Women at the Box Office This Weekend

I'm in LA this weekend to moderate a panel on women film bloggers at the Women in Film Entertainment forum so things are light today and there will be no weekly email.

No new women centric releases. Changeling goes wide.

NY and LA see - I've Loved You So Long.

Films Remaining in Theatres
The Secret Life of Bees
Happy-Go-Lucky
Rachel Getting Married
Nights at Rodanthe
The Duchess
Trouble the Water
Mamma Mia!
The Longshots

Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Greta Scacchi

For her honesty and optimism

The lack of good roles for older women in film or on stage is an enduring problem.
"We're not seeing much of a change from that Jane Austen view that the important thing for a woman is getting the right partner and everything is interesting up until that point," she says. "Perhaps there was some truth in Jane Austen's days about your lot being predictable after you'd gone past marrying age. Nowadays, you see a whole new interpretation of life after 45 for women but it's not reflected in the writing."

Yet she remains optimistic, confident that the pressure is building for stories that relate to the lives of those ignored by the youth-oriented, dumbed-down market with its staple diet of coming-of-age tales and frothy romance.

"I'm glad to be this age at this time," she says. "When it comes to theatre and cinema audiences, our generation likes going to the theatre - we're not sitting at home knitting. We want to go out to the cinema … there's a market for more grown-up stories about these exciting women today."

Queen for day, woman for life (Brisbane Times)
photo: Insidefoto/PR Photos

Suzan Lori Parks is the First Public Theatre Master Writer

The Public Theatre in NY with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has named playwright Suzan-Lori Parks as the first recipient of the Master Writer Chair position.

From the press statement: the grant will "provide an artistic home and support for established playwrights whose work has set the standard for the highest level of achievement in theatre,"

Parks will also be a professor of dramatic writing at NYU.
Suzan-Lori Parks Named Public Theater Master Writer Chair (Playbill)

Equality Watch: Tribeca Institute Awards Filmmaker Grants

The Tribeca Institute announced the first recipients of its Sloan Awards for filmmaking. The Sloan awards focus on science topics.

Out of the five awards two are to women
Amy Redford for Face Value about actress Hedy Lamarr’s career as an inventor
Kathryn Maughan screenplay about Marie Curie A Noble Affair.

Update
Looks like there are more women involved than the story indicated- here are the additional women involved

Face Value
Gretchen Somerfeld Screenwriter

Kitty Hawk
Lucy Barzun Donnelly

The Radioactive Boy Scout
Danielle Renfrew Producer
Tribeca awards 5 film grants (Variety)

Who Says Women are Not a Market?

Mamma Mia has just become the highest grossing British film in the UK. (It qualifies as a British film under their crazy rules.)

Total box office take so far -- $109.9 million. Ir recently surpassed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and they think it will knock off Titanic. (how these all qualify as British films I don't know)

'Mamma' top-grossing British film in the U.K. (HR)

Femme Castings

• Amy Adams will star in the indie drama Daughter of the Queen of Sheba. Script is by Karen Croner based on the bio of NPR correspondent Jacki Lyden, centers on how a woman uses her mother's madness and delusions to empower herself. (Variety)
  
  
• Anne Hathaway will star in the romantic comedy The Fiance playing a woman who cancels wedding plans and breaks up with her seemingly perfect fiance so she can try to figure out who she really is. Her meddling parents try to patch things up between the pair, making it impossible for her to move on. (Variety)

• Naomi Watts is in negotiations to topline "My Name Is Jody Williams," that Audrey Wells wrote and will direct. Film is the true story of Jody Williams, a strong-willed teacher working for a temporary employment agency who left her life in Washington to pursue an unlikely career in global activism. Almost a decade and a half later, Williams was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for leading an international campaign to eradicate land mines. (HR)

• Anna Paquin has been tapped to star in "The Irena Sendler Story," a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation for CBS. Paquin will play Sendler, a Polish woman credited with saving the lives of thousands of Jewish children during World War II. Sendler, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, died in May at age 98. (HR)

• Amy Pietz has been tapped for the title role in Lifetime's drama pilot "The Amazing Mrs. Novak." Based on the six-part U.K. series "The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard," centers on Trish Novak (Pietz), a supermarket manager who unexpectedly becomes the governor of New Jersey. Vanessa Taylor is the project's writer-showrunner. She exec produces with Carolyn Bernstein, Jane Featherstone and Stephen Garrett. (HR)

• Rachael Taylor, Amanda Walsh and "quarterlife" star Bitsie Tulloch have landed the female leads in Washingtonienne HBO's comedy pilot from "Sex and the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker. Based on the semi-autobiographical book by Jessica Cutler about the sexploits of a low-level female congressional staffer with powerful men on Capitol Hill, it revolves around the professional and personal lives of three smart, sophisticated 28-year-old girls working on the Hill. Susanna Fogel and Joni Lefkowitz penned the script for "Washingtonienne" and are exec producing with Parker, Parker's producing partner Alison Benson, Sarah Condon and Stacy Traub. (HR)

• Lifetime has lined up Cybill Shepherd and Faye Dunaway to play grandmothers in the first two of its four movie adaptations of Nora Roberts novels. Shepherd will star in "High Noon" along with Emilie de Ravin and Ivan Sergei, while Dunaway will be joined in "Midnight Bayou" by Jerry O'Connell and Lauren Stamile. (HR)
  

Equality Watch: NEA Funds 7 New Plays

From the Washington Post:

The National Endowment for the Arts has announced the selection of seven plays to be funded as part of its New Play Development Program. The pilot project, which is being administered by Arena Stage, is designed not only to underwrite new works already in progress but also to spot successful collaborations among artists, theaters, communities and other entities that might be used as models.

The largest grants - $90,000- went to male playwrights. Shocker. Of the five $20,000 development grants -- two-- went to women. Claudia Rankine and Aditi Brennan Kapil.

Percentage of women - 35%
NEA to Nurture 7 Varied New Plays

Equality Watch: International Documentary Association Nominations

I've been told by a variety of people for stories I've written that the documentary world is pretty much 50/50, and that at times women directors and women's stories dominate the festivals. I'm no documentary expert but looking at the list of the feature nominees for the International Documentary Association annual awards there is nary a women's story of a female director. My biggest question is: where is Trouble the Water one of the most popular docs of the year from a critical and public perspective.

I guess people will say that the short section is dominated by women (four out of the five) but I don't think that cuts it.
Short female nominees:
"Kicks Like a Girl," directed by Jenny Mackenzie
"La Corona," directed by Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega
"Smile Pinki," directed by Megan Mylan
"Tongzhi in Love," directed by Ruby Yang

The three achievement awards will also be given to men.

Women documentarians - what do you think?
"Kassim," "Wire," "Stranded," "Waltz" and "Young" Compete for IDA Honors (Indiewire)

Roseanne -- 20 Years Later

Can you believe Roseanne premiered 20 years ago? Think we would see a woman like Roseanne on TV today? Fat and outspoken. Forget the outspoken part. Think about the fat part. She was fat, not just overweight. She was obese as was John Goodman. The kids were skinny which to me was always a bit unrealistic cause I don't really remember any shows where the girls dealt with how their mom's weight affected them.

Women on TV today are so skinny. Remember the show Less Than Perfect that ran a couple of years ago? That was supposedly a show about a "full-sized" young woman. Sara Rue was no full-sized woman -- she was like an 8 or a 10. I guess to TV, that's full-sized.

The issues that the show covered and dealt with are now just ignored or brushed under the rug. I find it amazing and pathetic that the show was NEVER nominated for an Emmy during its run.

EW gathered the cast as well as execs and creatives for a reunion (some going on the record for the first time.) The early part of the story focuses on the early controversy between Roseanne and Matt Williams who got the Writers Guild credit for creating the show much to Roseanne's disgust and wrath. She, of course, was deemed crazy and difficult (which she probably was) but she was also fighting for herself and her life. This was a depiction of her life. They threatened to fire her multiple times.

Roseanne: I was crying all the time. They said, ''Oh, we're going to fire you off the show.'' George Clooney put this sign on my door, where it said, ''Roseanne Barr.'' He took that name tag out and put ''Valerie Harper'' instead because she had just been fired off her own show [Valerie]. I will always love George for that. They were compiling this list of all the offensive things I had done to fire me.

Some issues that the show dealt with that we wouldn't see on TV today include: birth-control, PMS, getting your period, the lesbian kiss (ok- you'll see this one). I still remember what a big deal the lesbian kiss episode was. Everyone watched it.

Lecy Goranson (played Becky): I can't tell you how many women my age have said that they were watching [the birth-control episode] with their mom and then looked over at each other and were like, ''Okay, we should talk about it.''

Amy Sherman-Palladino (was a writer on the show for three seasons): They would not let you do that story today. I think that was the real amazing thing about it. Keeping true to those characters and true to life was everything. It was never about, Let's break ground! Because that's the kind of thought process that brings up bulls---, contrived stories.

Roseanne sums the legacy of the up best:

It's more relevant now than it was then. I'm very proud of its timelessness, and the fact that it has a political edge that is even more relevant now than it was then. I'm proud of the fact that it's never gone off the air for 20 years.

A Roseanne Family Reunion

Equality Watch: Variety's 10 Actors to Watch

6 are women? Am I dreaming. (Gotta say the women on the list are way more interesting that the guys.)

Melissa Leo- Frozen River
Viola Davis- Doubt
Kat Dennings- Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
Rebecca Hall- vicky Cristina Barcelona
Taraji P. Henson- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mia Wasikowska- Defiance

Mira Nair Film Freaks Out the UN

Eight high profile film directors from Wim Wenders to Gus Van Sant to Jane Campion recently premiered their collaboration 8 in which each "director takes a different angle to show how poverty, climate change, lack of access to education and basic health facilities are affecting the world's needy but also those living in the rich West."

But Mira Nair's film about a Muslim woman who leaves her family for a married man caused the sponsoring UN organization UNDP to pull its support after producers refused to censor her portion on the film.

Nair reacting to the controversy

Nair, in Rome to promote "8," defended her choice, saying it was about a woman's right to express herself.

"It's a storm in a teacup frankly. It's not what the film deserved," she said.

"My film is inspired by a true story and was written by the person who lived that story. Freedom does not come neatly packaged. It comes with pain," she said.

"I also wanted to make the film because of the reaction in the West to any woman who lives under a hijab or a burqa. They are usually identified as women who have no rights and are submissive ... which is completely untrue."

Top film-makers focus on poverty, despite U.N. row (Reuters)
photo: Martin Schoeller

Movies I Want to See: Incendiary

Today marks the beginning of a new feature here at Women & Hollywood -- Movies I Want to See. This feature will cover films that have been seen at film festivals or other finished films that don't have release dates here in the US.

The first film is Incendiary which premiered at Sundance and recently played at the London Film Festival. It stars Michelle Williams as a woman who loses her son in a London terrorist attack and is directed by Sharon Maguire who directed the first Bridget Jones' Diary.

Check out the trailer:


Sharon Maguire turns her focus to Osama bin Laden in Incendiary (The Times)

What Do You Think About TV This Season?

Big disappointment to me. Haven't committed to many new shows. I watched one episode of the Ex-List -- which has just been canceled by CBS-- (now I can clear the other episodes out of my DVR without guilt) and I thought it sucked. Poor Elizabeth Reaser. Could they have made her wear any skimpier clothing and act more like an idiot. The woman is talented but needs a good vehicle.

Best show of the year: FRINGE- hands down. Love this show. Watch it every week right away (which I hardly do at all) Anna Torv is awesome and I love all the mysteries and am intrigued by the "pattern."

Happy surprise: Rita Rocks- I thought Lifetime was crazy to air five shows last week while rolling out the show but I have to say that I really enjoyed the show. I watched all the episodes this weekend and love the cast chemistry especially the chemistry between star Nicole Sullivan and her husband played by Richard Ruccolo.

Shows losing their luster for me include: Lipstick Jungle, House (I am so tired of his obnoxiousness); Entourage

Shows I still looove: Cold Case, Law & Order SVU; Bones; Grey's Anatomy

Don't forget: Season Premiere of 30 Rock this Thursday night.

photo credit Nicole Sullivan: Glenn Harris/Photorazzi

Women Playwrights Demand Equality

Big props to playwrights Julia Jordan and Sarah Schulman for organizing women playwrights in NY to discuss sexism in the NY theatre. This evening 150 women will be holding a discussion (which I will be attending) with some of the artistic directors of the NY off-Broadway theatres to discuss how to get more women's voices on the marquees.

Contending that their male counterparts in the 2008-9 season are being produced at 14 of the largest Off Broadway institutions at four times the rate that women are (40 plays by men; 10 by women)

And bigger props to my bud playwright Theresa Rebeck for having the guts to go on the record about the sexism:

I personally don’t think playwriting is a gene on a Y chromosome,...Many of our male peers find the debate intolerable. Men in the community seem to think that everything is fine.”...Ms. Rebeck said that male friends “in the system say to me I have to keep my mouth shut; don’t be part of the problem, don’t be a whiner.”

They clearly count on women being too afraid to speak out. It takes people who have clout (like Rebeck) to take a stand. And no, that's not easy. Other women need to stand with her and support her.

Some of the genius artistic directors really showed the glass houses they live in especially Lincoln Center's Andre Bishop who made the genius statement:

Most artistic directors are men, and they don’t relate to or connect with women as much as men,” “I try to think about these things all the time, but I don’t, because I’m a pathetic mortal.

I think he is just plain pathetic and condescending.

Carole Rothman, artistic director and founder of Second Stage, who in the past was known as a stalwart supporter of female artists said:

“Is there a cultural bias against women? I don’t know,” she said, but either way, “People don’t care.”

People. Don't. Care. Wow. I believe that people don't know and that they do care once they learn about the issues. Do we really want a theatre world dominates by males voices and visions? I'm shocked at the narrowmindedness of these so-called culture leaders. These people have influence over what we see in the theatre all across the country. If they produce a show at their theatre it has a much greater chance of being produced somewhere else.

Playwright Gina Gionfriddo also went on the record:

She had been told that her characters were unlikable. “I wonder if Neil LaBute hears this,” she said of a playwright known for his corrosive depictions of human nature. She also suggested that women’s plays often do not resolve as conclusively as those by men, and that they do not follow the Aristotelian model of drama, which makes directors uncomfortable.

I find this fascinating. Women filmmakers have some of the same issues. Women and men write differently because we are different and have different experiences. Is it maybe that all the models that we think work are male models? It's not rocket science. If we want a culture to reflect ALL the participants we need to figure out a way to have ALL women's voices (not just white women) heard.

Charging Bias by Theaters, Female Playwrights to Hold Meeting (NY Times)

Unacceptable

What is Wrong With This Picture?

How can a conversation moderated by Scott Macaulay of Filmmaker Magazine that covers "indie film past, present and future" be convened without a single woman? The participants were: Josh Braun, Matt Dentler, Ira Deutchman, Ted Hope, Lars Knudsen, and Jay Van Hoy.

Shameful!

Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Ellen Degeneres

For using her show to denounce Sarah Palin's support of a federal ban on gay marriage.

Ellen has become increasingly political recently and the folks at After Ellen explain her effectiveness:

What makes Ellen's move from famously nonpolitical to outspoken advocate so extraordinary is that she has been able to do it without becoming polarizing. No one brings up Ellen's name when mentioning activist celebrities, nor does she get the derision sometimes heaped on stars like Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and even fellow out comedian Rosie O'Donnell. And I think the reason for this is simple: Ellen has spent all these years on her show being disarmingly likable. And now, quite simply, people trust her.

Ellen takes on Palin's stance on Gay Marriage
by tehdownloads

Hat tip- After Ellen

Women at the Box Office This Weekend

Check out my reviews of I've Loved You So Long starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Changeling starring Angelina Jolie.

Films Remaining in Theatres
The Secret Life of Bees
Happy-Go-Lucky (I left this accidentally off my weekly email)
Rachel Getting Married
Nights at Rodanthe
The Duchess
The Women
Trouble the Water
Mamma Mia!
The Longshots

The Renaissance of Kristin Scott Thomas: I've Loved You So Long

Kristin Scott Thomas was on the cusp of Hollywood leading ladydom a little over a decade ago after her smoldering Oscar nominated performance in The English Patient. Her two subsequent mainstream American films where she was teamed with Hollywood's leading men -- Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer and Harrison Ford in Random Hearts -- were both flops artistically and commercially, so she returned to her family in her adopted France and has been working on smaller mostly European films and theatre.

But she's back on the Oscar radar with her exquisite performance in I've Loved You So Long the new film written and directed by French novelist Phillipe Claudel which opens today. She's also plays a pivotal role in the word of mouth movie of the summer the French thriller Tell No One by Guillaume Canet based on the novel by Harlan Coben. It's a wonderful thriller with great twists and turns. And she made her Broadway debut this fall as Arkadina is the spectacularly reviewed The Seagull opposite Peter Sarsgaard and I'm sure is already shortlisted for a Tony next spring. I personally felt that Sarsgaard was miscast and that the two of them had very little chemistry, but I am in the minority with this opinion.

Her new film I've Loved you So Long tells the story of a woman just released from 15 years in prison for killing her son. This is tough stuff and not a movie for the faint hearted. But it is a good movie, so good because the story of her life is seen on her face not through the words, and Scott Thomas bares herself in a way that you can't help but sympathize with her. Her performance (even though it is a foreign film) is so good that it has propelled her to the top tier of contenders for the best actress nomination.

We first see her sitting in an airport looking drab and sallow with not a stitch of makeup on. The stillness of her face sucks you in. Her much younger sister (Elsa Zylberstein) willingly takes her in after her release desperate to get to know her sister and to find out why she would kill her own child. The film is about these two women getting to know each other again, and about Juliette's (Scott Thomas) reintegration into society. As Juliette thaws after her long incarceration, color is restored to her face and to the film's palette.

The circumstances surrounding the death of her son are complicated and not totally plausible when the truth is revealed (which I don't want to give away.) But the death of her child doomed Juliette to prison no matter if she was locked up or free to roam. You see that sadness and emptiness on every frame of the film.

Here's the preview:

Review- Changeling

Here's the problem with Changeling the new Clint Eastwood film starring Angelina Jolie, actually it's one of the problems, but it's the biggest, the brightest and the reddest -- Angelina Jolie's lips. Every single person I've talked to who has seen the film -- especially the women -- the first thing out of their mouth is what a distraction her lips are. One actually said, "am I making too much of this" which I have been thinking to myself over the last couple of days. As a feminist, I really try to see beyond the looks and lips but this film made it virtually impossible because they were so big onscreen and were a total distraction. I think this has become a real problem for Angelina Jolie the actress because she seem to be getting in the way of herself.

The lips are a reflection of the tone of the film which is a male interpretation of a woman, and Jolie is the perfect person to embody that reflection. She's gorgeous and sexy, yet is always seen through the reflection of her family. This could have been a feminist story -- a woman fights back after being thrown in the nut house because she refuses to tow the party line -- but sadly the whole movie rings hollow.

Jolie plays a single mom whose son gets kidnapped. (The film is based on a true story.) When the police find a child that is clearly not her son, but kind of looks like him they convince her to take him home. She of course knows that he is not her son but the cops need a win and they do everything they can to convince her that the boy is hers even though he's shorter and his teeth don't match. But nobody listens to her and they conspire to make her come off crazy. She fights back and goes to the press and the price she pays for speaking out is being locked in the psych ward where she discovers a whole band of women just like her being held for no reason other than speaking out against the police. One of her fellow patients is the always fantastic Amy Ryan is a weird perm.

She is able to get released by the anti-police corruption crusader Gustav Briegleb played by John Malkovich and then takes on the system and fights to get the other women released. I guess that fight would be too much of a leap which brings me to the second big problem with the film -- you never get the sense of why she becomes an advocate. You understand intellectually why she does it, but it never comes through onscreen. One minute she's in the mental ward and the next minute she's standing outside as the women are released. You don't see any character development. It just doesn't work.

There was also no energy in Jolie's performance -- she yelled once and cried non-stop but it felt that she was literally wearing a straght jacket the whole time. I thought that we would get to see the Angelina of Girl Interrupted a decade ago when she got committed but that actress doesn't seem to exist anymore as far as I can see. I don't know if celebrity and the exposure has restricted her onscreen but it kind of feels like it has. Her partner, Brad Pitt seems to be able to still disappear into his roles but maybe its different for women, especially those with big lips.

More Tina Fey

I can't decide who I love more lately, Rachel Maddow or Tina Fey. Isn't so amazing that smart women are the talk of this election cycle?

Tina's going to be photographed for the cover of Vanity Fair by Annie Leibovitz - solo. Here's some great quotes from today's big USA Today piece on her.

In an industry in which a woman can be either gorgeous or funny but rarely both, she's the rare exception. Fey can star in her own American Express ads, chasing Martin Scorsese through an airport, and rock a fancy David Meister frock on the red carpet. But she's still a comedy nerd, not entirely at home in the spotlight and still most comfortable in her broken-in Dansko clogs, which she slips into on set when the camera stops rolling.

And therein perhaps lies the key to Fey's appeal. Even when she was first garnering attention for her writing on Saturday Night Live, Fey came across not as a ham, but as the smart, polite girl next door — even as she gently layered on the sarcasm and wit.

"She deals with (fame) the same way she deals with everything else. She just works harder," says Lorne Michaels, executive producer of SNL, where Fey became the show's first female head writer. "She's strong and she's smart, which is a very appealing combination. You trust her way of looking at the world. There's nothing strident about her. She knows who she is."

Here's her on last night's SNL Weekend Update Thursday with Will Ferrell playing George W. Bush.

Don't forget that next Thursday night is the premiere of 30 Rock. You can see the whole episode now on Hulu. But this show needs out support so everyone should tune in next Thursday at 9:30pm on NBC.

Men Play Presidents in the Movies and in Real Life

On the eve of the presidential election, Harrison Ford (Air Force One) was picked as the best movie president in a moviefone poll that got 1.1 million votes. The rest of the top five includes most of the leading male actors of our time: Morgan Freeman (Deep Impact); Michael Douglas (The American President); Bill Pullman (Independence Day); Kevin Kline (Dave)...you get the drift.

Of course, there are no women in the top 10 (or the top 20) probably because we've never had a woman president. The last time a woman played the president on the big screen was 1999 when Lynne Thigpen took on the role in Bicentennial Man. (Thank you Wikipedia) Most of the women who have played president on the big screen did so decades ago in movies I never heard of: Ernestine Barrier in Project Moonbase in 1953; Polly Bergen in Kisses for My President in 1964 (I have heard of this one); Sally Champlin in 2001 in The Woman Every Man Wants (huh, so never heard of this); Joan Rivers in 1987's Les Patterson Saves the World; Loretta Swit in Whoops Apocalypse in 1986; and the one we all know- Glenn Close as Acting President in Air Force One.

On TV we've done a little better with Geena Davis in Commander in Chief (I still miss this show); Patricia Wettig (Prison Break) and Patty Duke in Hail to the Chief. All of those shows lasted one season. But this winter we will see Cherry Jones as the President Allison Taylor on 24.

Counting the amount of men who have played presidents on the big screen I got around 90. Roy Schneider has played a president three times, Gene Hackman, twice, both Randy and Dennis Quaid have played presidents, as well as five African American men. On TV, men have played the president on TV 26 times.

Now that we've had a woman almost as the democratic nominee (sigh) and a woman as the republican VP nominee (yikes) will we see women as the president on the big screen?

Harrison Ford voted best movie president: poll (Reuters via Yahoo)

News Briefs

• Penelope Cruz -- who's appearing in two current films, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and "Elegy" -- will be honored as the outstanding performer of the year at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, which runs Jan. 22-Feb.1. Cruz will be presented with the award at the Arlington Theatre on Jan. 31. (HR)

• Dakota Fanning will collect the Rising Star Award at the 20th Annual Palm Springs Intl. Film Festival. (Variety)

• Kristin Scott Thomas will receive Hollywood actress of the year honors from the Hollywood Film Festival. (Variety)

• New York Women in Film and Television will honor Laura Linney, Kyra Sedgwick, Nickelodeon prexy Cyma Zarghami and ad exec Linda Kaplan Thaler at its 28th annual Muse awards in NY on Dec 9. (Variety)
  

• Walden Media has purchased ``Tough Cookies,'' a script centered on life in the Girl Scouts by sisters Carley and Chelsea Steiner about a judge ordering a deadbeat dad and his rebellious daughter's friends to form a scout troop. They then use their unconventional ways to compete against snobbish rivals to win a national scout competition. (HR)
  

• Actress Charlotte Rampling will receive the lifetime achievement award for her "impressive portrayals of some of the most memorable female characters in modern cinema," at the Stockholm International Film Festival. (Macleans)

Rachel Maddow is Kicking Ass on MSNBC

If you're not watching or as of yesterday, podcasting the show - what are you waiting for? Her show totally rocks, is so interesting and informative. What I like best is that there are not 10 different people thinking they are smarter than everyone else competing for their two minutes of airtime. I used to watch AC 360 on CNN but haven't since Rachel went on the air.

Here's some interesting facts about Maddow:
She doesn't own a TV set (but is thinking of buying one).
Her show has only been on a little over a month and she is beating Larry King in the key area of 25- to 54-year-olds.
Has increased viewership during her 9pm hour to 1.7 million from 800,000.

Go girl.
Fresh Face on Cable, Sharp Rise in Ratings (NY Times)

Attention Women Filmmakers: MadCat Women's International Film Festival is Accepting Submissions

Direct from the folks at Madcat:

The MadCat Women’s International Film Festival was founded in 1996 to exhibit provocative and visionary works that are original in their use of the medium. MadCat is committed to showcasing women directors who challenge the use of sound and image and explore notions of visual story telling. MadCat sets itself apart from other women's festivals by curating its programs thematically and thus accepting a range of films about many different issues. By providing a dedicated exhibition venue MadCat encourages women and girls to take creative control behind the camera, increasing visibility and opportunity for women in the arts.

MadCat accepts submissions for a national touring program. The Festival curates approximately 12 programs of films and videos to tour around the country to universities, art houses, museums and microcinemas. The tour takes place each Fall.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
OVERVIEW
MadCat accepts films and video of all lengths and genres: experimental, narrative, documentary, animation, collage and whatever else you can think of. The Festival also accepts pieces produced in any year. MadCat’s only parameter is that the films and videos are directed by or co-directed by women.

Early Bird Deadline: Nov 17, 2008
Late Bird Deadline: Jan 25, 2009

Send your submission in today
ENTRY FORM: Please fill out and sign the MadCat Submission Form. A separate form is required for each film submitted. Feel free to photocopy this form or download a copy from our web site at Madcat

Please email us your full name, contact information and film title AND include a hard copy with your preview tape. You may fill in the fields in the form below and print this page from your web browser, or you may download and print a version of the form in Adobe Acrobat .pdf, or Microsoft Word.

Get to it!

The Aussies Get it: Women Want Sistahood Onscreen

Interesting piece from the Age in Australia on the opening of The Women.

There were women who cried when they watched the Sex and the City movie, and it wasn't because they couldn't afford the shoes. These same women probably flocked to see Mamma Mia!, which The New York Times called "the worst performance of Meryl Streep's career" and yet, simultaneously, gave it a positive review. (They likened it to getting drunk on cheap cocktails.) All of these women will again probably go see The Women because, hey - they're mentioned in the very title! They want to see a movie about sistahood.

They've been dubbed GFFs - girl friend flicks - and it's evident that girrrl power has never been so strong in the cinema.

I kind like this term way better than chick flick.

Quote from Diane English

"The old ideas that females have to be rivals and there's only room enough in this town for one of us - that is very old-fashioned, and it's kind of disappeared over the years as women have begun to embrace each other and form networks and comfort each other when there's a divorce or a bad breakup, and just really be there for each other and appreciate each other. I think those kinds of friendships are something very special to women, to being female. I don't think men really have those kinds of friendships as strongly as women do, so it makes sense that that is going to make its way on to the screen."

And now The Women, a remake of the 1939 cult classic that starred Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and Norma Shearer...But, like its recent predecessors, it's really about the power of a girl gang.

I think it's kind of interesting that all these films were framed in this story about women's friendship. So many of the US stories never even touched on that, or if they did it was done it was done in a negative, catty way.
Giving women the flick (The Age)

Women Directors Support Obama

This video "Family Values" comes from Women & Hollywood readers, the Burton sisters of Five Sisters Productions.



It's produced in conjunction with Mamas for Obama

Happy-Go-Lucky Signed Poster Giveaway

Women & Hollywood readers have been offered two Happy-Go-Lucky posters signed by director and writer Mike Leigh and star Sally Hawkins.

Answer the following three questions and you could win:
1- What actress from Secrets & Lies is now a regular on a US series and what series is she on?
2-How many Mike Leigh films did Katrin Cartlidge star in and what are the names of those films?
3- What does Vera Drake's do in secret that gets her arrested?

Please email the answers to melsil@earthlink.net and include your name and address in the email. Contest ends October 24.

Happy-Go-Lucky opens in wide release on Friday October 24th. Info on the film: Happy-Go-Lucky

Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Susan Sarandon

This past week at the at the Middle East International Film Festival she highlighted the voices of activist women from around the world. She narrates "The Shape of Water," which is about five women from Brazil, India, Jerusalem and Senegal as they deal with the issues facing women including harassment and economic justice.

"These women represent films which have resulted in a tipping of consciousness and made a difference," Sarandon said in a panel discussion after the screening. "In the U.S. we don't have the opportunity to see these films; even English(-language) documentaries are hard to find. Festivals are a wonderful opportunity for people to see documentaries they might not normally see."

photo: Sylvan Gaboury/PR Photos

Will This Be a Good Year for Women at the Oscars?

Award season is the time of year when occasionally the critics and prognosticators focus on women. Of course, their focus is always on the acting nominees. I have heard not a peep about any potential women directing nominees, but that's not surprising since a woman will probably win a directing Oscar...when we have a female president. I'm not holding my breath.

The Envelope at the LA Times took an early look at the field this year.

Aside from Melissa Leo (Frozen River) and Penelope Cruz (Elegy or Vicky Christina Barcelona)

This year, however, it is already clear that the race, for all intents and purposes, is backloaded with the most imposing and competitive list of genuine best actress possibilities in many years.

There are so many great female performances still to come this year. Here's a watch list:
Meryl Streep- Doubt
Kate Winslet- Revolutionary Road and The Reader
Angelina Jolie- Changeling
Cate Blanchett- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Nicole Kidman- Australia
Keira Knightley - The Duchess
Kate Beckinsale- Nothing but the Truth
Sally Hawkins- Happy-Go-Lucky
Emma Thompson- Last Chance Harvey
Kristin Scott Thomas- I've Loved You So Long

I started a list on the left side of the site. My list will be a bit different from the typical Oscar watchers because I will include performances from films that will not get noticed by the awards community because they just didn't get enough buzz or have the right pedigree. Keep in mind, awards are a very political business.
Hottest actress race in years heats up (LA Times)
Could this be Meryl Streep's year? (Variety)

Sunshine Cleaning Trailer

This Amy Adams/ Emily Blunt film premiered at Sundance. Film is written by Megan Holley and directed by Christine Jeffs. Here's the description form TrailerAddict.com:

A single mom and her slacker sister find an unexpected way to turn their lives around in the off-beat dramatic comedy Sunshine Cleaning. Once the high school cheerleading captain who dated the quarterback, Rose Lorkowski (Academy Award nominee Amy Adams) now finds herself a thirty something single mother working as a maid. Her sister Norah, (Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt), is still living at home with their dad Joe (Academy Award winner Alan Arkin), a salesman with a lifelong history of ill-fated get rich quick schemes. Desperate to get her son into a better school, Rose persuades Norah to go into the crime scene clean-up business with her to make some quick cash. In no time, the girls are up to their elbows in murders, suicides and other…specialized situations. As they climb the ranks in a very dirty job, the sisters find a true respect for one another and the closeness they have always craved finally blossoms. By building their own improbable business, Rose and Norah open the door to the joys and challenges of being there for one another—no matter what—while creating a brighter future for the entire Lorkowski family

Opens March 13th.