January 25, 2008

This Weekend at the Movies
Two new films are released this weekend.
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Limited)
Since young women in the United States have no real clue what it is to live in a country without access to safe and legal abortions, I vote to make it required viewing for them as abortion rights continue to be a struggle in this country even 35 years after Roe v Wade.

This brutally realistic film takes places over 24 hours as a young woman and her best friend seek an abortion in 1987 at the end of the Ceausescu regime. Make no mistake, this is not a fun film to watch. It's dark and uncomfortable, yet that seems to be deliberate because the filmmaker Cristian Mungiu wants the viewer to feel what the women are going through. They are made to act like criminals in order to get the abortion which is performed by a black market abortionist who clearly has no feeling for these women except to exploit them in the most heinous ways possible.

This film has been lauded around the world with the Palme d'Or at Cannes and many of the year end critics prizes yet the Academy Awards nomination committee stupidly overlooked the film.

How She Move
Raya Green (Rutina Wesley) doesn't want to end up like her sister, dead at a young age from a drug overdose so she does the best she can with the help of her parents to get herself out of the projects and back into the private boarding school her family can do longer afford. In order to earn the money for the school she goes back to the world step dancing and joins an all-male team to win a national tournament. This is a young woman who does not fit into her world at all except on the dance floor where she is a star and as good as the guys (which makes many of the guys crazy) The dancing is really cool, but I think that people under 25 would like the film best. Film is written by Annmarie Morais.

Still in Theaters
The Business of Being Born
27 Dresses
Atonement
Teeth
Mad Money
Juno
P.S. I Love You
Enchanted
The Golden Compass
August Rush
The Orphanage
The Savages
Margot at the Wedding

Where are the Women Directors?
In honor of the Sundance Film Festival I talked to several female directors about their careers after they have had a film at Sundance.

Here's the beginning

It's that time of the year again when most of Hollywood and the New York film world decamp to cold Park City, Utah, to feast on the latest indie fare at the Sundance Film Festival. This year seems a pivotal moment for the film business, with the writer's strike three months old, a glut of films that can't get distribution and new technologies like on-demand downloads surfacing each day.

Yet one alarming issue that rarely makes it beyond the occasional newspaper story is the lack of women in films that were both artistically and commercially successful this past year. Such top Oscar contenders as There Will be Blood and No Country for Old Men barely have a female character, and in commercial hits like Spiderman 3 and the Transformers, women are relegated to the familiar role of girlfriend.

Women are also missing behind the scenes especially in one of the most important jobs in the film business, director. The most recent study by Martha Lauzen at San Diego State University shows that of the top 250 grossing films of 2007, only 6% were directed by women—down from 7% in 2006 and down from an all-time high of a whopping 11% in 2000.

Read More: Have You Seen a Woman Director Lately?

January 24, 2008

Interview with Lisa F. Jackson, Director of The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
Documentarian Lisa Jackson went to the Congo to take the testimony of women and girls being raped and sexually assaulted for the last decade in her new film, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, which premiered at Sundance this week. It will air on HBO in April.

Lisa spoke to me from Sundance on the eve of her world premiere.

Melissa Silverstein: Why did you want to make this movie?

Lisa Jackson: It's an invisible story as a lot of women's stories are, the horrific tale of the systematic rape and mutilation of hundred and thousands of women. It's just stunning to me that nobody was reporting it. The NY Times did one story on this angle of the war. But what they are doing to women…not only the militias from the neighboring countries but the Congolese army itself. I interviewed soldiers who were raping the very women they were supposed to be protecting.

MS: It was amazing that when you were talking to the rapists how they had a complete and total disconnect from the harm they were actually causing.

LJ: They [the Congolese army] see themselves as just "raping" whereas the militias are the one who mutilate the women and fire guns into their vaginas. But the end result is exactly the same. The women are shunned, turned out from their villages and abandoned. So the end result is exactly the same and that they parse the difference is just ridiculous, the disconnect is pretty profound.

MS: You made yourself a character in the film. Why did you do that?

LJ: It wasn't something I was initially going to do but people who saw rough cuts said that I absolutely had to because it was through telling them my story [of being raped] that the barriers between us came down.

MS: What compelled you to go to the Congo?

LJ: Here was this story, the stories of these women and no one was telling it. It seemed important to me not to have some hand wringing piece but to actually listen to the women's stories. These are women who are silent and to be able to share their story with someone who was not judging them was an experience none of them ever had.

I went to Kinshasa on frequent flyer miles and with documentaries you never know what you are getting into. I don’t have much experience shooting in conflict zones but a friend working with the UN Peacekeepers was able to get me a UN credential. I then made my way east to where the real nightmare was unfolding.

My radar is particularly attuned to those voices, which are the other side of war. I thought for years of doing a survey film on the fate of women and girls in conflict zones because of the ongoing devastating effects of war. So I went to the worst place first to shoot.

I am continuing the theme and have been to Colombia twice in the last three months doing a film on displaced women. It is said that 60% of the women in Colombia have suffered either physical or sexual violence. This is another one of those invisible stories, and it is a requirement of a documentary to find stories that otherwise you would never hear about.

MS: How did it feel being a first world white woman going into a third world country?

LJ: I thought that through before I went. I was a white woman in the bush with a camera. I might as well have been dumped from a spaceship. I thought that as much as I could it was important to let them know I was one of them so I brought photographs to demystify where I was coming from and I shared my story of rape. They kept asking me about the war [thinking that rape only occurs in timer of war]. They asked lots of questions including, did you family know you were raped? How was it is you got married? They were fascinated that I had a boyfriend, and they were stunned to hear that I chose not to have children.

Their questions pointed to how different we really were. I feel an intense responsibility to them. It was the rare woman who would tell me her story without pleading for help for her and her sisters.

MS: Why do you think that women directors are so well represented in documentaries versus features?

LJ: I've only made documentaries for 35 years, but the thing about docs especially now, is that you have the option of doing it on your own. On this film I shot it, did the sound, directed, and edited it -- I was a one-person band. I tried for almost a year to get funding. I have never done a doc this way but you really do have that option especially working on a small scale. You have a lot more control. This is also a film that nobody would have funded because it's such a bummer subject, but once people see it they are shocked that nobody has done it before. I knew that once I got over there are started filming that I would get support because people would see from the women's faces hear their stories and realize what a compelling subject it was.

MS: What can people do to help?

LJ: We are putting together an outreach strategy around the culture of impunity to hopefully pressure the Congo government to prosecute rapists. We will provide resources where people can donate money. But also it's important for the first world to look at its role. This is an economic war. The blood of Congolese women are on our cell phones. It's important to understand that it's not just a bunch of crazy Africans killing each other. There is an economic imperative behind the pillaging, killing and rape.

To strike at the women is to strike at the heart of the culture. If you destroy women the civilization collapses.

For more information and to see the trailer: http://www.thegreatestsilence.org/

Sundance News
Two films directed by women sold in the last two days. Nanette Burstein's doc, American Teen, a look behind the lives of high school seniors in a small town in Indiana sold to Paramount Vantage; and Frozen River, Courtney Hunt's look at immigrants and single mothers went to Sony Pictures Classics.
Sony Classics Warms to Frozen River (Hollywood Reporter via Yahoo)

More Oscar News
The LA Times does a story acknowledging the unprecedented fact that four women got solo screenwriting nominations. It's still only 40% but that's better than the 0 nominations that women got in the directing category. The subtitle kind of pisses me off: "In a 'freaky windfall,' four women earn their first nominations for solo screenplay work." It's as if no one could ever believe that women would be talented enough to write a screenplay worthy of a nomination.

Some quotes:

From Diablo Cody: "Isn't it shocking that women can formulate original ideas on a piece of paper? I mean, next we'll be demanding equal pay! Can you imagine?"

It certainly marks a new chapter in Oscar history. There is no precedent for four women earning nominations as solo authors of such idiosyncratic, visionary features, let alone three original screenplays, in the 80-year history of the Oscars. The years 1988 and 1991 had strong total showings of women, but many were co-writers.

In an Oscar first, four women earn solo screenplay nominations (LA Times)

January 23, 2008

More on the Oscar Nominations
While I loved Juno, I am particularly shocked that Jason Reitman got a best director nomination. I can't help but think that the directing jobs done by Tamra Jenkins on The Savages and Sarah Polley on Away from Her and even Julie Taymor on Across the Universe were more worthy. But the Academy always finds a darling and this year the love for Juno is strong. I just hope that the love doesn't ride Ellen Page to a win over Julie Christie. That would be tragic.

Nancy Oliver, nominated for best screenplay for Lars and Real Girl gave this statement yesterday to Women & Hollywood in response to my question asking whether 3 women in the original screenplay category and one in the adapted screenplay category would make a difference for women writers in Hollywood who make up only 10% of the writers of the top 250 films:

Yes, I do believe it will make a difference -- also to have Sarah Polley nominated for adapted screenplay for a movie she directed. It's unprecedented and I'm as excited about the number of women in the mix as the nomination itself -- maybe even more. What the nominations do is publicize women's presence in the industry, as players, as artists, as professionals and we need all the publicity we can get.

My advice to an up-and-coming writer: develop persistence, patience, diplomacy and mental toughness. Although this is clearly a male-dominated environment, an adversarial attitude serves no one. Put your power in the script, take good advice wherever you find it, collaborate with intelligence and tact. In my limited experience, if the script is good and gets to the right person at the right time (so much of this is luck), gender's irrelevant.

Nancy Oliver- Oscar nominee, Lars and the Real Girl

Other interesting quotes:

“I’m always one to completely deny that anything good is going to happen. While I was trying to play it cool, when I heard (director) Jason (Reitman)’s name I screamed. We’ve been playing the texting game all morning. You never expect this. It’s unbelievable. One of the reasons I adored this film was that when reading the screenplay I could tell how refreshing it was. It’s about a teenager you haven’t seen before. ‘Hard Candy’ helped me immensely. I’m grateful for that film.”

- Ellen Page, actress, “Juno”

“What’s most gratifying to me is Sarah Polley getting a nomination for screenplay adaptation. I was afraid she wouldn’t be recognized. I wondered if they were going to get this great piece of work. I’m very glad I did it because it’s a terribly important issue. We’ve got to face the fact that we’re living longer. This is the comeuppance of wishing for immortality. Back in the day we weren’t so obsessed about them (Oscars) in England. I didn’t know about the Academy Awards. I didn’t know what it was. I got the smell of the thing that it was terribly important but I wasn’t interested in it, but I figured maybe I could get something out of this. I told them I would go if my boyfriend and I could get a holiday in the desert. It almost feels the same today.”

- Julie Christie, actress, “Away From Her”

“Our film is the story of a dying police officer who wants to give her pension to her partner. She died and never got to see the film. I spoke to her surviving partner today, and she was very emotional. Her case changed the law in parts of New Jersey and the elected official who was against it is now running for Congress, so it’s still very much in the press. Our hope is we can make a difference in the elections. We have to tell this story. Hopefully the Oscar nomination will bring more awareness to couples around the country.”

- Cynthia Wade, “Freeheld,” documentary short subject

“It’s been incredible. I would describe this day as effervescent. I fell out of my bed screaming when Jason got nominated. With all our nominations, this would be a 4-by-4 if we were at In-N-Out Burger. Seeing us take our place alongside films like ‘No Country for Old Men’ and ‘There Will Be Blood’ is pretty good company. I’m thrilled to have this happen so early in my career and excited to do more.”

-Diablo Cody, original screenplay, “Juno”

“I woke up this morning and had time to eat all my nails. I always wanted to make this for everyone. You have to make it personal. I didn’t want it to become an ethnic story. I wanted to show the humanity. No matter where you come from, it has to be an individual story. Making it in live action would be a big mistake. It would lose something.”

- Marjane Satrapi, “Persepolis”

“I don’t know what my husband (Oscar-winning scribe Jim Taylor) and I are going to do but he opened a bottle of champagne as I was on my way to my therapist's office. I've had a very discombobulated morning so it was nice not to complain and get to talk about happy stuff, like my oven finally being fixed this morning." Jenkins also talked about being one of four female scribes to be nominated in the writing categories. "It's pretty great. It seems kind of crazy and historic. Someone else had told me it'd never happened before, so it's very cool to be in the company of such smart women. It was also amazing to see Laura (Linney) recognized because she really wasn't expecting it. I was surprised people weren’t recognizing her earlier."

-Tamara Jenkins, original screenplay, "The Savages"

“I was on the phone with my business partner and began jumping around with my son and husband after we heard. As indie producers, we’re so naturally pessimistic, so we were completely stunned. The film is unexpected and doesn’t fit any genre. I also think (director) Jason (Reitman)’s nomination is the big shock.”

- Lianne Halfon, producer, “Juno”

“I’m kind of shell-shocked. We’ve been very calm and zen about it but we were hopeful. Our film is about a beauty pagaent in a women’s prison in Colombia. We follow these four women and what’s tragic about the project is the woman who wins the pageant is killed on the streets of Bogota.”

- Amanda Micheli, documentary short subject, “La Corona (The Crown)”

"I'm in total disbelief. I'm thrilled but kind of in shock too. It's been such a strange year and I'm bowled over by the life of the film. It's more than I could have ever hoped. This now adds a very surreal element to it."

- Sarah Polley, adapted screenplay, "Away From Her"

(Quotes from Variety)

News
Secret of a Soccer Mom written by Kathleen Clark and directed by Judith Ivey starts performances off-Broadway next month. (Variety)

Check out this funny Sundance blog from Therese Shechter, director of I Was a Teenage Feminist
A Sundance Volunteer Blogs All

January 22, 2008

Oscar Nominations
Really decent day for women at the Oscar nominations this morning. Female screenwriters took three of the five best original screenplay nominations which is amazing considering only 10% of the films made are written by women. So psyched that Tamara Jenkins' script was recognized as was Laura Linney. Surprised that Cate Blanchett got Angelina Jolie's slot at best actress since Elizabeth was not her best work.

BEST PICTURE
"Atonement"
"Juno"
"Michael Clayton"
"No Country for Old Men"
"There Will Be Blood"

BEST ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"
Julie Christie, "Away From Her"
Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"
Laura Linney, "The Savages"
Ellen Page, "Juno"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"
Ruby Dee, "American Gangster"
Saoirse Ronan, "Atonement"
Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton"

BEST DIRECTOR- NO WOMAN!

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Diablo Cody, "Juno"
Nancy Oliver, "Lars and the Real Girl"
Tamara Jenkins, "The Savages"

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Sarah Polley, "Away From Her"

BEST ANIMATED FILM
"Persepolis"

Sundance Interview with Pietra Brettkelly, director of the documentary The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins.
The Sundance Film Festival is in full swing and I had the opportunity to interview Pietra Brettkelly, director of The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins on January 17th the day before the film's world premiere for a site I am working with Zoom in Online. Here is the interview:

New Zealand director Pietra Brettkelly was in the Darfur region of Sudan working on a documentary when she happened to meet international renowned artist Vanessa Beecroft. Little did she realize that this chance meeting would lead to her next film - The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins.

Melissa Silverstein: Even though Vanessa Beecroft is an international well known artist, she is much better known outside the US. Please introduce us to your subject.

Pietra Brettkelly: From what I understand her persona as an artist is more well known in Europe because she was brought up in Italy, but she is one of the world's top contemporary artists certainly one of the top female artists, and her focus has been tableaus of naked women that she stands in a room or space for three hours and people come and view then. Footage is taken of the tableau and those elements are sold as part of her artwork.

She's been doing this for 13 years and in the 16 months that I was filming her she was thinking about changing and adapting her work as an artist as well. And it seemed that things were coming to a head both personally and professionally in the time I was filming her.

MS: How did you come to pick Vanessa as the topic for your film?

PB: I was in the Sudan filming another documentary and in southern Sudan there is an area where foreigners can rent a tent at night -- it's mostly aide workers or NGOs. At night you sit around a tree and she and her team were there and they didn't look like aide workers and we started talking to them. When we were leaving she said to me "I'm thinking of adopting the twins [Madit and Mongor Akot] at the orphanage next door that I've been breastfeeding during my last two visits to the Sudan." A couple of days later I emailed her and said that international adoption is a topic that I've wanted to discuss and if you are interested I'd like to follow your story. I didn't even know she was an artist, I didn't even know what performance art was.

MS: It must have been hard as a director not knowing the direction your film was going to go in?

PB: That's what I love about documentaries. It certainly was a curve ball when it gradually became obvious that her art was a very strong part of her and that she was of some note. So then I had to work out how much of that side of her needed to be a part of the film and how I could incorporate it. I wasn't doing a profile of an artist. That was never my intention. My intention was to discuss international adoption. I did grapple with how much of her art needed to be in the film.

MS: Understating her as an artist helps you understand her pursuit of these children.

PB: The situation with a lot of international adoptions is that there are parents and that's one of the aspects I wanted to discuss. They do have parents but it's through circumstances like poverty, war or separation of some kind that they end up in orphanages or in situations where they don't have adult support. We think orphans have no parents but in developing countries they often have parents.

MS: This brings up the issue of the fact that many women don't survive childbirth in these countries.

PB: I was in Afghanistan on another film two and a half years ago and I went to this region where one out of five women die in childbirth. Those numbers are horrific. That just shouldn't be happening and as the so-called privileged people there is so much more we can be doing so that these children don’t need adoption to save them. I don't think it should be a given that our world is better than their world. One of the things I wanted to discuss was do we want our future as a global community to be a situation that we have the better world and the better life so therefore we try to bring these children to our world.

MS: We realize very far into the film that Vanessa's husband [Greg Durkin] knows nothing about her intentions of adopting the twins. Why didn't she tell him?

PB: It's hard for me to say what she was thinking because I would tend to think in a different way as would you, so it's hard to figure out her motivation. She seemed to have convinced herself that she was researching the subject and then she would broach it with him and he would say of course. I do think she was generally surprised that he wasn't interested in adopting the children. He's an intelligent person, socially and culturally sensitive, and he could appreciate that all children need an education and clean water something all children should have and these children didn't. I think she thought that he would agree to it.

MS: She seems to be the type of person who gets her way a lot.

PB: Yes.

MS: She thought she could probably convince him to do this and she fell apart when she realized it wasn't going to happen. Talk about the scene where she has a breakdown after this realization.

PB: We were shopping with her and she got a phone call and we just wandered out onto the street hanging out in the mall and then she came out and we could see that she was crying and I'm like oh my goodness that obviously was a phone call with Greg. You can see that initially we weren't focusing on her we were just walking with her and then I realized that she's ok for me to film this. I do have a conscience and some things aren't appropriate to film, but I knew that it was ok to film it. It was an incredible moment where she has this clarity that Greg is not going to agree to the adoption and that it isn't going to go forward. She was thinking well how do I now express my emotions that I had for the twins and the Sudan and for her it was through her work.

MS: You are an active participant in the story almost like a character behind the camera.

PB: Those are the types of films I like to make, telling people's stories and following them through a particular or influential part of their lives. I'm not a great writer but I'm good at asking questions and I'm fascinated by people and those are the stories I want to tell and all my films are like that.

MS: Vanessa says at the end "I couldn't adopt the children I wanted to adopt so I had to do something." Is that what fueled the final sceneat the Venice Biennale?

PB: The Biennale was for her an exploration of wanting to do something to express how she felt about the Sudan situation. She couldn't adopt the twins so she looked for another way. One of the things that the film shows is that there is no line between Vanessa's art and her life and so therefore the expression of her emotion for these twins is expressed in her art and the Biennale performance was that.

MS: What are you hoping people think about when they leave the theatre?

PB: To discuss international adoption and to think about people from so-called privileged countries and how we should be helping people in developing countries. I don't think we can make a blanket statement that international adoptions are either right or wrong. But now also because adoptions take so much longer I'd like people to appreciate that she is a complex character. She's different from anyone I've ever met and this is a window to someone like that.

MS: We have many male performance artists who are more famous and I was really shocked that I had no clue about the breadth of her work. She seems to be so controversial because her work is about women and women's bodies.

PB: I know that she really struggles with her place as a woman in the art community because there aren't a lot of successful female artists in her field. She struggles with where she fits in. She was born in London, grew up in Italy, and then she immigrated to the US. She's English and speaks with an Italian accent yet in Italy they call her a British artist. Strangely, she feels really comfortable in the Sudan even though she has no connections to Africa. Finding herself has been a lifelong struggle for her.

For more information about the film: http://www.theartstarandthesudanesetwins.com/

Weekend Box Office Assessment- How did 27 Dresses and Mad Money Do?
27 Dresses has grossed a little over $27 million in its first four days of release. Budget was between 20 and 30 so that means that it will make its money back and then some. Word of mouth will probably be decent. Mad Money grosses a little over $9 million for the long weekend and since Overture bought it for $6 million they should be sitting pretty. Both films will be successes on the balance sheet, but because they are not monster hits in terms of dollars on the opening weekend, they will never get talked about as successes. Can we maybe get a wider definition of success?

GLAAD Nominees
Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) announced the nominees and honorees for its 19th Annual GLAAD Media Awards
Film - Wide Release
Across the Universe (Revolution Studios)
The Jane Austen Book Club (Sony Pictures Classics)
Stardust (Paramount Pictures)

Film - Limited Release
Itty Bitty Titty Committee (Pocket Releasing)
Nina's Heavenly Delights (Regent Releasing)

Drama Series
Brothers & Sisters (ABC)
The L Word (Showtime)

Comedy Series
Desperate Housewives (ABC)
Exes and Ohs (Logo)
The Sarah Silverman Program (Comedy Central)
Ugly Betty (ABC)

Documentary
Cruel and Unusual: Transgender Women in Prison (WE tv)

Reality Program
Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List (Bravo)
Work Out (Bravo)

News
A new Criterion set has four films spanning the career of Agnès Varda, the matriarch of French New Wave.
Mother Varda's Movies (LA Times)

Emily Blunt works double shift at Sundance

January 18, 2008

Movies This Weekend
Competing against the mysterious and monstrous Cloverfield are 27 Dresses and Mad Money. Check out my interview with Mad Money director: Callie Khouri

Honestly, I enjoyed both films. Mad Money is different because, well, it's about money and how a group of women steal from the government. I love seeing Diane Keaton acting funny rather than clingy as she was in last year's Because I Said So, and Queen Latifah has become an actress with great range. The weakest link is Katie Holmes whose acting chops are a bit stiff. She needs to get back to acting since she had promise in her earlier roles like Pieces of April.

27 Dresses is a much more typical chick flick. Katherine Heigl (who they tried to make look less pretty than she is for some bizarre reason) plays Jane, always the bridesmaid, never the bride for 27 friends. (Does anyone have 27 people that they could be in a bridal party for?) She works as an assistant to Ed Burns' George, an environmentally correct mogul and has pined for him for years. Judy Greer plays her best friend and has the best lines in the film. (Will someone please write this woman a movie?)

Then in a whirlwind comes Jane's gorgeous, blonde sister Tess, who Jane helped raise (of course her mom is dead -- hasn't there been a spate of dead mom movies recently) and took care of and she proceeds to seduce George much to Jane's chagrin. On a night when she is literally flying between weddings in two boroughs Jane meets a cynical wedding columnist (James Marsden) who wants desperately off the wedding beat. They meet, fight, get stuck in a rainstorm, get drunk and perform Benny and the Jets (the classic song sing-along has become a standard of late) in front of a bar of strangers, and fall in love. There are some cute lines, but if you're not the wedding type (there are lots of weddings), it might make you angry.

If I had to tell you which one to go see I would say Mad Money because it needs our help more than 27 Dresses. Mad Money will be on 2400 hundred screen vs the 3,000 for 27 Dresses. It's released by a smaller studio, it's in less theatres and it puts women in less typical roles which we need to support. The LA Times and other media are pitting it as a battle of the sexes at the box office this weekend. Beauty vs. Beast at the Box Office (LA Times)

Other releases this week
Teeth - limited release

Still in Theatres
The Business of Being Born
Juno
Atonement
August Rush
The Savages
Persepolis
P.S. I Love You
Enchanted
The Orphanage
The Golden Compass
Margot at the Wedding

Opening January 25
How She Move
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days

Charlize Theron on Celebrity and the Roles She Plays
In the Valley of Elah is opening in England and Theron was interviewed about the lack of glamorous roles ie pretty roles she's played. Her response:

It's not like I've been [offered] any great glamorous roles that had great conflict and great story-telling," Theron retorted, clearly irked. "But I'm not going to be picky, because they're hard to come by. If I sit around waiting for a good, glamorous story to come around, I'm probably never going to work"

"So if you don't consider my character [in In the Valley of Elah] beautiful, I'm sorry, but that's really me. That's my natural hair colour. That's me with very little make-up. There's no prosthetics. That's what I look like."

My Looks Are the Last Thing I Think About The Telegraph

Variety Picks 10 Directors to Watch -- 2 Are Women, none are American
Nadine Labaki- her first feature Caramel about 5 women who work in a beauty parlor in Beirut opens later this month.
Nadine Labaki
Anna Melikyan- her film Mermaids is playing at this year's Sundance.
Anna Melikyan

AARP Awards
Tamara Jenkins “The Savages,” has won best movie and Julie Christie (“Away From Her”) won best actress. (Hollywood Reporter)

Jess Weixler the star of Teeth has developed a cult following of women on campuses (the men are scared to talk to her). Read about the film: Teeth Review
Jess Weixler

January 17, 2008

Sundance kicks off tonight
The Hollywood news is quite lacking today as everyone decamps for Sundance. I'll be covering things from here in NY. I'm working on some interviews with women directors which will run on a site I am partnering with - Zoom In Online. I am also working on a story called The Sundance Glow about the experiences of women directors post Sundance. That will be ready next week.

Teeth- Review
I've been sitting here for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to write about this film. It is one of the most bizarre films I have seen in a long time. I saw it several weeks ago and I still am thinking about it. That hardly ever happens.

Teeth takes on the myth of the vagina dentata -- toothed vagina. The story revolves around Dawn (Jess Weixler) a bright young woman so out of touch with herself and her body, as the most vocal member of the local chastity club. She won't go see movies with any sexuality in them, and she preaches to other kids to save themselves for marriage. We all know that abstinence only doesn't work (now even state governments are even starting to agree) and Dawn, like most teenagers today, gives in to her feelings. Suffice it to say things don't go as planned and Dawn's first loses his penis to her toothed vagina.

Dawn understandably freaks out and tries to learn what's going on with her body. She looks in her health textbook but the picture of the vulva is covered by a sticker (the penis is not); and she goes to a gynecologist for the first time and well, that doesn't turn out well either (Headline, touchy feely gyno loses fingers). Her mother is dying of cancer and she has no one to talk to. Then, when Dawn has sex on her own terms she realizes that she can control when and how her vaginal teeth are exposed, and she is empowered by this discovery. She uses her mutation (the images of a nuclear power plant hovering in the background helps hit home this concept) on her own terms and at the end of the film we see she clearly has gained the upper hand.

Writer and Director Mitchell Lichtenstein answers a couple of questions about the film.

Women & Hollywood: Why do you call you film a female revenge fantasy?

Mitchell Lichtenstein: Did I call it that? (Yes, you did - it's in the press notes.) It's partly that, but also a coming of age story, a horror movie and mostly a dark comedy. But a lot of women have come up to me and said "There were times when I wish I had that!" So the movie seems to work on that level.

W&H: What do you think the film says about masculinity and femininity?

ML: Well, for one thing, it says that neither are well-served by current sex education or the abstinence movement.

W&H: Do you think the film is a feminist film? If yes, why?

ML: As a man, I don't feel I'm in a position to say whether something is feminist or not.

W&H: There are a lot of political messages in the film -- the disaster of abstinence only programs, the lack of education in sex education, violence against women -- that have the potential to be preachy but they are not. Was that your intention?

ML: Absolutely. But all of that emerged naturally as I created the character and her journey.

W&H: At the screening I went to the men left were terrified and the women were feeling quite giddy. Has that been your experience in other screenings and if yes, what does that say about the relationship between men and women?

ML: Well, given what happens to most of the guys in the movie, it's understandable that men would experience it differently -- more viscerally -- than women. And the vagina dentata myth is more likely to resonate threateningly with men (who invented it) than with women. Women -- thankfully -- have not internalized the myth.

W&H: What do you want people to walk out of the film thinking about?

ML: What the hell lead men -- in so many cultures across the globe -- to ascribe this ludicrous feature to women? What are we afraid of?

Film opens in NY tomorrow, January 18.

The Good Witch - Saturday, January 19, Hallmark Channel
I don't think that I have ever watched anything on the Hallmark channel, but their new film The Good Witch looked interesting so I decided to give it a go. It's a very typical made for TV movie, similar to Lifetime films. Film stars Catherine Bell (JAG, Army Wives) as Cassandra Nightingale a mysterious woman who comes to a town somewhere in middle America and throws the whole community into a tizzy. She's different, carefree, doesn't judge and she makes people nervous. She inherits a supposedly haunted house so everyone thinks she's a witch, which we all know that means burn her at the stake. Film doesn't go that far, and it's got a good message of tolerance with a little romance with the town sheriff thrown in. Bell is great, she seems to be getting more and more interesting in her roles.

UN to create $100 million fund to fight stereotypes in films.
Queen Noor of Jordan announced the fund yesterday: "For a lifetime, it seems, I have agonized over the way stereotypes, reinforced by popular culture and the media, can set the emotional and political stage for policies that result in chronic misunderstanding. Yet the media has the power to humanize as well as polarize."
UN to Create $100 M Film Fund (Variety)

January 16, 2008

Interview with Callie Khouri, director of Mad Money

Mad Money, a new comedy starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes opens on Friday. The film is about three women who conspire to steal money about to be shredded from the Federal Reserve in order to get their lives on track. Keaton is about to lose her home and her upper middle class dream, single-mom Latifah wants to get out of her bad neighborhood and get her sons into a better school, and Holmes, well she just wants a better trailer to live in. Keaton is the mastermind who comes up with the plan after being forced to get a job as a cleaner in the local Fed because that's the only things she's qualified for after being out of the workforce for decades. She convinces the other ladies to go along with the plan and they are on the road (with lots of bumps along the way) to salvation.

Callie Khouri, best known as the screenwriter of the now classic Thelma and Louise takes on her second directing assignment with this film. She answered some questions about this film and also touched on Thelma & Louise.

Women & Hollywood: It's strange to say this in 2008 but your film is different because you have women as the leads and you are a female director. Why do you think this is still such a rare occurrence?

Callie Khouri: I ask that same question all time. It's really inconceivable to me that the numbers are as low as they are. When I hear the statistics I am shocked because to me it is not that women are less suited to the job. There certainly isn't a lack of audience. If the same energy went into marketing movies to women as they do on the other demographics we might see more of a spike [in attendance.]

The one thing that makes it so difficult is getting the women's audience out on that first weekend which seems to be the measure of success. It is more difficult to get the female audience into the theatre in a reliable way the way they can get young guys and people with less responsibilities.

W&H: Women don't know about the importance of the first weekend.

CK: Every time I go and speak I'm always asked why don't they make more movies for women, and I say it's because you don’t go on the first weekend and that's what they [the movie studios] are interested in.

W&H: What made you want to direct this movie?

CK: I always thought it would be fun. It's pure entertainment. I don't think its possible to do a movie about money without some social commentary but it's not the overriding theme of the film. There are class issues addressed in a comedic way -- the idea that you could lose everything or not having enough -- that anybody can relate to. I wanted to direct it because Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah were attached early on.

W&H: How long did it take to get made?

CK: A Little over five years. We were never able to find a studio that wanted to do it. No major studio wanted to make it even with that cast attached.

W&H: But they make movies with Queen Latifah as the lead?

CK: It's inexplicable to me that the studio didn't look at this and say oh yeah we know how to do this.

W&H: After Thelma & Louise what kind of scripts did you get?

CK: I was offered women's type of things and a lot of them weren't my cup of tea. As much as I believe the women's audience is under served, I want to make a film with broad appeal in whatever genre it is.

W&H: I've noticed that people are revisiting Thelma and Louise and putting the chick flick label on it now because it seems that every movie starring a woman, even ones made years ago, are now chick flicks.

CK: I wouldn't mind if I didn't feel it was a diminutive. If it’s a movie primarily directed at women you can call it that, but it wasn't. It does belie a certain type of prejudice. Chick flick is not a term used to praise a movie. Nobody says "it’s a great chick flick." It’s a way of being derisive. I'm not clear why it's ok to do it.

Mad Money has tested extremely well with men and they [the studio] feel strongly that it is a date movie and broad audience movie and they are not marketing it as a chick flick. It's strange anything that has women in it is tarred with this brush.

W&H: Do you call yourself a feminist filmmaker?

CK: I call myself a feminist, not a feminist filmmaker. If somebody asked me if I had a feminist sensibility it would be pretty hard to deny, but is it the theme of my work? Not necessarily. I'm interested in a lot of things. I tried to get a baseball movie made a couple of years ago and I don't think it didn't happen because I was a woman, but because sports movie don't sell internationally.

W&H: I remember that my grandmother used the term mad money. It seems to be something that women are more familiar with.

CK: Mad Money is like your own personal insurance policy. I don't know if you hear guys mention mad money but all women know what it is. I think it originally came from the days when women were given money by their husbands because they weren't earning it. You were given the money and you'd skim a little off for yourself.

W&H: This is a rare crime move because there is no violence.

CK: When Thelma and Louise came out people perceived it as far more violent than it was. What people wrote was completely out of proportion to what happened in the movie. In the movie the whole point was to make the killing wrong. I wasn't trying to justify it, I was trying to set up a way that they would have to run for their lives, forever. But, people remember it as being super violent and I am always surprised by that. They blow up one truck, hold up a liquor store -- nobody gets hurt. At the same time Reservoir Dogs and other movies [with lots of violence] were getting praised, and I realized that there was a real double standard for women especially with women committing acts of violence. For whatever reason people seem to have a hard time with it.

On another note, Mad Money star Diane Keaton was yucking it up about looks and personality yesterday on GMA and she did the ultimate TV no-no, she cursed. Check it out: Diane Keaton on GMA Hope it will help the movie.

The Foreign Film Oscar Committee Should be Ashamed of Themselves
The short list of films to qualify for the for the best foreign film Oscar was unveiled yesterday and two films which received a lot of critical attention this season -- 4 Months,3 Weeks, and Two Days and Persepolis were both snubbed. Interesting to note that these two films are both about women. Both films are excellent.

Shootout Goes to Palm Springs and Ignores Women Filmmakers
On Sunday mornings at 11am on AMC, Peter Bart the editor of Variety, and Peter Guber the uber-producer sit around and talk about the state of the movie business. They usually have some guests, and like most of the rest of the industry their guests are usually male.

This past weekend they took the show on the road to the Palm Springs International Film Festival and had a panel of directors join them on stage. They had Joe Wright, director of Atonement; Adam Shankman, director of Hairspray; Jason Reitman, director of Juno and John Sayles, director of Honeydripper.

6 white guys sitting on the stage talking about the business. And we wonder what's wrong.

I have been very high on Juno but Jason Reitman came off as a snide, obnoxious privileged twit, and I enjoyed Joe Wright's uncomfortableness with the fact that the conversation was about money and films and not about films. He was mortified. In an ironic twist, the films that were actually awarded at the Festival as reported here on Monday include Helen Hunt for Then She Found Me and Tricia Regan for Autism: the Musical. Memo to the Peters: Have some more women on your show!

BAFTA Nominations. The Brits weigh in.
FILM
“Atonement” — Tim Bevan/Eric Fellner/Paul Webster
BRITISH FILM
“Atonement” — Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster, Joe Wright, Christopher Hampton
THE CARL FOREMAN AWARD FOR SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT BY A BRITISH DIRECTOR, WRITER OR PRODUCER FOR THEIR FIRST FEATURE FILM
Mia Bays (producer) — “Scott Walker: 30 Century Man”
Sarah Gavron (director) — “Brick Lane”
DIRECTOR- NO WOMEN!
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
“Juno” — Diablo Cody
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
(nominations announced on Jan. 4)
“La Vie en rose” — Alain Goldman, Olivier Dahan
LEADING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett — “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
Julie Christie — “Away From Her”
Marion Cotillard — “La Vie en rose”
Keira Knightley — “Atonement”
Ellen Page — “Juno”
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett — “I’m Not There”
Kelly Macdonald — “No Country for Old Men”
Samantha Morton — “Control”
Saoirse Ronan — “Atonement”
Tilda Swinton — “Michael Clayton”
THE ORANGE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public) — nominees announced on Jan. 8
Sienna Miller
Ellen Page

News
Women's Promotions: Warner Brothers has promoted Sue Kroll to the new position of President of World wide Marketing and 20th Century Fox has upped Jennifer Nicholson Salke to oversee both comedy and drama development.

Anne Fletcher, director of 27 Dresses opening Friday has signed on to direct The Proposal starring Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock.

Annette Bening will be honored with the Governor's award at the American Society of Cinematographers award ceremony on January 26th.

Ugly Betty Joins Hillary Clinton's Campaign to Help Reach Latino Voters

Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page team up for Whip It. This film actually sounds promising. Page plays a young women pushed into beauty pageants and winds up in the roller derby. Film is written by Shauna Cross. Another female trifecta film!

Oprah Continues Her Bid for World Domination by Creating the OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) with Discovery.
Oprah Gets Her Own Network (Reuters)

Deneuve's Enduring Legend

January 15, 2008

The Dilemma
Tomorrow, I will have my very interesting interview with Callie Khouri, writer of Thelma and Louise and director of Mad Money arriving in theaters Friday. Also arriving on Friday 27 Dresses starring Katherine Heigl directed by Anne Fletcher. I've seen both movies and they are very different and both deserve a chance to play.

But, I'm worried.

We get so few films starring women that two on one weekend might make it hard for both of them to be a success. Women really, really need to see something this weekend (preferably on Friday night) Can we do it? Can we show that we support movies with female leads?

Washington Post Writer Needs to Put His Tongue Back in His Mouth
All the press about 27 Dresses and Katherine Heigl has been about how she has the "it" quality to be our next female movie star. Lots of pressure. WP writer William Booth writes an article that is so blatantly sexist, if I was Heigl I'd be nervous that we would stalk me. Totally condescending piece.

Choice quotes:

She enters the room in a knit that fits, the kind of dress with a place for everything. Lipstick the color of a valentine. The doors to the balcony are thrown open and she exhales, "Great, I can smoke," and pulls one from the pack and you think, carbon monoxide might not be so bad.

Yuck. Where are his editors? He even manages to put down all women actresses in Hollywood

Hollywood is still searching for someone to call America's sweetheart, a fresh peach to replace the beloved but semi-retired Julia Roberts, the cold and calculating Reese Witherspoon, someone like Jennifer Aniston or Cameron Diaz, but shiny and new -- and not ground down to a nub by time and the tabloids.

Heigl still manages to be in some of her now common quotes about how women are treated in Hollywood.

Most of my friends are funny, witty, intelligent and beautiful women, so it's not that unusual, a pretty girl being funny, is it? But for some reason in this town, they really like to compartmentalize, so you're either the character actor who is funny or you're the pretty girl in the movie."

And honesty about 27 Dresses

"But it's a romantic comedy. It's a real chick flick. It's the kind of movie I love and try to go see every chance I can get. But you know," she says, and you've got to like this part, "there's not a ton of profoundness about it."

A Puff of Fresh Air (WP)

Eleanor Ringel on Women and Oscar
Over at the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, Eleanor Ringel takes a look at the types of roles for women that win Oscars. Have we progressed or regressed since the days of Katherine Hepburn?

Want to win an Oscar? If you’re an actress, you’ve got a better chance on your back than behind a desk. When it comes to the Academy Awards, working girls have it all over working women.

Consider this: in almost 80 years of handing out those coveted little golden men, only a handful have gone to so-called career women: Mercedes McCambridge as a political campaign manager in “All the King’s Men;” Olivia De Havilland’s cosmetics queen in “To Each His Own;” Celeste Holm as a fashion magazine editor in “Gentleman’s Agreement;” Joan Crawford’s restaurateur in “Mildred Pierce;” Glenda Jackson as a fashion designer in “A Touch of Class;” and, of course, the mother of all business women ball-busters, Faye Dunaway’s ruthless TV executive in “Network.”

By contrast, almost twice as many Oscars have gone to hookers (even more, if you count variations such as promiscuous wives and bad-girl socialites). In fact, the very first Oscar went to Janet Gaynor for her street urchin/streetwalker in “Seventh Heaven“ (full disclosure: she actually won for three films, as was the custom initially, the others being “Sunrise” and “Street Angel”).

Moms, wives and girlfriends of every shape, size and temperament naturally dominate the list. After all, movies rarely shape society; they reflect it. As two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster once said in an interview with Time Magazine, “Women’s roles are rarely written as human beings. Instead, they’re written as plot adjuncts: sister of, daughter of.”

Eleanor Ringel on Women and Oscar (Alliance of Women Film Journalists)

Diablo Cody on Looking Good While Being Strong
I really hope that Diablo got a good deal on Juno cause its raking in the bucks and she should definitely get some of it. It's the biggest grosser in Fox Searchlight's history and on its way to $100, which we all know is the holy grail in Hollywood and no movies about women make that much. (Recently you get the Devil Wear Prada and...)

Cody just filed her second EW column and it's really a breathe of fresh air to have a smart biting female voice on the back page that lately seems to has become a column for Stephen King.

...as a writer, I hope to craft female characters who are tough, gutsy, and cocksure. Women with brio and spunk. In other words, women who probably wouldn't care if their column illustration resembled Victorian corpse portraiture. And yet, some of the strongest ladies in the pop-cult canon have endeared themselves to us because of their vulnerability and, yes, even their vanity.

In fact, there are plenty of killer onscreen heroines who weren't too cool to care about their hair, complexion, or wardrobe. I mean, why not reapply the ol' lip gloss before busting that villain or solving that theorem? Since when is a dab of beeswax a concession to the patriarchy?

When was the last time the rod patriarchy was in Entertainment Weekly? Read her list here: Diablo Cody on Heroine Chic (EW)

Film on Aung San Suu Kyi in Development
Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore will make his English language film debut on this $30 million financed by US based Crystal Sky Pictures. Japanese producer Naofumi Okamoto secured the rights from Kyi.

He asked Tornatore to direct because of the Italian helmer's empathy with female characters. Okamoto said, "We want to use the politics as the background to a story about a woman who chose to be the mother to a nation rather than the mother of a family."

What? This is the perfect movie for a woman to direct. How about asking a woman director, maybe even a woman who is a mother? These guys who don't speak English keep getting these opportunities to direct films while women keep getting shut out.
Tornatore Courts a Nobel Lady (Variety)

January 14, 2008

Women & Hollywood is featured in More Magazine
The February issue is on newsstands now (Vanessa Williams from Ugly Betty is on the cover) Women & Hollywood is one of five bloggers that have the editors at More's attention. So psyched that I am included.

Golden Globe Winners
I was sad to not be able to watch the Golden Globes, the most entertaining of the award shows. I'll miss looking at all the dresses in next week's rag sheets. Here are the winners.
MOTION PICTURE - DRAMA: "Atonement"
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE - DRAMA:Julie Christie - "Away From Her"
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE - COMEDY OR MUSICAL: Marion Cotillard - "La Vie en rose"
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE: Cate Blanchett - "I’m Not There"

TELEVISION
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES - DRAMA: Glenn Close - "Damages"
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES -COMEDY OR MUSICAL: Tina Fey - "30 Rock"
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: Queen Latifah - "Life Support"
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION: Samantha Morton - "Longford"

Women Dominate Palm Spring International Film Festival Winners
Helen Hunt's directorial debut "Then She Found Me," won the audience award for narrative feature and Tricia Regan's "Autism: The Musical," won the documentary award. Anamaria Marinca and Laura Vasiliu shared the best actress for "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days."

Diane Keaton on Mad Money
SF Chronicle interviewed Diane Keaton on the eve of her new film directed by Callie Khouri (screenwriter, Thelma & Louise)

While the movie's first aim is to entertain, it has a decided feminist undertone and lots of sympathy for the low-paid workers portrayed by the trio. That should be no surprise, because the director is Callie Khouri, writer and co-producer of "Thelma & Louise."

When you've been around for a long time, you have ups and downs. I've definitely had some downs, where it was hard for me to be cast in roles. (For instance), "The Good Mother" (1988), that was a huge bomb, and it was with Disney, and that made it almost impossible for me to be cast in "Father of the Bride" (1991). So the studio didn't want me at all. It was only through the persistence of (director) Charles Shyer and (writer) Nancy Meyers that I got that job. Those (down) periods also give you the opportunity to explore other venues, which has made life more interesting, for sure.

Diane Keaton Stars in Mad Money (SF Chronicle)

2008 Film Preview
LAT has a preview of the 2008 slate of films. Suffice it to say that women won't dominate the box office. Things to look forward to:

• My Blueberry Nights- starring the singer Nora Jones and Natalie Portman and Jude Law (February)
• A big year for Diane Lane- she appears in four films and not all of them are romances. She reunited with Richard Gere is Nights in Rodanthe and then appears in "Killshot," "Untraceable" and "Jumper." Go Diane!
• "The Other Boleyn Girl," with Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson (Feb. 29).
• "Confessions of a Shopaholic," based on the book by Sophie Kinsella starring Isla Fisher
• Helen Hunt's directorial debut, "Then She Found Me," based on Elinor Lipman's novel (May 23)
• Penelope- starring Christina Ricci and produced by Reese Witherspoon It's a Confident Christina Ricci, Onscreen and Off (LA Times)
  

The Sherry Lansing Era is Long Gone at Paramount Now the men rule the lot!
Brad Grey promoted John Lesher to President of Paramount Pictures, and Rob Moore was also promoted to Vice Chairman. Brad Weston will add MTV Films and Nickelodeon Movies to his responsibilities and Nick Meyer will become president of Par Vantage.

News
Lena Headey and Fox are getting crap for the fact that she is too skinny and not buff enough and, oh yeah, only 14 years older than the actor who plays her son. She's 34,
New Sarah Connor Needs a Thick Skin

January 11, 2008

Movies This Weekend

Holiday holdovers will dominate again this weekend. With two new female centric films opening wide next weekend -- Mad Money and 27 Dresses-- this is your chance to see one of the holiday movies you missed because next weekend you will need to take yourself to one of new ones.

I saw Mad Money yesterday and thought it was quite funny and fun and way better than I expected. I am seeing 27 Dresses today. Next week I will be interviewing Callie Khouri writer of Thelma and Louise who is the director of Mad Money. Mad Money stars Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes.

Also opening next weekend is Teeth a hit at last year's Sundance Film Festival. Teeth is a female revenge comedy about a young woman who discovers she has a toothed vagina. I know it sounds strange but the film was quite funny. More to come next week.

Opened this week
The Business of Being Born (NY)

In Theaters
Juno
Atonement
The Orphanage
P.S. I Love You
Enchanted
The Golden Compass
August Rush
The Savages
Margot at the Wedding

WGA Awards
Not only do the writers know that women exist, women dominated the original screenplay category. There will be no ceremony this year in light of the continuing strike.
Nominees for the original screenplay awards include:
Diablo Cody for "Juno,"
Tamara Jenkins for "The Savages,"
Nancy Oliver for "Lars and the Real Girl."
Documentary screenplay category:
"Nanking" - Screenplay by Bill Guttentag & Dan Sturman & Elisabeth Bentley, Story by Bill Guttentag & Dan Sturman
"The Rape Of Europa" - Written by Richard Berge, Nicole Newnham and Bonni Cohen, Menemsha Films

Anne Thompson at Variety noted the inclusion of three women. "It is highly unusual for three women to be nominated, all for original screenplay. So kudos to Nancy Oliver (Lars and the real Girl), Tamara Jenkins (The Savages) and Diablo Cody (Juno)." (Variety)

Interesting Move
The new female road comedy Bonneville starring Jessica Lange,Kathy Bates and Joan Allen will get a sneak preview on Princess Cruises in mid-February a couple of weeks before it rolls out across the states. I imagine that they think the cruises would play to the older demographic that can help build word of mouth.

TV This Weekend
Queen Sized (Saturday, January 12, 9pm, Lifetime)
Queen Sized is a typical Lifetime movie- great premise, mediocre execution. Hairspray star Nikki Blonsky stars as an overweight high school senior who gets nominated to be prom queen as a cruel joke by the popular girls. This is one unhappy young woman struggling with her weight, the loss of her father (who also had a weight problem) and her mom (Annie Potts) who as a thin person just thinks if she gets her daughter to exercise and eat better that she will lose weight. Skinny people are so sadly pathetic when it comes to dealing with weight issues. It's not such a great movie, but at least she doesn't lose weight at the end. If you watch it with your daughters talk to her about bullying and eating. At least you can get a lesson out of it.

Sarah Connor Chronicles (Sunday, January 13, 8pm, FOX)
We all know the biggest bad ass character from the Terminator movies is Sarah Connor the woman who gives birth to the man who saves the world played by Linda Hamilton. Fox has smartly turned Sarah Connor into her own franchise with Lena Headey taking over for Hamilton. There is enough kick ass action to make guys and girls really happy.

The Complete Jane Austen (Sunday, January 13, 9pm, PBS)
For all you Jane Austen fans should be happy because over the next several months PBS will present the full Jane Austen cannon for your watching pleasure. Since there will be no new shows to watch due to the writer's strike, this Jane Austenathon sounds quite promising. There are repeats of classics like Pride and Prejudice with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth as well as a new productions including the season premiere of Persuasion airing this Sunday.

News
Interview with Ellen Kuras, director of Nerakhoon (The Betrayal) which will screen at Sundance.
Ellen Kuras (Indiewire)

Interview with Courtney Hunt, director of Frozen River which will screen at Sundance
Courtney Hunt (Indiewire)

January 10, 2008

Men Writers Dominate Hollywood
That's the title of an AP story that reflects the reality that women are underemployed as writers in Hollywood and that the strike has only made this even more pronounced with picket lines being dominated by men.

I wrote about the lack of women writers in Hollywood way back on May 31 in a piece for the The Women's Media Center

From my piece:

The news is bad for women writing for TV, and worse for women writing in film. According to Darnell Hunt, the lead author of the 2007 Hollywood Writers Report and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, “women are still under-represented about 2 to 1 in the industry and that’s pretty much across the board. In some places you see signs of progress, but overall it’s pretty stagnant and quite distressing considering this has been a story we have been telling for a couple of decades.”

In film, the percentage of women writers of features has hovered between 17% and 19% since 1999. Why are there so few? Kimberly Myers, newly appointed director of diversity at the guild, believes that some of the problems stem from the Hollywood blockbuster obsession. “Executives increasingly are looking for blockbuster movies that are going to appeal to a youth audience that they think of as more male than female,” says Myers. “Therefore, they are likely to be more interested in what male writers are pitching.” When they do get a job, women tend to make less money: the median women's earnings decreased 6.1% while male earnings increased 16.1%. In a single year, between 2004 and 2005, the gender pay gap doubled from $20,000 to $40,000. While neither Myers nor Hunt has a complete explanation for the gigantic jump, Myers attributes it to the continued consolidation of the industry: “all it takes is one studio to change their policy about the number and type of films they are making and it can impact the whole industry, which is not that large to being with.

White male writers still make up 72% of guild membership.

Full story: Guild Finds no Progress for Hollywood Women Writers (Women's Media Center)

I also did an interview with Sarah Fain, Executive Producer of the Women's Murder Club where she discussed being a female writer in the context of the strike and many other interesting things about making a living as a writer.
Interview with Sarah Fain

Some quotes from the AP piece

As Hollywood's striking scribes ventured out to their picket lines over the last two months, it's been plain to see -- female writers are outnumbered by their male colleagues.

"I'm surprised when I see a woman on the picket line and I always wonder, 'Hmm, do I know her?' " said Sarah McLaughlin, who wrote for "That 70s Show." "If I don't know a woman writer personally, I know of them."

"I've worked with male writers who say, flat out, women aren't funny," said McLaughlin, who says it's easier for women to get a foot in the door on dramatic shows.

Sitcoms typically draw their writing talent from stand-up clubs, where women are scarce, but that doesn't mean that witty women aren't plentiful, she said.

Some shows have only one or two female writers on staff, said McLaughlin, because managers and staff think they've met an unspoken quota.

"The industry is still primarily driven by men," said Elaine Aronson, who added she has been the "token woman" for many shows in her 19 years as a writer. "This was true way back in the days of 'Golden Girls' (which ran in prime time from 1985 to '92). Men who create shows -- even when they're about women -- think that one woman is enough to have on a staff."

"In order to be accepted in the writers room, you have to go to your male side in an extreme way," said Aronson. "Sometimes it's fine, and other times I wish I could have said, 'You filthy pig, I can't believe you said that.' "

Other women, many who are younger, say they're perfectly comfortable yucking it up with the boys.

"I've never felt at a disadvantage because of my gender," said Hilary Winston who writes for "My Name is Earl" where five out of the 18 staff writers are women. Winston, 31, credits the generation of experienced women producers for opening up the writers room to all ages and genders, and mentoring young writers such as herself.

"I think it's a non-issue," she said. "Those battles were fought and I'm reaping the benefits."

The need for female voices also can work to the advantage of women writers, said Stacy Traub, executive producer of "Notes From the Underbelly."

When Traub hires new writers she looks for diverse voices, raw talent and someone she wouldn't mind spending long hours with at work. Traub is one of the few female showrunners who have landed that prestige position and created their own show.

Men Writers Still Dominate Hollywood (AP via Seattle PI)
Glad AP finally got on the story

Even Successful Women in Hollywood Get the Axe
Dawn Taubin, head of marketing at Warner Brothers has been ousted in a studio shakeup as sexist studio chief Jeff Robinov (check out my earlier post- Do Women Matter to Hollywood?) completes his takeover. It's not like she hasn't been a success - 3 of the top 10 movies are Warner Brothers. She leaves after 20 years at the studio.

Research Help Needed
I am writing a story on the experiences of women directors whose films have been at Sundance. I specifically want to talk with women who have had dramatic films. I am trying to figure out if women directors coming out of Sundance are benefiting in their careers the same way male directors are. Please email me (email is at top of site) if you are a woman who has been at Sundance or if you know of any woman director from Sundance.

Another request comes from reader Stephanie Vann:
I am conducting research for a film class. I would like to find out the names of any movies that deal with women and their relationships with their fathers. Email her at: stephanie_vann@yahoo.com with any thoughts.

News
Isabel Coixet's Elegy an adaptation of Philip Roth's the Dying Animal starring Tilda Swinton has been added to the lineup of the Berlin Film Festival.

I'm not surprised that Juno is doing well. Not even surprised that people outside of the coasts like it. I'm surprised that Hollywood is so surprised. It just goes to show the lack of trust Hollywood has that real film viewers can spot a good movie.
Juno is a Surprise Hit in Middle America

The Awesome Annie Lennox talks about her album Song of Mass Destruction
Annie Lennox is Unafraid to Sing About Global Crises (Spinner)

January 9, 2008

The Business of Being Born- Opens Today in NY

A couple of months ago my incredibly healthy sister went in to have her baby after an uneventful pregnancy, and her carefully planned birth plan turned into a total disaster leaving her and her husband frightened and anxious for weeks after the birth. As a person who has not given birth I just didn't understand how things could go so bad, until I saw The Business of Being Born the new documentary directed by Abby Epstein. Now I understand exactly what happened.

The medical establishment has taken the most natural thing and made medicalized it basically for their own convenience and for insurance purposes. The process has become not about the woman and her baby, but about how to get it out as fast as possible -- especially if you go into labor in the late afternoon. No doctor wants to be at the hospital all night so there is a good chance if you go into labor after 4pm that you will get drugs to be induced and then those drugs will cause fetal distress and then you will need a c-section so the doctor can be home by dinner.

Epstein boldly also includes her own pregnancy as part of the film, and the film also takes us behind the scenes of several other births including water births and home births to give all of us the sense that there is a better way that this can be done.

Film opens in NY today and in SF and LA next week. It will be available on netflix in February.

The Business of Being Born

(Disclaimer: I am employed by the distributor as an on-line marketer to build word of mouth for the film.)

DGA Nominees
NO WOMEN!!!!
Sasha Stone over at Awards Daily calls this is the year of the visionary auteur which in Hollywood is the equivalent of male. I want to put in a mention for Julie Taymor whose Across the Universe was clearly visionary and she could be called an auteur more than any other female director. Why isn't she in any of these conversations about visionary auteurs? This does not bode well for a woman being nominated for a directing Oscar this year. What else is new?

NAACP Image Award Nominees
These awards are always more female friendly.

MOTION PICTURE CATEGORIES
Motion Picture
"Talk To Me" (Focus Features)

Independent or Foreign Film
"A Mighty Heart" (Paramount Vantage)
"Persepolis" (Sony Pictures Classics)

Actress in a Motion Picture
Angelina Jolie - "A Mighty Heart" (Paramount Vantage)
Halle Berry - "Things We Lost In the Fire" (Dreamworks)
Jill Scott - "Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?" (Lionsgate Films)
Jurnee Smollett - "The Great Debaters" (The Weinstein Co.)
Taraji P. Henson - "Talk To Me" (Focus Features)

Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Janet Jackson - "Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?" (Lionsgate Films)
Loretta Devine - "This Christmas" (Screen Gems)
Meagan Good - "Stomp The Yard" (Screen Gems)
Queen Latifah - "Hairspray" (New Line)
Ruby Dee - "American Gangster" (Universal)

TELEVISION CATEGORIES
Comedy Series
"30 Rock" (NBC)
"Girlfriends" (CW)
"Ugly Betty" (ABC)

Actress in a Comedy Series
America Ferrera - "Ugly Betty" (ABC)
Golden Brooks - "Girlfriends" (CW)
Tia Mowry - "The Game" (CW)
Tichina Arnold - "Everybody Hates Chris" (CW)
Tracee Ellis Ross - "Girlfriends" (CW)

Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Keesha Sharp - "Girlfriends" (CW)
Tonye Patano - "Weeds" (Showtime)
Vanessa L. Williams - "Ugly Betty" (ABC)
Vivica A. Fox - "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (HBO)
Wendy Raquel Robinson - "The Game" (CW)

Drama Series
"Grey’s Anatomy" (ABC)

Actress in a Drama Series
CCH Pounder - "The Shield" (FX)
Jennifer Beals - "The L Word" (Showtime)
Nicki Micheaux - "Lincoln Heights" (ABC Family)
Regina Taylor - "The Unit" (CBS)
Wendy Davis - "Army Wives" (Lifetime)

Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Audra McDonald - "Private Practice" (ABC)
Chandra Wilson - "Grey’s Anatomy" (ABC)
Marianne Jean-Baptiste - "Without A Trace"(CBS)
Pam Grier - "The L Word" (Showtime)
S. Epatha Merkerson - "Law & Order" (NBC)

Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
"Life Support" (HBO)

Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
Anika Noni Rose - "The Starter Wife" (USA Network)
Holly Robinson Peete - "Matters of Life & Dating" (Lifetime)
Queen Latifah - "Life Support" (HBO)
S. Epatha Merkerson - "Girl, Positive" (Lifetime)
Sydney Tamiia Poitier - "The List" (ABC Family)

DIRECTING CATEGORIES
Directing in a Comedy Series
Millicent Shelton - "Everybody Hates Chris: Everybody Hates the Substitute" (CW)

Directing in a Dramatic Series
Darnell Martin - "Law & Order: CI: Bombshell" (NBC)
Roxanne Dawson - "Heroes: Run" (NBC)

Directing in a Motion Picture (Theatrical or Television)
Kasi Lemmons - "Talk To Me" (Focus Features)

WRITING CATEGORIES
Writing in a Comedy Series
Karen Gist - "Girlfriends: Spree To Be Free" (CW)
Mindy Kaling - "The Office: Branch Wars" (NBC)
Sara Finney-Johnson - "The Game: The Big Chill" (CW)

Writing in a Dramatic Series
Janine Sherman Barrois - "ER: Breach of Trust" (NBC)
Kathleen McGhee-Anderson and Anthony Sparks - "Lincoln Heights: The Vision" (ABC Family)
Natalie Chaidez - "Heroes: The Fix" (NBC)
Shonda Rhimes - "Private Practice: In Which We Meet Addison, A Nice Girl From Somewhere Else" (ABC)
Shonda Rhimes and Krista Vernoff - "Grey’s Anatomy: A Change is Gonna Come" (ABC)


News
Angelina Jolie was friends with Marianne Pearl before portraying her. The actress took the role for Pearl's young son. (LA Times)

Scarlett Johansson will go period again as Mary Queen of Scots in Phillip Noyce's new drama to start shooting shortly. Next month she opens opposite Natalie Portman in The Other Boleyn Girl.

Interview with Amy Redford (daughter of Robert) as she prepares to debut her film The Guitar at Sundance later this month
Amy Redford (Indiewire)

EW's take on why the Writer's Strike is still dragging on
Why is it Dragging on? (EW)

She got her big break in a Hollywood flop and hasn't looked back since. Olivia Williams tells Maddy Costa about movies, motherhood - and her talent for annoying people I Feel Like an Immoral Success Story (The Guardian)

January 8, 2008

Hollywood Doesn't Want Women Directors (duh)
I let this piece pass when I first read it because it was written on Tom Long's Detroit News blog before the holidays, but now I'm going to comment. (I am guessing this piece got picked up because there are so few stories on women, especially women directors)

When it comes to a woman's touch, Hollywood apparently doesn't want it behind the camera.

But in 2007, with five of the most critically lauded movies of the year written by women, and three of those writers also directing their films, there has been at least a slight indication that that may be changing.

It's about time. During the past decade, out of 50 Oscar nominations for best director, only one has gone to a woman: Sofia Coppola for 2003's "Lost in Translation."

During the same period, out of 100 nominations for adapted or original screenplay Oscars, only four have gone to women writing on their own: Coppola for "Translation"; Nia Vardalos for "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" in 2002; Susannah Grant for "Erin Brockovich" in 2000; and Elaine May for "Primary Colors" in 1998.

I want to thank Tom for bringing up issues that women have been talking about for so long. Seems when a guy does it, it gets more play.

But.. DOES FIVE FILMS INDICATE CHANGE? According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences there are 306 films eligible for an Oscar. Five is pathetic. I am tired of all these stories that try to paint a happy face on despair. The lack of women writers, directors and stars is despair worthy.
Female Directors Progressed in 2007 (SF Chronicle)

Susie Bright Weighs in on Hollywood's rash of pregnancies

I'm perplexed by the newest baby-happy trend in movies with female leads.

I can't recall a single friend who PLANNED to have a baby, who ever had as great a gestation period as these heroines.

But the overall effect was disquieting. The movies are farces, masquerading as romantic comedies. In a couple cases, it alarmed me that they couldn't utter the word "abortion" aloud, no matter how many naked boobs, swear words, or bong jokes were included.

She manages to talk about her own abortions to give some context which has been missing in all of these discussions.
The Reality Behind Hollywood Pregnancies (Alternet)

Karyn Kusama (Girlfight) is in negotiations to direct Jennifer's Body the next script from Diablo Cody (Juno).
Film will star Megan Fox (Transformers). If she signs on it would be another female trifecta film- director, writer and star. Keep em coming.
Kusama May Pick up Body (Hollywood Reporter)

Pissed off Doc Community to Launch Own Awards
Documentary filmmakers and programmers are fighting back against the Oscar by creating their own doc awards which will be given out March 18th at the IFC Center in NY. Community vets like Phoebe Brush (Full Frame), Cara Mertes (Sundance), Rachel Rosen (Los Angeles), Sky Sitney (SilverDocs), and Brit Withey (Denver) are on the committee.

The 15 films vying for honors include:
"Billy the Kid," directed by Jennifer Venditti
"Deep Water," directed by Louise Osmond and Jerry Rothwell
"The Devil Came on Horseback," directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg
"Manufactured Landscapes," directed by Jennifer Baichwal
"The Monastery - Mr. Vig and the Nun," directed by Pernille Rose Gronkjær
"The Unforeseen," directed by Laura Dunn

News
Biopic of Benazir Bhutto Already in the Work (Variety)

Sundance jurors include a bunch of women. Mary Harron, Marcia Gay Harden and Sandra Oh have been selected as members of the dramatic competition. The documentary competition jury includes Heidi Ewing, Annie Sundberg and IFP exec director Michelle Byrd.
Lucrecia Martel and Jan Schuette are part of the world dramatic competition jury. On the World docu competition jury is Leena Pasanen, and Ilda Santiago and Melonie Diaz will sit on the short-film jury (Variety)

AfterEllen visits the L Word set
Interview with Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig (AfterEllen)

Paula Wagner, Tom Cruise's partner in UA (who recently signed a side agreement with the Writer's Guild incuring the wrath of the AMPTP, will be honored with the President's Award from the Costume Designers Guild. (I didn't even know they gave out awards) Ceremony will be hosted by Anjelica Huston on Feb. 19. (Variety)

Joanna Gleason will star off-Broadway in Willy Holtzman's play "Something You Did to be directed by Carolyn Cantor. Performances start in March. (Variety)

January 7, 2008

Weekend Box Office
Juno continues to soar. Now playing in almost 2,000 theatres that film made over 16 million this weekend for a total of $52 million putting it on pace for the biggest specialty film (made for $2.5 million but released by the in-house specialty until at Fox, Fox Searchlight) at the box office released in 2007.

PS I Love You is still hanging around and has made almost $40 million in total and Atonment cracked the top 10 with $5.1 million or the week for a total of $19.2 million.

The Golden Compass keeps soaring overseas reaping $29 million this weekend for an international total of $232 million.

In Defense of Katherine Heigl
Hollywood has a tendency to excoriate its women for speaking up ala Jane Fonda, and Katherine Heigl is getting her share of crap for being honest about Knocked Up. We'll see who will be in the driver's seat on January 19 the day after her film 27 Dresses opens.

I haven't seen it yet (I am trying really hard to get into a screening this week) but this film has the female trifecta - a female star (Heigl), a female director (Anne Fletcher) and a female writer (Aline Brosh McKenna). I'm not too sold on the premise (it sounds a little regressive) -- it's about a woman who has been a bridesmaid 27 times and how she takes take of everyone else except herself.

From an LA Times story this weekend:

"Outspoken," people call her, although it could also just be said that she speaks. Jane Fonda in Vietnam was outspoken; Heigl in Hollywood, calling the character she played in "Knocked Up" a shrew, is merely being forthright.

"The press or the media has decided that I'm outspoken, and I guess that's my angle or something?" she asks. "I have been this way for the last five to seven years when I started saying, 'You know, screw it, I'm not going to pussyfoot around issues anymore.' I kind of say what I think. And if I feel passionately about something I will be honest about it, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that."

She clearly is backtracking on her comments about Knocked Up after getting a talking to by someone.

"I wouldn't have said anything at all, except that it was getting so much attention," she said. "It would have just gone away had I said nothing at all. Because it wasn't that interesting, and it wasn't that outrageous."

Katherine Heigl Outspoken (LA Times)

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there are right wing blogs about Hollywood and equally shouldn't be surprised that Heigl is getting her ass kicked by them. I won't give them the satisfaction of linking to their comments or posts, but it makes me feel even stronger that we need to support Heigl. The comments I read were very inflammatory and anti-woman (ie keep the women in the house and in their places), so we, as people who believe women have the right to say whatever we please have to support women in Hollywood that stand up for themselves.

Katha Pollitt on Juno
There hasn't been a movie in years that has all the feminist columnists weighing in. What's very interesting is to look at the different comments from feminists of different generations. (I'll try and do that at a later date)

I couldn't get over my sense that, hard as the movie worked to be a story about particular individuals, not a sermon, it was basically saying that for a high school junior to go through pregnancy and childbirth to give a baby to an infertile couple is both noble and cool, of a piece with loving indie rock and scorning cheerleaders;

To its credit, the film doesn't demonize teen sex; still, a teen who saw this movie would definitely feel like a moral failure for choosing abortion. Do we really want young girls to feel like they have to play babysanta?

The Media Makes Pregnant Teens Have Babies (The Nation via Alternet)

NY Times Special Oscar insert- Lame on the Women Front.
The only article on a woman was on Keira Knightley.
Commanding Attention in and Out of Costume (NY Times)

Do Violent Movies Drive Down Violence on the Streets?
File this under stuuupid economic survey. The NY Times has a report today on a study that shows that watching violent movies actually decreases violence on the streets.

Instead of fueling up at bars and then roaming around looking for trouble, potential criminals pass the prime hours for mayhem eating popcorn and watching celluloid villains slay in their stead.

“You’re taking a lot of violent people off the streets and putting them inside movie theaters,” said the lead author of the study, Gordon Dahl, an economist at the University of California, San Diego. “In the short run, if you take away violent movies, you’re going to increase violent crime.”

Young men are the most likely to commit violent crimes. In opting to see a movie — even one featuring, say, gang rape or chain-saw amputation — they forgo activities that have a greater tendency to encourage mayhem, like drinking and drug use.

So girls- for the two hours that guys are in the theatre watching women get maimed and killed onscreen you're safe! Give me a break.
Economists Says Movie Violence May Temper Real Thing (NY Times)

Awards
National Society of Film Critics

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM: “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” IFC
ACTRESS: Julie Christie, “Away From Her”
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett, “I’m Not There”
SCREENPLAY:Tamara Jenkins, “The Savages”

News
Persepolis and another new film Caramel about women working in a beauty shop in Lebanon are both directed by women. Marjane Satrapi co-directed Persepolis and Nadine Labaki directs Caramel. They will both represent their countries France and Lebanon respectively in the foreign film oscar category. Persepolis is in limited release now and Caramel comes out later this month.
Femmes Find Mideast Funnybone (Variety)

An interesting look at lessons from 2007 and a look to 2008 for the specialty and doc market.
The Glut Resolutions Festivals and More (Indiewire)