Minnelli, Vertigo's Kim Novak, Robert Wagner, Debbie Reynolds Walk Red Carpet & Thelma Schoonmaker Introduces Black Narcissus

(20) Comments | Posted April 12, 2012 | 4:15 PM

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The Fountainhead with Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper Photo: Courtesy of TCM


Liza Minnelli, Kim Novak, Robert Wagner, Tippi Hedren and Debbie Reynolds in person. Black Narcissus, Vertigo, Cabaret, and The Fountainhead projected on gigantic screens at Grauman's Chinese and Egyptian...

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Norwegian Film Strikes Charming and Controversial Notes, Winning Best Screenplay at Tribeca: Turn Me on Dammit!

(1) Comments | Posted March 29, 2012 | 10:59 AM

No, the title of Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Systad Jacobsen's debut narrative feature isn't a typo, it's really called Turn Me on Dammit! The documentary director (Scenes from a Friendship, The Clown Children) adapted the film from the novel by Olaug Nilssen and won the award for best screenplay at...

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Powell/Pressburger 1943 Classic Conjures Deborah Kerr's Early Artistry And Winston Churchill's Wrath

(11) Comments | Posted November 16, 2011 | 10:41 AM

Among its many virtues, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) is a rare, dreamy, Technicolor depiction of London during the blitz. It's a masterpiece composed during this unique period where courage, cooperation, and creativity flourished on a Denham soundstage and in London's environs. It would be impossible to...

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In Life, Above All, Chanda & Esther Are 'Little Women' for the 21st Century -- No Special Effects Required

(4) Comments | Posted July 14, 2011 | 11:58 AM

It wasn't too far along into the film Life, Above All, adapted from a book called Chanda's Secrets by Allan Stratton, that I was reminded of Winter's Bone, a superb indie adapted from the eponymous novel, which also takes on some of the bleakest subject matter imaginable, but leaves you...

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First Choice for Lolita, Hayley Mills, Attends Rare Screening of Whistle Down the Wind in Hollywood, Cult Classic Comes to BAM

(2) Comments | Posted June 21, 2011 | 2:19 PM


Film buffs who missed the 2011 TCM Classic Film Festival's rare screening and discussion of director Bryan Forbes' (The L-Shaped Room) first film, Whistle Down the Wind (1961) on May 1st, which took place at the Chinese Multiplex on Hollywood Boulevard, will have a chance to see...

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!W.A.R.: Fighting the Politics of Exclusion by Documenting a History of Women's Art (and Much More)

(6) Comments | Posted May 31, 2011 | 4:24 PM

Lynn Hershman Leeson's sweeping new documentary, !Women Art Revolution (!WAR), reaches beyond the boundaries of cinema thanks to its "links" to new technology and new media, as well as its collaborations with educational institutions, artists, scholars, and social media architects. In 83 minutes, the director, who is also the writer...

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A Festival to Remember: TCM's Opening Night

(4) Comments | Posted May 5, 2011 | 6:05 PM

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Leslie Caron walks the red carpet to the 60th-anniversary screening of An American in Paris, which opened the TCM Film Festival on April 28. Photo: Jordan Strauss, 2011 WireImage.


The evening began auspiciously with Leslie Caron walking the red carpet to Grauman's...

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2011 TCM Festival: Leslie Caron and Stars From Classic Era Walk Red Carpet for 60th Anniversary of An American in Paris

(3) Comments | Posted April 25, 2011 | 5:29 PM

On Thursday evening, April 28, Leslie Caron will walk the red carpet to Grauman's Chinese Theatre on her way to the world premiere of the 60th anniversary restoration of An American in Paris. Although Turner Classic Movies' Film Festival, which takes place in Hollywood through May 1, coincides with New...

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HuffPost Review: Oscar-Winner In a Better World, and Remembering Elizabeth Taylor

(3) Comments | Posted March 30, 2011 | 11:36 AM

In In a Better World, Danish director Susanne Bier has the audacity to enter places where madness and inhumanity flourish. She looks at this world squarely as one world, and allows her actors to succeed in making sense of it. They forge ahead full speed even when the narrative feels...

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Gay Icons and American Dreams in New Documentary: Making the Boys

(4) Comments | Posted March 9, 2011 | 11:07 AM

Off Broadway, Hollywood and American Dreams in Making the Boys: All About The Boys in the Band

Director Crayton Robey's ambitious new documentary Making the Boys, about The Boys in the Band -- both the play (1968) and the film (1970) -- chronicles the life, times and resonance of a...

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Awards Season & Second Looks: What Ever Happened to Mother & Child? Winter's Bone Miracles & The African Queen Restored

(3) Comments | Posted February 7, 2011 | 9:19 AM

While there were no surprises regarding Screen Actors Guild wins for best male lead actor, Colin Firth (The King's Speech), and supporting actor, Christian Bale (The Fighter), it was refreshing to see Melissa Leo (The Fighter) snag the best supporting actress award and disappointing to witness Natalie Portman's (The Black...

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The Freud(ian)s: Inspired by Sigmund's Passion for Antiquities, Jane Debuts Her Own Paradigms of the Unconscious

(5) Comments | Posted January 18, 2011 | 2:32 PM

British sculptor and multimedia conceptual artist Jane McAdam Freud continues to excavate deep within the bowels of humanity. In her first solo exhibit in New York City, Random Plus, she creates visual paradigms that shed light not only on crucial transgenerational bonds (in her own family and in ours), but...

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Cinematic Enchantment via Lubitsch & Chomet: Cluny Brown Revived at Film Forum, The Illusionist Debuts in NY/LA

(3) Comments | Posted December 27, 2010 | 1:30 PM

A rare screening of the Ernst Lubitsch masterpiece--and last completed film--Cluny Brown (1946) opened on Christmas Eve at The Film Forum for one week, while the new animated feature The Illusionist directed by Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville) adapted from an original script by the late Jacques Tati (Mon...

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Made in Dagenham: Union Spirit, Winning Performances

(4) Comments | Posted November 19, 2010 | 12:54 PM

I am partial to British films with ensemble casts tapped from UK's dazzling pool of film, theater, and BBC television talent with a Yank or two thrown in. In the Loop, An Education, and Four Weddings and A Funeral are a few examples. With a cast that boasts Sally Hawkins...

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Bisset, De Havilland & Kerr Feted by French Legion & BFI/TCM Festival to Open With Caron Classic

(3) Comments | Posted November 10, 2010 | 2:14 PM

As late summer transformed into autumn, milestones in classic film, which focused primarily on iconic leading ladies, dominated the news and will be remembered as bittersweet. Some of international cinema's most important figures such as Patricia Neal, Claude Chabrol, Arthur Penn, Tony Curtis, and Jill Clayburgh passed away, while others...

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The Remarkable Life and Career of Patricia Neal

(5) Comments | Posted August 11, 2010 | 5:38 PM

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What sets artists apart from stars and competent actors is originality and authenticity. Patricia Neal had these and other rare qualities in spades. Like some of her contemporaries who achieved greatness, she rose above mediocre or even bad material and delivered performances...

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