Mary Pols has been reviewing film and occasionally books for TIME since 2009. She has degrees from Duke University, where she studied art history, and the University of California Berkeley’s School of Journalism. In 2005 she spent a year at Stanford on a Knight Fellowship. Before joining TIME, she worked as a reporter and a movie critic for several California newspapers. She wrote a memoir about parenthood that was turned into a television comedy. Regretfully, it was not Weeds or Modern Family. She commutes 2.5 hours each way for screenings. It’s worth it. Almost always.
Why Pixar’s Brave Is a Failure of Female Empowerment
It’s Pixar’s first female lead in 17 years. If only Brave were bolder
