October 18, 2007

Review: Rendition
Opens Friday, October 19

What would you do if your loved one went on a business trip and never returned? That is the hell of Isabella El-Ibrahimi (Reese Witherspoon), in the new movie Rendition directed by South African Gavin Hood (Tsotsi). The film begins as a bomb explodes in a north African country killing a CIA operative which sets off a series of decision and events that cause the "extraordinary rendition" of Anwar El-Ibrahimi, Isabella's husband.

Rendition is something that very few of us had heard of a couple of years ago and now weighs heavily on our country's psyche. This films asks us to confront how this country gets information about potential terrorist threats and whether the end justifies the means.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays an inexperienced CIA analyst thrust into a leadership position when his colleague is killed in the bombing. He is clearly in over his head. In his new role, he observes the torture of El-Ibrahimi who is flown to his posting after he was taken from a Washington DC airport and erased from the flight manifest. The torture shakes Gyllenhaal and makes him question his job and his country. In a light moment in an otherwise intense film, Gyllenhaal escapes into a drug haze after observing a torture session when he receives a call from Corrinne Whitman (Meryl Street) the self-righteous CIA agent who ordered the rendition. She asks him how its going and he bumblingly responds that this is his first torture. She immediately cuts him off by saying that the US does not torture. You have to laugh cause you know she is full of shit.

Isabella is told that her husband was not on the plane and when she gets evidence that he was she takes it to a college pal (Peter Saarsgard) who works for a Senator (Alan Arkin) to try and get answers. Suffice it to say that she doesn't get her answers.

In a parallel plot line (which was at times very confusing), a young woman in the unnamed North African country is challenging her father (the man who runs the prison and tortures Anwar El-Ibrahimi) about her life and her boyfriend. When she makes a terrible discovery about her boyfriend the plots converge in an unexpected and jarring way.

Women Playwrights on Broadway
My friend Theresa Rebeck had her first Broadway play Mauritius open earlier this month. Theresa is not a novice, she has written a dozen or so other plays that have been performed off-Broadway and around the country. Also, she is the only female playwright with a new play being produced on Broadway this fall. The NY Times theatre critic in his infinite wisdom (or lack thereof) decided that the way he would review Theresa's play would be to put it in the context of a male playwright and a misogynistic one at that (David Mamet). Not cool.

This perspective was sent to Theresa from her friend Janet Neipris, Director, Graduate Studies, Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University

"Do they say Horton Foote is just like Thornton Wilder?
Or Pete Gurney is a blueprint of Philip Barry?
Is John Shanley Lanford Wilson?
Maybe August Wilson is Loraine Hansberry.
And who will they say is Lillian Hellman?"

Rock on Janet, and rock on Theresa.

News
The LA Times is a little late on this- Katherine Heigl's (Izzie on Grey's Anatomy) deal for Lost & Found
Katherine Heigl Becomes Producer (LA Times)

Damages, the FX Drama starring Glenn Close is on the renewal bubble for next season. This season's season finale airs next Tuesday. If you missed any episodes this season a marathon begins on FX this Saturday at 8am. It's worth a look just to see Glenn Close in action.
Damages: It's Future is Still Uncertain

Finally somebody is questioning a male star's box office draw
Is George Clooney Really a box Office Draw? (Slate)

Susanne Bier Leaves Behind Dogma for First American Film (SF Chronicle - review to come tomorrow)

Jorja Fox: Why I Quit CSI (EW)

"Kim Basinger has signed on to star alongside Charlize Theron in Guillermo Arriaga's (writer of Babel) directorial debut, The Burning Plain, for 2929 Prods." Film weaves together two storylines taking place in the past and present. Basinger will play Gina, the mother of Charlize Theron's character as seen in childhood. Theron will play Sylvia, who tries to find common ground with her parents after a turbulent childhood."(Variety)

Kathleen Turner will direct Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley at the Roundabout in NY this spring. Cast will include the same women -- Jennifer Dundas, Sarah Paulson and Lily Rabe -- who appeared in Truner's production in Williamstown last summer. (Variety)

Angelina Jolie will be honored with the outstanding performer of the year award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on February 2, 2008.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles starring Lena Headey will premiere on Fox on January 24, 2008 and will lead into the season premiere of 24.

Debi Mazar, Aida Turturro and Karen Duffy are shopping a Jersey Girls version of the View (Hollywood Reporter)

Tube Tonight
Run Granny Run- Doris Haddock who came to celebrity for walking across the country to raise attention for campaign finance reform is profiled in this documentary about her effort to unseat New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg. (HBO)

October 17, 2007

Mark your calendars!
Hollywood scion, Alison Eastwood makes her featured film directing debut next week with Rails & Ties an intense, exquisitely acted film starring Kevin Bacon and Marcia Gay Harden above love, loss and family. (I don't want to make it sound too simplistic) Film opens October 26. (Interview with director to come.)

Since last week I bashed Warner Brother president Jeff Robinov for his stupid ass comments about not looking for scripts with women in the lead, I have to give him (or others at WB who deserve the credit) for having two films by female directors coming out in the next month. Both are daughters of directors (Alison Eastwood mentioned above, daughter of Clint; and August Rush, opening November 21 directed by Kirsten Sheridan, daughter of Jim Sheridan.)

Ricki Lake and Holly Robinson Peete star in the Lifetime movie on Monday night, October 22- Matters of Life and Dating which tells the stroy of a cancer survivors return to the world of dating. (advance review to come)

News
Grace is Back!
Debra Messing's hit mini series The Starter Wife will be a weekly series come spring 2008. USA has greenlit 10 episodes. "Starter Wife joins a USA slate heavy on skeins with male leads, including Monk, Psych, Burn Notice and The Dead Zone. Cabler is attempting to add more female-centered series, previously announcing plans for the Mary McCormack starrer In Plain Sight (working title)." (Variety)

The Hollywood Film Festival opens today. Here is a story on a documentary bring screened directed by Karen Gehres about her friend Elise Hill, a homeless woman living in NYC.
Her Friend Through Thick and Thin (LA Times)

Karen Arikian has been named new head of the Hamptons Film Festival. She is currently director of the European Film Market based in Berlin. She starts in March. (Variety)

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie the former movie critic of the Atlanta Journal Constitution will be honored on October 19 by Women in Film and Television's Atlanta chapter.
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie Honored for Creative Excellence (Alliance of Women Film Journalists)

Jorja Fox is officially leaving CSI (we already knew, but this is final confirmation) I read a while ago that she refused to sign the standard one year agreement that the rest of the cast did because the salary bump that they offered was too low. It's rare that someone stands up in this way since they get paid such crazy amounts of money anyway.
Jorja Fox quitting CSI (AP via USA Today)

Sarah Roemer and Elisabeth Shue have been cat the indie thriller Waking Madison written and to be directed by Katherine Brooks. (Variety)


Around the Web
Reese Witherspoon gets political for Rendition opening Friday (review to come)
Witherspoon Takes Dramatic Step in Rendition (AP via MSNBC)

Another take on the women are being pushed out of Hollywood stroy, this time from Australia
Say Goodbye to Hollywood, Baby (Sydney Morning Herald)

Yeardley Smith - The Voice of Lisa SimpsonMy Life as Lisa (The Telegraph)

October 16, 2007

Video Game to Blame for Failure of Ben Stiller movie?
The young male audience that the studios rely upon to open their big budget boy movies each weekend has other things on its agenda, namely video games. It seems that the studios have begun to realize that they can't assume the boys will be there on opening weekend when there are other entertainments competing for their time.

The failure of the Ben Stiller's Heartbreak Kid remake (which looked to be a no-brainer since it reteamed Stiller with the Farrelly brothers who made There's Something About Mary, which made Stiller a star) is being blamed on the release of Halo 3.

What will the studios do if this keeps up? Maybe look towards women and girls? No, that would be too easy.
Bad Box Office? Blame Halo

Relationship Films Now Starring Boys
Newsweek has a web exclusive piece that talks about how buddy movies nowadays are chick flicks made by guys for guys. I don't necessarily agree with that (and the piece is all over the place talking about the women's movie and the fact that there are few women directors), but there are several good points in the piece.

As women moved behind the camera, they began telling women's stories and not just melodramas. The revival of "women's pictures," (now rechristened "chick flicks") coincided with the rise of independent film in the '80s and '90s, and featured protagonists who were allowed to live, and even laugh a little.

But lately it seems if two characters are sharing their feelings and valuing each other's company, they're more likely to be men than women.

Hollywood can be hostile territory for female directors in general, and may be becoming even less welcoming. As Meyers said recently, "the pendulum is swinging in the wrong direction," from the time a decade ago when women were able to get small, relationship-driven films produced.

I've never heard Meyers say anything even remotely negative as she is basically the only female commercial director so that quote is interesting but it is undated so who knows when she said it.

Where the Boys Are (and Girls Aren't) (Newsweek)

News
The annual event honoring "Women in Hollywood" hosted by Elle magazine (taken over from the now defunct Premiere) was held last night in LA. The honorees were director Julie Taymor, actors Lauren Bacall, Diane Lane, Kate Bosworth, Jennifer Connelly, Amy Adams and Scarlett Johansson. Aside from Taymor, Bacall and Lane the rest don't seem to have had done enough to seem worthy of an honor of this sort. Since all the women are featured in the new issue of Elle, seems they just want to sell magazines and not honor the real women in Hollywood.
Elle Magazine Honors Women in Hollywood (AP via Yahoo)

"Woman In Film and General Motors have announced the five winners of their Acceleration Grant for Emerging Filmmakers. The winners are Jamie Taucher from Sedona, AZ; Julia Kots from New York; Connie M. Florez from Honolulu, and Joyce Lee and Mabel Valdiviezo, both from San Francisco. The five winners will receive a six-day broad-based immersion program on the movie industry as part of the grant. Grant is a program of the WIF/GM Alliance, whose goal is to support filmmakers from underrepresented communities." (Variety)

Sherri Shepherd, the new View co-host, has set up a sitcom at CW loosely based on her life.
View Host Plots Show (Variety)

Around the Web
Nia Vardalos is filming her follow-up to My Big Fat Greek Wedding in Greece.
Nia Vardalos Filming at Acropolis (AP via Backstage)

Actress Marsha Hunt who was blacklisted in the 50s is still working at 90 (isn't it interesting that we don't really here much about women who were effected by the blacklist?)
Actress Marsha Hunt Still Spry at 90 (AP via Yahoo)

Amy Ryan slips into the skin of another anguished character in Gone Baby Gone.
Disappearing Act (Backstage)

Jane Austen: The FanVid Mania (EW)

DVDs Out Today
A Mighty Heart - Most people missed this terrific movie in the theatres this past summer. It's not easy to watch but has a great performance from Angelina Jolie.

Roseanne - Season 9

I just put this on my netflix queue
Girl 27
"Author-screenwriter David Stenn investigates a notorious Hollywood scandal more than 65 years after it occurred, a rape case involving Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio execs and an underage dancer who refused to stay silent. Hired along with 120 other young girls to entertain MGM salesmen at a stag party in 1937, Patricia Douglas was violently raped and brought a landmark lawsuit against her attackers -- then mysteriously disappeared." (Netflix)

October 15, 2007

Persepolis
Persepolis, the animated film written and directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud closed last night's New York Film Festival. The film is based on Satrapi's graphic novels of her life growing up in Iran under a repressive regime. This film (which is France's submission to the Academy Awards) opens in US on December 25. It is a fantastic film. I was skeptical at first because I am not a big fan of animated films, and the fact that the film is in French...but it is one of the best films I have seen in a very long time. Original and about something important, funny and dramatic. Mark your calendars now.

The voices in the film include Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni playing Marjane's mother and Marjane respectively, and last week I had the opportunity to put some questions to both of them. Here are some noteworthy quotes from the conversation with Deneuve and Mastroianni (yes, they are both gorgeous and smoked way too many cigarettes in a 20 minute period)

Q: It's a very political piece without being overtly political.

Catherine Deneuve: That's why I like it. It's a great opportunity for her (Marjane) to make a film of this book because it is a political story, the story of a little girl trying to grow up and her parents trying to raise her. (The film) is a stronger statement than the book because you have the images and you sympathize with the little girl. For people living in America who have no idea how people live in Iran, I think it's a great opportunity to learn about that part of the world.

Chiara Martroianni: I think it's also interesting in the way she shows politics, some moments in the film are very dramatic and some moments are very funny despite the situation she is describing. She tries to give you a vision through laughter which is a very subversive thing to do.

CD: That's why the Iranian government was so upset that the film was going to be shown in Cannes and they tried to forbid it.

Q: What do you think about the lack of opportunities for actresses?

CD: I don't think I would have the same opportunities in America that I have in France.

CM: Often you read a script and you think wow, the male character is really good.

CD: In America there are less parts for women especially for women above 35- that's the biggest problem for American actresses. For a long time I've heard from actresses saying its so difficult here. (in the US) People are so obsessed with youth in America, especially in Hollywood.

More to come closer to opening

News
Jeff Robinov, the Warner President of Production who caused a stir last week by saying that he wasn't making any more films starring women looks to be in line for a promotion. This guy should be in the woodshed rather than in line for a promotion. Typical Hollywood.
Is Jeff Robinov Ready for WB Moguldom? (Deadline Hollywood)

The Tyler Perry juggernaut is finally being acknowledged by mainstream media. His new film Why Did I Get Married? brought out black women in droves and was number 1 at the box office (with $21 million) beating George Clooney in Michael Clayton and Mark Wahlberg is We Own the Night.
A New Movie Brings Out Throngs of Black Women (NY Times)

Julia Roberts was awarded the 22nd American Cinematheque award this weekend in LA. AMC will air the show on December 5.
Film Biz Comes Out to Salute Roberts (Hollywood Reporter)

Meryl Streep will be honored by the Film Society at Lincoln Center next April.
Film Society Ceremony to Laud Streep (Hollywood Reporter)

Fox has cut the order to 7 for the mid-season series The Return of Jezebel James created by Amy Sherman-Palladino starring Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose.

Helen Mirren will be directed by husband Taylor Hackford in the drama Love Ranch co-starring Joe Pesci (Joe Pesci and Helen Mirren? Can't really see it). Film is about a couple that starts a legal brothel. (Variety)

Around the Web
Juliette Binoche's American Adventure (LA Times)

Tube Today
Series Premiere: Samantha Who- Christina Applegate stars as an amnesiac who wakes up to learn that she was a horrible person. (ABC)
Samantha Who (LA Times)

October 12, 2007

Opening Today - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Cate Blanchett is one of my favorite actresses, and I firmly believe she is one of the best of her generation. She hesitated for several years to climb on board the sequel to her star making and Oscar nominated performance in Elizabeth, and based on the outcome of the sequel she should have stuck to her guns more firmly. I don't know about you, but I kind of feel "Elizabethed" out with the recent Helen Mirren HBO miniseries (and The Queen, even though itwas a different Elizabeth) and the Showtime series, The Tudors. Guess others are feeling the same way since The Other Boleyn Sister starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson was moved to early spring 2008.

It's not that Elizabeth: The Golden Age is bad, it's just not good. The problem is that it's over the top and takes itself way too seriously. Blanchett spends the whole movie bellowing over music that is so loud, it overwhelms everything. (The music is really annoying, I'm not understating it) The film might look spectacular, the sets are enormous and Blanchett's costumes are amazing, but it feels hollow.

The film takes place in Elizabeth's middle years when she has gained confidence as a woman and ruler. But, the realm is threatened by the mighty Spain which is still smarting about England's denunciation of Catholicism. Because all wars, then and now, seem to be based on religion, Spain is amassing a force to take over England and install Elizabeth's cousin, Mary (played by Samantha Morton) on the throne. Elizabeth lived in fear of assassination for many years, yet refused to execute Mary who was behind many of the attempts for almost two decades. The scene where Elizabeth is almost killed, and when Mary is executed are the strongest in the film.

Joining the cast this time around are Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh, the commoner who Elizabeth loves but cannot love, and Abbie Cornish as her favorite lady in waiting Elizabeth “Bess” Throckmorton who she pushes towards Raleigh. Elizabeth becomes enraged when she finds out they are together, jails Raleigh and banishes Bess. Geoffrey Rush is a big disappointment as Walsingham, her adviser, he just has no energy about him at all.

If you love Blanchett you should see this film because even though the film fails her, she is still a special performer.

News
The International Documentary Association's nomination are out
Women nominees include:
Feature: A WALK TO BEAUTIFUL- Mary Olive Smith, director
Short: BODY & SOUL: DIANA & KATHY- Alice Elliott, director/producer; THE FIGHTING CHOLITAS- Mariam Jobrani, director/producer; FREEHELD- Cynthia Wade, director
Limited Series: ADDICTION- Kate Davis, Susan Froemke, Liz Garbus, Chris Hegedus, Ellen Goosenberg Kent, Barbara Kopple, Susan Raymond, Jessica Yu, directors (among others); COMING OUT STORIES- Karen Goodman, director/producer; THE HILL- Ivy Meeropol, director/producer

Amy Sherman-Palladino (creator of the Gilmore Girls and the upcoming the Return of Jezebel James) has signed on to adapt and direct The Late Bloomer's Revolution to star Sarah Jessica Parker.
Parker and Sherman-Palladino Team Up (Variety)

Lifetime and Starz are teaming up to produce original movies. Films include:
Queen Sized, starring Nikki Blonsky ("Hairspray") as an overweight teen who overcomes the vicious insults of her schoolmates, ending up as homecoming queen. (Variety)

Around the Web
Can Across the Universe become a hit? It will if teenage girls have anything to say about it. (I liked this film a lot)
Is This the Next Cult Sensation? (LA Times)

I didn't think Stardust was that bad, but it sank this pastsummer. It's opening in England and Michelle Pfeiffer was on hand. I'm still waiting for the Amy Heckerling directed drama with Pfeiffer I Could Never be Your Woman which is supposedly opening next month.
Michelle Pfeiffer on Turning 50 (The Guardian)

Tube Today
Friday TV used to suck but no more. Tonight is the Season Premiere of the quirky Men in Trees (10pm, ABC) and the Series Premiere: Women's Murder Club (9pm, ABC). Also, don't forget Friday Night Lights.
Classic Alert: Sissy Spacek in the Altman classic 3 Women at 5:30pm on FMC

October 11

Women Continue as the Topic of Conversation in Hollywood

In an industry that pays scant attention to women, this week seems to be girls week in Hollywood thanks to Jeff Robinov and his alleged and pretty much confirmed (see Nikki Finke follow-up below) comments that Warner Brothers is out of the business of women leads onscreen. The story has legs not because it has resonance with women in Hollywood (not that this is anything new to them), but because it has resonance outside of Hollywood. My mother even commented that she saw it on the local news. Big question: is there any momentum for change other than the typical grumbling?

Rebecca Traister continues that conversation over at Salon with a roundtable discussion conducted (for an issue of Elle) a couple of months ago with 10 Hollywood female bigwigs to discuss the state of Hollywood and women.

Producer Lynda Obst moderated and the other included: Nora Ephron (writer and director, "This is My Life), Laura Ziskin (producer, "Spider-Man"), Callie Khouri (writer and director, "Thelma & Louise,"), Patty Jenkins (writer, director, "Monster"), Cathy Konrad (producer, "Walk the Line,"), Kimberly Peirce (writer, director, producer, "Boys Don't Cry"), Andrea Berloff (writer, producer, "World Trade Center"), Margaret Nagle (writer, producer, "Warm Springs"), and Universal president of production Donna Langley.

First off, big problem, I'm pretty sure that none of these women are women of color. How can anyone convene a roundtable to discuss women's issues about anything, anywhere and not have some women of color. Not Cool.

Here are some excerpts of note:

From Traister's overview

It's not, as Finke's source suggests, that the women are going to be kicked out of their studio offices, but it's no secret that Hollywood has always been a dicey industry for women, and that recent years have seen it grow increasingly inhospitable.

More women than ever write, direct and produce movies. But we're in a period in which their on-screen stock is falling.

But if Hollywood isn't doing much for female moviegoers, it's in part because female moviegoers have not, of late, been doing much for Hollywood. They haven't been showing up to multiplexes, at least not on the first weekend, which is all that counts. And in Hollywood, money has always been a bigger motivator than visions of equality.

Amen sister. Women, nothing is going to change until we demand change with our pocketbooks. If we go to certain movies they will make more. It's not rocket science in Hollywood. If one movie hits, five more will be in the pipeline in a week. We need a movement to make this happen. Anyone want to join me?

Comments from the panel:

Kimberly Peirce: I think the indie world is actually great for women, and for gay people. Because if you have a story, you're going to be able to [tell it]. That's where a lot of women get their start. But you get into your second, your third movie, and you're building a career, and it's hitting smack up against those years when you want to have a child. I mean, you can't get bonded if you're pregnant.

For those who don't know what getting bonded is- it's insurance for movies. So pregnant women are now in the category of repeat drug offenders (I remember when Robert Downey, Jr, couldn't get bonded.) Can this be legal?

Ziskin: But the truth of the matter is those teen boys are less reliable because they have way more choices, and in fact the most reliable moviegoing audience -- and also the dirty word in the movie business -- is "women over 35." Because we have the moviegoing habit. I would go to the movies every weekend if there was something for me to see. The studios, if they were smart, would have a geriatric division.

I have been saying this all along. If you make good movies, we will go. The thing nobody mentioned in this piece is that most of the movies made in Hollywood are crap.

Ziskin: But there are movies in general, and then there are women's movies. We're still the other -- we're still a secondary audience. When they made "Little Women," my daughter was 11, she went five times in one week. That was because as a young woman, she never got to see herself and her experience on the screen. We know so much about the male experience because it's been fed to us through the literature that the men wrote and the world that the men created; it's a relatively new phenomenon in the modern world that we have power to say what we think and to express ourselves and our sensibility. But we're still considered an alternative class.

Laura Ziskin, you are so right on and are my new best friend (has someone slipped you my book proposal?)

Khouri: It's more in the business than in the relationships. You're more likely to feel less-than in your business relationships. What we were talking about a little while ago, the fact that we still are defined as women directors or women producers, it still feels that as long as the studios see the female audience as a secondary audience or not as easy to get into the theater on the first weekend, then there's going to be a lid on us.

Ziskin: I want to say one thing. What is extraordinary is that the movies are arguably the most powerful medium ever in history so far. And there are so many of us that you could get a quorum at this table. You don't have to have the intention of influencing your work by your gender, but you're going to. That's a really good thing. It's really good for the culture that women are a real voice more and more, even though we're not the final say, like those guys who really control all the media in the world. We're still influencing.

Ziskin clearly gets it, good thing she's one of the most powerful women in Hollywood. She produced the Oscars and Spiderman in the same year.

Nikki Finke continues her story about Jeff Robinov
The Reality Behind the Robinov Denial

Nikki also gets interviewed in the Elle issue
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Around the Web
Lifetime is gobbling up all the chick flicks for the first network run. Recent purchases include: Jane Austen Book Club, No Reservations and the Nanny Diaries.
Lifetime Makes Theatrical Impression

2 Elizabeths, Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, chat about smelly old England

Tube Today
80s alert: Jennifer Beals in Flashdance at 10pm on CMT

October 10, 2007

Warner Production President Says He Is Still Committed to Women
Anne Thompson reports in today's Variety that Jeff Robinov, who was accused over the weekend of having said he is not interested in making films with female leads, is still committed to making films with women in them.

"Citing such Warners hit chick flicks as Cinderella Story and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (a sequel is in the works), Robinov said he is still in the business of making pics with women."

Well, good for him. But I am not convinced.

To me, both the films cited above are what I call "tween chick flicks" - where the stars are young women -- like Hillary Duff in Cinderella Story and the quartet from Sisterhood which includes America Ferrera (it seems that her rise in stature due to Ugly Betty star is what pushed this sequel into production), Blake Lively (now on the CW's vile Gossip Girl), Alexis Bledel (late of Gilmore Girls), and Amber Tamblyn (Stephanie Daley - have you rented that yet?) And, Sisterhood was adapted from the famous teen novel by Ann Brashares.

While lovely, the actresses cited above are young, most not even in their mid 20s, so Robinov actually confirms my theory that in Hollywood you can make films with strong, female leads on the condition that those leads be young women and targeted towards a younger demographic. I can't believe that he would even think that those two films cited above would show that he is committed to women.

The other films he cites as "women's films" (my italics) co-star men except for Spring Breakdown a bout 20s somethings on spring break (sounds really stupid to me) The other are an adaptation of Nights in Rodanthe from a Nicholas Sparks novel starring Diane Lane and Richard Gere; Fool's Gold staring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey. Women will also be thrilled to learn that there will be a female character included in the The Justice League and Watchmen (gee, that sounds like a movie about women)

I think he really believe that the slate above is representative of women and that women should feel satisfied that Warner Brothers is still pro-woman. I think he just dug a deeper hole for himself.

Full story here: Warner Bros Still Committed to Women

Other big news is the sale of Oxygen to NBC Universal for a very impressive $925 million. I wish I could say that I've ever watched any of the original programming on the station (I have watched some of the reruns.) It just seems to me to be the station for college girls gone wild and reality tv shows about women who beat each other up. The NY Times story says that NBC seems to have gotten a good deal paying just $12 per subscriber for Oxygen when it paid $22 per subscriber for Bravo in 2002. Guess the artsy people who watch Bravo are worth $10 more than the young women who watch Oxygen.
NBC Buys Oxygen

Tube Today
Classic Alert: Ellen Burstyn in Resurrection at 1pm on Sundance
Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice at 8pm on Flix

Tuesday, October 9

Film Review: Golda's Balcony
Golda Meir was always one of my great heroes; she saved a nice Jewish girl from Long Island from believing the world was only full of men who make decisions. Several years ago William Gibson wrote a one-woman play about Meir, her history and the dilemma surrounding the potential use of nuclear weapons during the 1973 Yom Kippur war. The play which starred Tovah Feldshuh was very moving, and now Gibson has rejiggered his script for film. Starring Valerie Harper and directed by Jeremy Kagan, the film opens in limited released in NY on Wednesday.

Talking about Israel today is not an easy topic, tempers flare up quickly on all sides. This film is interesting because it is a history lesson from the perspective of a woman leader and those are very few. This is the unlikely story of a how midwestern, American woman wound up as Prime Minister of the young state of Israel. She escaped the US in her late teens (pulling her husband with her) to go to Palestine to work on a kibbutz needing to be free from the American restrictions on young women. She became excited by politics and worked her way up to a seat at the table at the founding of the state of Israel. Right before the British were going to pull out in 1948 she made the pilgrimage to America to raise the money necessary to buy arms to fight off the Arab neighbors who were poised to attack the second the British departed. She wound up raising $50 million dollars, much more than expected.

Her family suffered for her political ambitions and she felt guilty, but staying home and not working was not something she could endure.

The decisions about the constant need to fight and defend the country weighed heavily on her, probably because she was a woman and her other peers in leadership were all military men. No decision was more difficult than the potential dropping of a nuclear bomb on Arab military sites during the dire days of the 73 war when Israel was on the brink of extinction. She debates the global implications with her cabinet and fortunately, the issue was never forced.

The film is still a one-woman show, Harper is a tour de force, but it does get trying seeing her play all the other characters too. But Meir, is a worthy topic, especially now that we could be potentially on the verge of a female president in the US.

More info on screenings and openings:
Golda's Balcony

News

The Princess Diaries producer Debra Martin Chase and producer-writer Nely Galan are teaming up to bring Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's novel The Dirty Girls Social Club to the big screen.
It's Girls Night Out at the Movies (Hollywood Reporter)

IFC Entertainment has announced its acquisition two French films screening at the New York Film Festival, Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi's Actresses. Already a box office hit in France, Chabrol's thriller opened there this summer and also screened at the Toronto and Venice festivals. Bruni Tedeschi's comedy Actresses was an award-winner at the Cannes Film Festival. Both films will be released theatrically and via cable V.O.D. next year (Indiewire)

Around the Web
Catherine Deneuve and Laura Linney to be Honored at AFI Fest next month
Fest Honors Deneuve and Linney

Films in competition at AFI with a woman focus or women directors include: (still trying to check out all the titles)

International Documentary:
"Operation Filmmaker" Featuring: Liev Schreiber, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson DIR: Nina Davenport PROD: Nina Davenport, David Schisgall. USA
"The Unforseen"
DIR: Laura Dunn PROD: Laura Dunn, Douglas Sewell, Jef Sewell, William Warren. USA

American Showcase:
"Expired"
Cast: Samantha Morton, Jason Patric, Teri Garr, Illeana Douglas DIR: Cecilia Miniucchi PROD: Jeffrey Coulter, Fred Roos EXEC PROD: Alex Shing, Antoni Stutz, Lawrence Wang USA

Documentary Showcase:
"Body of War"
DIR: Ellen Spiro, Phil Donahue EXEC PROD: Phil Donahue CO-PROD: Karen Bernstein USA

Meryl Street Talks Politics and Passion

Castings
Lisa Kudrow joins Hotel for Dogs with Don Cheadle and Emma Roberts.
Kudrow Checks Into Hotel for Dogs (Hollywood Reporter via Reuters)

Tube Today
Classic Alert: Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl @5:15pm (Turner Classic Movies)

October 8, 2007

Do Women Matter to Hollywood?
The shit hit the fan this weekend when Nikki Finke posted on her Deadline Hollywood blog that Warner Brothers President of Production Jeff Robinov verbalized a sentiment that has been unofficial in Hollywood for some time -- studios don't believe that making movies with women as the lead are viable vehicles any longer.

Based on all my research this is not news, this has been going on for some time, it's just that someone had the gaul to say it out loud that seems to shock people.

So Mr. Rabinov, since Ben Stiller underperformed this weekend in the Heartbreak Kid, should he not be given another leading role? Jodie Foster did practically the same money as Stiller yet she is deemed a failure, but the thought that Ben Stiller - OR ANY MAN- shouldn't be given another lead in films is never discussed.

Read Nikki's piece: No Women Leads at Warners

News
Reese Witherspoon opens in Rendition on October 19th. Reese plays the very pregnant wife of an Egyptian-American man who is whisked off a return flight from a business trip and taken to an African country under the absurd US policy of "extraordinary rendition."

This is quite a political film for Reese who has mostly been known for her lighter roles. Meryl Streep plays the CIA villain who makes the deicsion to have this man removed from the plane. (Full review to come nearer to opening) Reese has a lot of pressure being the highest paid female actress.

From the Times in London

According to the most recent survey by the film-trade paper The Hollywood Reporter, Witherspoon, who is 31, is now America’s highest-paid actress, outstripping Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie. She has been able to command a salary of $15m a movie for the past four years, since the twin successes of the first Legally Blonde film and the romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama. Her status was cemented when she won a best-actress Oscar in March 2006 for her spirited performance as June Carter Cash, singer and long-suffering wife of the country legend Johnny, in Walk the Line.

A Testing Time for Reese Witherspoon

TV is much more welcoming to women because the people who work in the TV business rather than the film business understand that women do watch TV and that there should be programming for women on TV. ABC (is the best network for women in my opinion) will launch the Women's Murder Club this Friday based on the James Patterson novels. I haven't seen any of the shows, but I am always interested in a show that has four female leads. ABC is banking that women and men will watch the show because they can get the women with the female characters and the men with the procedural aspects.

I'm a bit apprehensive because the creators of the the are Brett Ratner (director of the Rush Hour franchise) who prides himself on his womanizing, and Joe Simpson, father to singers Jessica and and Ashlee. But they did hire a female executive producer Sarah Fain and writer Liz Craft so...

Here are some quotes from an LA Times piece.

The female detectives on "WMC" are trying to have it all -- career and a personal life too. But will modern audiences find their balancing act a touching reflection of career women's plight today? Or will a group of crime-solvers who fret over guy troubles at the scene of a horrific murder just seem like pop culture's latest setback for feminism?

ABC Likes Its Chances in Murder Club

Around the Web
Cate Blanchett's Golden Touch (LA Times)

Margaret Cho Bares it All for a Good Laugh (NPR)

October 5, 2007

David Denby - A Fine Romance

My New Yorker's are usually the last magazine in the pile (aside from the NY Times magazine), so I am very late to this past summer's (July 23rd issue) piece by David Denby on how Knocked Up has shifted the whole genre of the romantic comedy. (I would link to it, but for some stupid reason The New Yorker only makes limited archives available.)

The overall thrust of the piece is that in today's romantic comedy ala Judd Apatow, the woman and the man are not working from a place of equality like they were in earlier versions of the genre from the screwball comedies of the 1930s all the way through the Woody Allen comedies of the 1970s.

I couldn't agree more. While I did find Knocked Up to be quite funny, I also found it very disturbing because the comedy was so guy-centric without caring at all about the female character aside from showing that there is no way these two should be together because she was competent and ambitious and he was a stoner an his job (unpaid) was to create a porn site.

But this reality has become quite typical 21st century Hollywood - stories about guys, told by guys and the woman is thrown in because they need to get laid.

Here are some interesting quotes:

Knocked Up, written and directed by Judd Apatow, is the culminating version of this story, and it feels like one of the key movies of the era- a raw, discordant equivalent of The Graduate forty years ago. I've seen it with audiences in their twenties and thirties, and the excitement in the theatres is palpable- the audience is with the movie all the way, and, afterward, many of the young men (though not always the young women) say that it's not only funny but true.

The louts in the slacker-striver comedies should probably lose the girl, too, but most of them don't. Yet what, exactly, are they getting, and why should the women want them? That is not a question that romantic comedy has posed before.

What's striking about Knocked Up is the way the romance is placed within the relations between the sexes.

All the movies in this genre have been written and directed by men, and it's as if the filmmakers were saying, 'Yes, young men are children now, and women bring home the bacon, but men bring home the soul.'

The perilous new direction of the slacker-striver genre reduced the role of women to vehicles. Their only real function is to make the men grow up.

The society that produced the Katherine Hepburn and Carole Lombard movie has vanished; manner, in the sense of elegance, have disappeared. But manners as spiritual style are more important than ever, and Apatow has demonstrated that he knows this as well as anyone. So how can he not know that the key to making a great romantic comedy is to create heroines equal in wit to men? They don't have to dress for dinner, but they should challenge the men intellectually and spiritually, rather than simply offering their bodies as a way of dragging the clods out of their adolescent stupor.

Doesn't it seem that the men are the ones who don't challenge the women intellectually rather than the reverse? And why is it women's fault that they want to be successful and have a career? Get with it Judd Apatow, you have two daughters and I know you wouldn't want either of them dating any of the dudes who populate your movies.

Any comments?

Continuing in Theatres This Weekend
Trade
Jane Austen Book Club

News
Nikki Blonsky (Hairspray) wil receive the Rising Star award at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival on Jan 3 and 4. (Hollywood Reporter)

Women in Film's Entertainment Forum is this weekend. More details:
Women in Film Entertainment Forum

Some of the most interesting panels include:
DOES "FUNNY" HAVE A GENDER?
Cynthia Littleton, Deputy Editor, Variety
Morgan Murphy, Comic/Writer/Actress
Jane Lynch, Comic/Actress, 40 Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Jennifer Coolidge, Comic/Actress, For Your Consideration, Legally Blonde

SOCIAL ISSUE FILMMAKING: FILM AS AN AGENT FOR CHANGE
Bonnie Abaunza, VP, Campaign Development & Operations, Participant Productions
Ted Braun, Writer/Director, Darfur Now
Cathy Schulman, President, Mandalay Pictures/Mandalay Independent Pictures
Colin Thomas-Jenson, Policy Advisor, ENOUGH Project
Janice Kamenir-Reznik, Co-Founder & President, Jewish World Watch

Ugly Betty's America Ferrara has been named the U.S. Hispanic Woman of the Year
America Ferrara (AP via US Today)

Story of DC's first female police chief to be made into film.
Cathy Lanier (Hollywood Reporter)


Tube Tonight
I plead with you to watch Friday Night Lights. Most people are not watching this show because they think its about football, I can assure you it's not. Last season they had a show the dealt with race relations that was so fantastic and non-preachy that I can't believe it didn't win an Emmy.

Thursday, October 4

Quick Sneak
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Cate Blanchett returns to the screen as Elizabeth I in this sequel to her 1998 breakout film, Elizabeth. She has come quite far since that performance, and its always a risk to go back in and play the same character after almost a decade. Whereas the first Elizabeth was magnificent and exciting because we were all in on the discovery of a new movie star, this film is over the top and takes itself way too seriously. The costumes and wigs are exquisite. (Full review next week)

News
Actress Rita Moreno on Latina Longevity in the Arts (NPR)

Jill Carroll is back in the mideast and today reports on Tunisian women filmmakers whose work is not seen in their own country.
Scarce at home, the movies of Tunisia's female filmmakers draw world acclaim (Christian Science Monitor)

Kathleen Kennedy along with Frank Marshall will receive the David O. Selznick Achievement Award at the Producers Guild awards in LA on February 2, 2008.

HBO has renewed Tell Me You Love Me for a second season. Show is created and Executive produced by Cynthia Mort.

Jill Soloway, currently writing for Grey's Anatomy, will team up with J.J. Abrams on a new drama for ABC.

A take on Private Practice.
Is ‘Private Practice’ a bit too ‘Grey’? (MSNBC)

Tube Tonight
WATCH THIS SHOW!
Tina Fey fresh off her Best Comedy Emmy win premieres the sophomore season of 30 Rock, with guest star Jerry Seinfeld (who is doing a lot of press to push his animated film Bee Story)

Alicia Witt joins Law & Order: Criminal Intent as Mr. Big's partner (Chris Noth) which now airs on USA (9pm)

Wednesday, October 3

Review - Lake of Fire
Abortion is one of the hottest political issues in our culture, with both sides very emotional and very committed to their convictions. Into this controversial subject steps British director Tony Kaye (American History X) with his brutal black-and-white documentary, tracing the issue over the last 15 years. The film starts at the beginning of the Clinton administration with the annual March for Life in Washington DC, but it really begins when he takes us to the clinics, the frontline of the war.

Kaye definitely wants to push the envelope, showing an abortion of a 20-week fetus, and he interviews lots of thinkers on the topic, including Noam Chomsky, Alan M. Dershowitz, and Nat Hentoff, but the film is very lacking on female experts, and for an issue that is about women, this is a big problem. He does interview Francis Kissling, who, until this year, was the head of Catholics for a Free Choice and whose knowledge of the church’s role on abortion is vast, and Kate Michelman, the former head of National Abortion Rights Action League (whose name the film spells incorrectly).

Memory is short and fleeting even for people who care about this issue (disclaimer: I participated in protests and rallies in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s), so this film is an important reminder of a series of horrible events, the murders of abortion providers. Kaye interviews many of anti-abortion activists (almost all men) who were on the forefront when the murders occurred. Most of the men, at first, come off as normal, but you quickly realize (through their own words and actions) that they are extreme zealots. They commonly talk about wanting to create a jihad and how most of the rabid “feminazis” are lesbians. Paul Hill, who murdered Dr. John Bayard Britton and was executed for that crime, called Michael Griffin, the murderer of abortion provider Dr. David Gunn, a “hero” and declared that “all abortionists should be executed.”

Kaye also shows how the anti’s got organized in the late 1980s, from volunteers to full-paid leaders of the growing non-profit organizations that bought houses around clinics to lure women away and to get them to change their minds about having an abortion. His 15-year devotion to the topic is commendable, but it is not until the last third of a too-long movie that the film brings women into focus with Jane Roe, Norma McCorvey. She has always been a woman of controversy and initially took pride in her role as Jane Roe, but of late she has become the poster woman for the anti-abortion movement and is working to get Roe v. Wade overturned. Kaye also takes us on the journey of a woman who has made the decision to have an abortion (even filming it), with all the surrounding emotional issues. It’s a behind-the-scenes close-up into this issue that you seldom see.

Some of the most moving moments of the film are from Emily Lyons, the nurse who was maimed by a 1998 clinic bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. She relays what many women who are passionate about the issue believe: this is “not just about abortion, it’s about choice.” I just wish the film had more of the women’s passion in it. (written for Film Forward)

News
Director Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown) will direct Twilight from Stephanie Meyer's young adult series. "Twilight tells the story of 17-year-old Bella, who moves to a small town to live with her father, and is drawn to a pale mysterious classmate who comes from a family of vampires." (Variety)

Emma Thompson helped organize an exhibition in London that exposes the inhumanity of human trafficking.
Acts of Compassion (The Guardian)

Universal has bought Girly Style a pitch from writer and former stripper Diablo Cody. Film will be a girl centric college comedy. Cody's first film Juno was runner up for the audience award at Toronto. Film will open before the end of the year. (Hollywood Reporter)

The American Film Market kicks off in LA Oct 31-Nov 7. One of the films to be shown is Mad Money written and directed by Callie Khouri starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes in her post Tom Cruise marriage comeback role. (Hollywood Reporter)

Cate Blanchett will receive the Modern Master Award at the 2008 Santa Barbara Film Festival on January 26, 2008. (Hollywood Reporter) Check out this story from W on Blanchett
Queen Cate

Actress Michelle Yeoh, received France's highest civilian honor on Wednesday.
Actress Michelle Yeoh gets top French award (Reuters via Yahoo)

Castings
Molly Shannon will play Kath in the pilot Kath and Kim for NBC. The series is about a disfuction mother-daughter relationship and is based on the Australian series of the same name. (Hollywood Reporter)

Natalie Portman joins Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire in Brothers an American reworking of Susanne Bier's 2004 film. (Variety)

Former ER vet Alex Kingston will star in a modern day version of Jane Austen's pride and Prejudice for British TV.
Kingston to Star in Austen Drama

Tube Tonight
Season premiere of the Sarah Silverman show on Comedy Central at 10:30pm. You can also now get season 1 on DVD.

Tuesday, October 2

Early Sneak
Things We Lost in the Fire- this film marks the English language directing debut of the extremely talented Danish director Susanne Bier. A full review will be available when the film is released on October 19, but put it in your calendar now. Bier is able to elicit amazing performances from Halle Berry and especially Benicio del Toro as two people struggling to cope with the loss of Berry's husband who was del Toro's best friend.

If you have not seen Biers' other films you need to rent Brothers (which Hollywood is remaking) and After the Wedding (which was nominated for the foreign film Oscar.) Both are fantastic.

News
Early look at the Best Actress Category from the LA Times

Strong roles for women are often in short supply, and this year's race for best actress is no exception. While men in the running for best actor could fill out three football teams, with an alternate or two to spare, the women in contention for best leading lady barely make up two loaves of bread. That's not to say the best actress race isn't filled with major league players and a few rookies of the year. But when it comes to great performances by women the list is woefully short.

Actresses on the list include: Keira Knightley, Atonement; Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart; Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age; Nicole Kidman, Margot at the Wedding; Julie Christie, Away From Her; Charlize Theron, In the Valley of Elah; Halle Berry, Things We Lost in the Fire; Ellen Page, Juno; Helena Bonham Carter, Sweeney Todd; Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose; Amy Adams, Enchanted; Jodie Foster, The Brave One; Marketa Irglova, Once; Laura Linney, The Savages; Renee Zellweger, Leatherheads; Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Love in the Time of Cholera; Parker Posey, Broken English; Keri Russell, Waitress; Naomi Watts, Eastern Promises (LA Times)

Most of the films listed above have yet to be released, but of those released (and others I've seen) the contenders to me are: Julie Christie, Angelina Jolie, Marion Cotillard, Halle Berry and Jodie Foster.

I don't know about you but I gave up on Desperate Housewives a long time ago. Seems like the bloom has fallen off the rose because the season premiere was down 23% from last year. it still had enough viewers to win the night for ABC.

The writer of The Queen is working on a sequel this time without "the queen" in the lead. (would it still then be a sequel?) This film will focus on the transition of power from Clinton to George W. Bush and Tony Blair's reaction to the whole mess.

Wish I could get paid to drive around Spain like Gwyneth Paltrow and three others are. Life is just not fair. Paltrow on Spanish Roadtrip for PBS

Tube Tonight
If you haven't been watching Damages on FX you have missed out. Tonight Glenn Close asks the questions of Ted Danson as Arthur Frobisher (remember when they co-starred in the incest drama Something About Amelia?) in his deposition.

Five Days, a joint HBO/BBC production takes place over five Tuesdays. The premise is the search for a woman who went missing leaving her two small children wandering on the side of the road on their way to visit their grandparents. Script is written by Gwyneth Hughes.

Castings
Dakota Blue Richards who will make her film debut as the lead in the upcoming potential franchise film The Golden Compass (isn't it great that there is finally a girl in the lead of a franchise type film) has been cast as the lead in The Secret of Moonacre. The film is based on the classic children's novel The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge. (Variety)

Nancy Bardawil makes her feature film directing debut at the helm of Greta an interracial teen romance starring Hillary Duff. (Hollywood Reporter)

Monday, October 1

In Praise of Julie Taymor
Last week I took issue with NY Magazine putting four white guys on the cover heralding the re-ascendency of the American auteur. The film press is very free with calling male directors auteurs, yet very seldom do they describe women directors that way. Here is an official definition from dictionary.com

A filmmaker whose individual style and complete control over all elements of production give a film its personal and unique stamp.

Well, it is clear to me that Julie Taymor qualifies for that title and having just seen Across the Universe, I firmly believe she is one of the most interesting and artistic directors working today -- male or female.

Across the Universe tells the story of the political upheaval in the late 60s through the music of the Beatles. That in itself makes it interesting. Whereas Hairspray was a very traditional musical, Across the Universe is very untraditional. They are moments of brilliance (the army induction sequence) and moments of self indulgence. The film is too long by about 20 minutes, yet it is one of the most original and visually interesting films I have seen in a long, long time.

The cast of mostly unknowns (except for Evan Rachel Wood) who has come a long way since My So Called Life, is given such rich material and choreography that I can only imagine how fun the shoot was. There are beautifully choreographed sequences, specifically the juxtaposition of the funeral of a young white soldier killed in Vietnam and the funeral of a young black boy killed in the Detroit riots to the lyrics of Let it Be (sung by the young boy) is amazing. There are also fun cameos by Eddie Izzard, Bono and Salma Hayek.

Go see this film, I guarantee you won't be bored. Stephen Holden of the NY Times agrees. Here is a great quote:

Somewhere around its midpoint, Across the Universe captured my heart, and I realized that falling in love with a movie is like falling in love with another person. Imperfections, however glaring, become endearing quirks once you’ve tumbled.

News
Backstage has an interview with Jane Fleming head of Women in Film who discusses their second annual entertainment forum which will take place in LA Oct 6-7. (via HerHollywood) Some interesting quotes from the piece:

"Thirty-five years ago, when [WIF] was started, there were very few executives, and now that landscape looks enormously different. I feel like the tide is shifting for women behind the camera," she said. "Hopefully, in 30 years from now, we'll be looking at a whole different landscape."

"You have a variety of [female] showrunners," she said, referring to writer-producers such as Shonda Rhimes (Grey's Anatomy), Jenji Kohan (Weeds), and Mara Brock Akil (Girlfriends, The Game). "The great part of a woman running a show is that they inevitably employ many women, and then those women get trained to be able to run their own shows. So there's a real domino effect that can happen quite quickly in television.

Women in Film Honors Behind-the-Scenes Femmes (Backstage)

Sarah Polley won best director honors at the annual Directors Guild of Canada awards for her feature debut Away from Her. (available now on DVD) (Variety)

A woman directing men is not as common as one might think. Mimi Leder is set direct Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas in The Code. This is her first feature since Pay it Forward in 2000. "Freeman will portray a veteran thief who recruits a younger crook, played by Banderas, to help him pull off one final job in order to repay his debt to the Russian mob." (Variety)

Anne Thompson on how Stacey Snider's doing at Dreamworks. Hint...really well.
Stacey Snider makes Dream work (Variety)

Marsha Mason has been out of the limelight for some time growing herbs on her organic farm in New Mexico. On the eve of her return in a new off-Broadway play, Mason puts her ranch on the market.
Actress Marsha Mason selling `a little piece of heaven' (AP via Miami Herald)

Tilda Swinton is an actress with the ability to be in the biggest films (Narnia) and the smallest films (Stephanie Daley- rent this if you haven't seen it). This Friday she opens opposite George Clooney in the legal thriller Michael Clayton.
Tilda Swinton Faces Off Against George Clooney (NY Daily News)

Helen Mirren blames women for body image problems. What's up with that?
Helen Mirren attacks stick-thin waif ideal (New Zealand Herald)

Angelina Jolie talks to the Australian Press about playing Marianne Pearl in A Mighty Heart. Wonder if the film will do better overseas?
Hollywood's Super Woman (Sydney Morning Herald)

Castings
Catherine Keener has joined the cast of the Soloist. "Story centers on Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless musician with schizophrenia who dreams of playing at L.A.’s Disney Hall." Script is by Susannah Grant. (Variety)

This one sounds good

Kathy Baker and James Brolin have joined Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson in the indie romantic drama Last Chance Harvey.

Baker plays the ex-wife of Hoffman, a down-on-his-luck New York jingle writer with a tough boss (Richard Schiff). He becomes romantically involved with a lonely bureaucrat (Thompson) with an overbearing mother (Eileen Atkins) on a trip to London.

(Hollywood Reporter)


Tube Tonight
Season premiere of Girlfriends at 9pm on the CW

Friday, September 28

Film of the week

Feminist producer Roz Heller's latest film Trade, a cautionary tale of human trafficking, opens today. For more information including theatre locations: Trade

Review
Trade is not an easy movie to watch -- which makes it all the more important to do so. The State Department estimates that 800,000 people -- 80% women and 50% children -- are trafficked across international borders each year. At last estimate, at least 10,000 are being smuggled into the US annually. These women and children are procured by a variety of means, some are stolen off the street, some are sold by family members, and some are duped with a promise of a better life.

Trade follows the story of Adriana (Paulina Gaitan), a happy 13-year old girl who is stolen off her bike while riding around her neighborhood in Mexico. The bike, which she received as a birthday gift from her brother, upset her mother because she knew the danger her daughter could be in while riding alone on the streets. But her brother, Jorge (Cesar Ramos), a petty criminal who shakes down tourists promising sex with minors, has no idea the danger he has put her in.

After Adriana's abduction Jorge sets out to get her back and relies on his street savvy to do so not realizing the global implications -- he just wants his sister back. On his journey he meets Ray (Kevin Kline) a Texas cop, on his own search and they become uneasy partners to recover Adriana in the short window they have before she disappears forever.

German director Marco Kreuzpainter using mostly handheld camera brings us on their journey from Mexico across the border all the way to the stash house in New Jersey where Adriana will be sold online to the highest bidder.

The most painful and harrowing scenes are the sex scenes because they are not about sex, but about rape. The scenes are extremely well done and because you know what happens you don't need to see anything -- the director leaves it to your imagination -- and retains the dignity of the victims. An example of this is when Adriana is sold for the first time you see pulled into a bed of reeds, which serves as a kind of hidden sex shanty town. The toilet paper hanging, and the scared faces of the kids is enough for you to know what goes on the cardboard planks between the reeds.

Because the film world is lately so fixated on escapist entertainment, it might be difficult to engage audiences in this film. Hopefully, it will have a long life as an educational tool, because the most important message is that this is happening right under our noses and we look the other way and don't do anything about it. It's time we woke up as a culture and decided that we are not going to tolerate the selling women and children for others sexual pleasure. It's sick and wrong and governments across the world need to take this much more seriously.


News
Bionic Woman and Private Practice got off to good starts in their premiere outings on Wednesday. Bionic Woman Kicks in for NBC (Hollywood Reporter via Reuters)

Bonnie Hunt eyes TV talk show for '08 (Reuters via Washington Post)

Producer Lynda Obst along with Marc Rosen have signed a first look TV deal with CBS Paramount Network Television.

Interview with Julie Taymor on Across the Universe (playing now in theatres.)
Julie Taymor (Huffington Post)

In what promises to be the first of many kudos for her performance in La Vie en Rose, Marion Cotillard will win the breakthrough award at the Palm Springs Film Festival in January.

A preview of the new 2.5 hour documentary on abortion by American X director, Tony Kaye which will be released in NY next Friday. (full review next week) Hot Head Plays it Cool with Lake of Fire (Hollywood Reporter via Reuters)

Oprah is the highest paid TV celebrity. It's official, she has more money than God. Oprah earns four times more than other TV stars

Thursday, September 27

What the F#@k?

NY Magazine puts four male directors on the cover with the headline "The New York Wave, The Return of the New York Auteur"

Why is it that auteur so freely used only to describe male directors?

Interesting, that the story about Noah Baumbach is about the creative marriage between Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

News
It's Jenna Elfman day - Elfman will again collaborate with her Dharma and Greg co-creator Dottie Dartland Zicklin on Literary Superstar where Elfman will play a literary publicist. Elfman has also signed on to co-star with Tim Allen in The Six Wives of Henry Lefay. Other actresses in the film are Andie MacDowell, Paz Vega, Kelli Garner and S. Epatha Merkerson.

I know these actresses need jobs but the premise of former wives fighting over the will of their husband who they think is dead sounds dreadful.

Universal has bought Replacing the Nanny a comedy pitch from Marcy Kaplan which Scott Stuber and Mary Parent will produce from a script by Kaplan. (Variety)

The 15th Hampton's Fest takes place oct 17-21. Some notable screenings include: the Doris Duke biopic Bernard and Doris starring Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes, August Rush directed by Kirsten Sheridan, Alison Eastwood's Rails & Ties and Tamra Jenkins' Savages. Vanessa Redgrave will receive a lifetime achievement award.

Pat Kingsley the super-publicist to the stars is stepping down as chairperson and CEO of PMK/HBH after thirty years.

Interview with Jamie Babbit- director of But I'm a Cheerleader and Itty Bitty Titty Committee. Jamie Babbit (After Ellen)


TV Tonight
Season premieres: Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty.

Interesting Quote

"I think there probably remains an underlying discomfort in this country with women in power." Katie Couric at the National Press Club this week

Wednesday

TV Tonight
Series Premieres- Shonda Rhimes continues her domination of ABC with the launch of Private Practice. Buzz is that the first show is so-so but will improve dramatically in the coming weeks. Also launching is the Bionic Woman remake (see yesterday's review). Neither show has been well reviewed but I wouldn't count out either especially Private Practice.

From today's NY Times review on both shows:

NBC’s show, which is more about fembot martial arts and slick Matrix-ish special effects than about character development, is oriented toward young male viewers. There is no such excuse for ABC’s Private Practice, a spinoff of Grey’s Anatomy, which is also on tonight and supposedly offers a postfeminist sensibility that is more playful and palatable than the overearnest women’s lib of the Lindsay Wagner generation.

Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery (Kate Walsh), a top-notch surgeon, has left Seattle to heal her broken heart in Los Angeles, where her best friend has founded a private wellness clinic. She is no longer surrounded by the kind of strong, tough, ambitious surgeons played by Sandra Oh and Chandra Wilson. Instead her new colleagues collectively offer one of the most depressing portrayals of the female condition since The Bell Jar.

OUCH

News
3rd La Femme International Film Festival which focuses on women filmmakers highlighting their commerical releases for a worldwide audience. Fest runs from Oct 11-14 in LA. Gala on Oct 14 will celebrate the work of Martha Coolidge, Rosanna Arquette and Lea Thompson and Sara Risher. La Femme

The FX cable channel has handed out a series commitment to Queen B, a female workplace drama from the creator of Nip/Tuck Queen B (Hollywood Reporter via Reuters)

The gala royal performance of Sarah Gavron's Brick Lane based on the book by Monica Ali has been canceled for the first time since 1958. The filming was protested last year and it looks like Prince Charles wants to stay away from controversy (except of his own making) Film will show at London Film Fest. Royal Pulls Out of Gala

Castings
"Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren and Robin Wright Penn have joined the cast of State of Play also starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Jason Bateman (he has had an amazing career revitalization over the last two years).

McAdams will play a reporter in the middle of a career-making story, as her newspaper investigates the death of the mistress of a fast-rising congressman. Mirren will play the newspaper's steely editor. Wright Penn will play the congressman's estranged wife. She becomes romantically involved with the pol's former campaign manager (Pitt), who leads the newspaper's investigative team. Norton plays the congressman and Bateman plays the other lead reporter." (Variety)

"Universal Pictures has set Jennifer Aniston to star with Aaron Eckhart in Traveling, a drama that marks the directing debut of Brandon Camp. Aniston will play a floral designer who works in a Seattle hotel where a charismatic self-help guru is conducting a weekend seminar on coping with grief. As they get to know each other, she factors heavily into the guru's realization that he practices none of the principles he teaches." (Variety)

Tuesday

Preview Review - The Bionic Woman
Tomorrow night is the premiere of one of the few new fall shows with a female lead. I'm a big fan of David Eick, Executive Producer of Battlestar Galactica, who is brains behind this show too. The premise is the pretty much the same as the original Bionic Woman, Jamie Sommers here played by English actress Michelle Ryan is injured in a devastating car crash and several of her body parts are replaced with bionics. Mind you these are not 1970s bionics, but 2007 bionics -- so the action scenes are quicker and way cooler than the version with Lindsay Wagner.

The show is great from an action perspective especially all the scenes with Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck from Battlestar), as rebel bionic woman Sarah Corvus in them, but the biggest problem (and I don't know how they are going to solve it) is with Michelle Ryan. She is just terrible and stiff. Hopefully, she will relax as the season progresses. I was also pissed off that the first major action sequence is a fight between the two Bionic women. I guess a Bionic girlfight will make the guys happy.

News

The Madcat Women's International Festival is happening this week in SF. We is an interview with curator Ariella Ben-Dov. Madcat

I love and respect Dr. Martha Lauzen, the professor at San Diego State University who tracks women working in the film and TV industries. Here is a profile of her. Love the first paragraph.

"Martha Lauzen won't divulge her age, her marital or familial status, even her history on the faculty at San Diego State University. They are inquiries, she says, on which women for too long have been judged."

Full article from the Bend Weekly: Lauzen is Keeping an Eye on Hollywood

Jessica Biel is in talks to play Wonder Woman in the new Justice League movie.

Sally Field has supposedly signed to play Mary Todd Lincoln opposite Liam Neeson in Steven Spielbery's adaptation of Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln


TV Tonight

Series Premiere
Cane about a Cuban American family in South Florida starring Jimmy Smits and a predominantly Latino cast including Hector Elizondo and Rita Moreno. It was created by Cynthia Cidre the screenwriter of the Mambo Kings. Jimmy Smits said this about the show and its creator: "Cynthia is somebody I respect, whose voice is authentic." (EW)

Season Premieres
Bones
Law & Order SVU- Cynthia Nixon guest stars as a woman suspected of abandoning her child.

DVD Releases
Black Book- Paul Verhoeven goes back to his native Netherlands to tell the story of a jewish singer in hiding from the Nazis who fall in love with a Nazi officer. Very good movie. (subtitled)
Evening- read my earlier review on the Huffington Post: Evening

Anti-woman confirmation of the week
Diet confessions of the stars from US Magazine

"I basically stuck with fruit, vegetables and fish [to slim down doe The Devil Wears Prada]. I wouldn't reccomed that. Emily Blunt and I would clutch at each other and cry because we were so hungry." Anne Hathaway

"I have often felt there was a lot of pressure on me to look good...It's like they pay me not to eat. It's living hell." Marcia Cross

Monday, September 24

Box Office Roundup
Milla Jovovich topped the weekend box office at 24 million with her zombie romp Resident Evil: Extinction; number two was the Jessica Alba romantic comedy Good Luck Chuck. Jodie Foster was third with The Brave One. Amanda Bynes' Sydney White debuted at #6. The Jane Austen Book Club opened on 25 screens for a total of $160,520 with a per screen average of $6,421. It goes to 40 on Friday and 1,000 on October 5.

TV
I'm not too keen on many of the new shows this season, but I do like Heroes which starts its sophmore season tonight. The show has just hired its first female writer - J.J. Philbin (yes, she is Regis' daughter) I want to know how it is allowed that a major TV show where half the characters are women had no women in the writers room. If anyone has an answer other than that's the way things go in Hollywood, email me at melsil@earthlink.net.

News
Annette Bening has dropped out of the Broadway bound production of Joanne Murray Smith's The Female of the Species. She was to play a feminist (yes, that word is actually in the description) literary giant with writers bloack whose life unravels when a fan knocks on her door. (Variety) A plum role for someone like Frances McDormand? Sigourney Weaver? Glenn Close?

Whoopi Ratings: The View has not suffered under Whoopi. According to Variety: "After two weeks, "The View" under Goldberg is averaging 3.5 million total viewers, a 7% increase from 3.3 million under O'Donnell last season."

Cindy Chupack late of Sex and the City will create a new Romantic Comedy anthology series for NBC with producer JoAnn Alfano.

Look for Marlo Thomas to guest star on an upcoming episode of Ugly Betty.

Robin Swicord and Women Directors at Toronto

Robin Swicord on The Jane Austen Book Club: Robin Swicord is the writer and director of the new film The Jane Austen Book Club. She talks about being one of a relatively few female directors in Hollywood — and what it's like to make the transition from screenwriter to director.

"Anytime a woman makes a movie with a female protagonist you run the risk of having people call it a chick flick. it's a way of marginalizing women."
Listen: Filming the Jane Austen Book Club

Missed this article on the directing gender gap published during the Toronto Film Festival. For those who follow this issue closely, the arguments here are familiar and are written at least once a year by some reporter somewhere. The more important question to ask is when will someone actually do something about it?

Some choice quotes:

"Screenwriter, producer and director Robin Swicord has been a player in the movie business a lot longer than her list of credits would suggest. "I can't really believe it really happened," she says of The Jane Austen Book Club, the first film to bear her name as director, "especially considering that there have been so many films I've tried to get made for a long time."

"Now in her 50s, Swicord has written many more screenplays than those that got made (including Little Women, The Perez Family, Memoirs of a Geisha and Matilda). She was paid for them, but that's not the point. "You're writing in order to make a film."

"She likens the usual course for a screen project to "pushing a rock up the hill, pushing it up the hill and (the movie) either never gets made, or 20 years later someone else makes it."

and

"Further analysis uncovered a complex set of obstacles for women: as writers and directors, they don't tend to get agents easily, possibly because agents tend to pick those candidates with the best career options.

and

"What will finally change things for women in the big studios, suggests television and film professor Martha Lauzen, who conducts the annual survey of women directors and writers at San Diego State University, is a different view in the marketing departments where green-lighting decisions are made.

"I don't think the female audience in film or television has been valued by the powers that be. The assumption is that women will watch male-driven stories as well as men, but men will only watch male-driven stories. I think that's a bit of wishful thinking, but I think that's why there haven't been as many female-driven stories."

Women on Top of Film World