Weekend Box Office
New additions:
The Orphanage - Spanish thriller starring Belen Rueda
Persepolis- (scroll down to read my story from yesterday)
Holdovers include:
P.S. I Love You
Golden Compass
Enchanted
Juno
Best Actress Thoughts from David Thomson at The Guardian
I appreciate his comments because he acknowledges the lack of real roles for women.
This is not a crowded category this year - so yet again the fear needs to be voiced that creative young minds in America have opted for a world view in which women seldom figure.Who Will Claim Best Actress? (The Guardian)
Women's Voices from the Writers Strike
Carol Mendelsohn, showrunner and Executive Producer of CSI and Executive Producer of the other 2 CSIs on "why we write."
Why We Write (Deadline Hollywood)
25 Films Added to National Registry at the Library of Congress - only two directed by women (one woman I had never heard of)
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
Although there were numerous women filmmakers in the early decades of silent cinema, by the 1930s
directing in Hollywood had become a male bastion with one exception. Dorothy Arzner graduated from
editing to directing in the late 1920s, often exploring the conflicted roles of women in contemporary
society. In Dance, Girl, Dance, her most intriguing film, two women (Lucille Ball and Maureen O'Hara)
pursue life in show business from opposite ends of the spectrum: burlesque and ballet. The film is a
meditation on the disparity between art and commerce. The dancers strive to preserve their own feminist
integrity, while fighting for their place in the spotlight and for the love of male lead Louis Hayward.
Glimpse of the Garden (1957)
Though Marie Menken's volatile marriage to Willard Mass served as the inspiration for playwright Edward
Albee in his 1962 play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, her surprisingly joyful and simple films rate among
the more accessible works of avant-garde filmmakers. The beautifully lyrical Glimpse of the Garden is a
serendipitous visual tour of a flower garden set to a soundtrack of bird calls.
Other women's film include: Now, Voyager; The Women (a remake will be released in the fall of 2008); and Wuthering Heights.News
Liz Ryan and Barbara J. Roche will be given lifetime achievement awards by the Directors Guild. Ryan has been a part of 60 films and TV shows and will get the Frank Capra award which goes to an assistant director or production manager, Roche will receive the Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award, which recognizes an associate director or stage manager. Lovely awards, but doesn't make up for the fact that women still direct under 10% (if even that many) of the films made today. (Variety)
Helena Bonham Carter had to convince her partner, director Tim Burton that she was the right person for her role in the new flick Sweeney Todd.
Helena Bonham Carter's Pie-in-the-Sky Dream (LA Times)
Madonna as Director?
Looks like Madonna's film will debut at the Berlin Film Festival in February. Hope she's a better director than actor.
Madonna's Directorial Debut to Take Its Bow in Berlin (The Guardian)
10-time Academy Award nominee and two-time winner Bette Davis will be honored on a postage stamp on the anniversary of her 100th birthday next year.
