Monthly Archive for September, 2007

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)

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

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

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

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)

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

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 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

Jane Austen Book Club

The Jane Austen Book Club is a movie I wanted to like really badly. The problem with wanting something so badly is that you are inevitably disappointed. This is my own fault because the film is perfectly good — just not great.

The premise of the film based on the best-selling novel by Karen Joy Fowler, is that the six members of the book club gets together to read all of Austen’s novels, which in turn helps all of them deal with the craziness of contemporary life. The film was adapted for the screen and directed by first time director Robin Swicord who has a host of other screenwriting credits including Memoirs of a Geisha and Little Women.

Members of the book club include: Kathy Baker as Bernadette the oft-married mother hen who comes up with the idea of the club; Sylvia played by Amy Brenneman who is going through the breakup of her marriage after 25 years to Daniel played by Jimmy Smits; Allegra (Maggie Grace) the lesbian daughter of Daniel and Sylvia who is more up front about her sexuality than her love for extreme sports; Prudie (Emily Blunt) an uptight high school French teacher stuck in a bad marriage; Jocelyn (Maria Bello) a dog breeder who prefers animals to people; and Grigg (Hugh Dancy) the lone man who initially is supposed to be a distraction for Sylvia.

The cast chemistry is fantastic. The book club scenes are the most interesting of the film, the characters come across as if they are really friends, which is a testament to the directing. I liked the movie, it just felt something was missing. It might be the book because I tried to read it when it came out and couldn’t get into it, but there are millions of people who loved it and made it a best-seller. Check it out for yourself.

TV This Weekend
Season premiere of Cold Case (CBS). Those of you with Tivo don’t forget to add an extra hour on your CBS programs due to the inevitable football overuns.

I’m not completely in love with Tell Me You Love Me the HBO show that airs on Sunday nights, but I have watched the first two episodes intensely. The sex is bold, frequent and I have to say that it’s good to see both female and male nudity. Jane Alexander (who is fantastic as the central therapist) even gets involved and gives her husband? partner? David Selby a blow job. This is a show more about relationships than sex and as I’ve been reading everywhere and I do agree with this sentiment, the most interesting couple is the couple not having sex. Ally Walker from Profiler plays the wife and she is lost and lonely in her very busy supposedly happy life. The show is run by women and is the brainchild of Cynthia Mort who seems to be the female equivalent of David Chase. She’s the writer, producer and creator. The first two episodes were directed by the Canadian director, Patricia Rozema. (HBO – Sundays)

News
Charlize Theron, a smart, feminist actress is now appearing in The Valley of Elah. She has been developing her own projects for a while and stars in her partner Stuart Townsend’s film Battle in Seattle based on the WTO meeting in Seattle that screened and sold at the Toronto Film Festival. Here is a Reuters interview. Just a Minute With: Charlize Theron

Heigl the Mogul: Fresh off her Emmy win as Dr. Izzie Stevens on Grey’s Anatomy, Katherine Heigl has optioned the book Lost & Found by Jacqueline Sheehan for her new production banner which she runs with her mother and manager, Nancy. (Variety)

Director Julie Taymor, out now with Across the Universe, picks the films most aesthetically stunning to her. Beautiful Features (EW)

Coming next week: early review of Bionic Woman

Jane Austen Book Club
Each week this site will recommend a film by or about women that is opening (hopefully there will be one opening each week) that we can support to encourage more films to be made by and about women.

This week Women & Hollywood recommends The Jane Austen Book Club written and directed by Robin Swicord based on the book by Karen Joy Fowler. (review to come tomorrow)

News
The Women scores many women! The Diane English written and directed remake (hopefully updated too) of The Women is now shooting in Boston. New cast members Bette Midler, Cloris Leachman, Carrie Fisher, Lynn Whitfield, Joanna Gleason, Ana Gasteyer and Debi Mazar have joined the already announced Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Candice Bergen. Variety I am so excited for this. Hurry up and finish it!

Claire Danes is set to make her Broadway debut as Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. Danes From AP via Yahoo

The International Press Academy (IPA) has tapped actress Kathy Bates to receive the 2007 Mary Pickford Award for outstanding artistic contribution to the entertainment industry. Variety

New film Trade which opens at the end of the month premiered at the UN yesterday to highlight the issue of human trafficking. Star Kevin Kline was in attendance. Kevin Kline opens film at U.N. on trafficking in U.S. Reuters via Yahoo (review on film to come next week) Reuters via Yahoo

Dawn Steel early in her career (early 80s) shepherded the film Flashdance which gave us Jennifer Beals, Irene Cara’s hit song- What a Feeling (I can’t tell you how many times I sang that song in the shower), cut off sweatshirts and leg warmers (which seem to be coming back in style- yuck) as well as the controversy of the dance body double. Director Adrian Lyne revists the film on its DVD release. What a Feeling EW

Castings
Isla Fisher is ready to go on a shopping spree. The Wedding Crashers actress has signed on to star in Confessions of a Shopaholic, a Disney comedy based on the novels by Sophie Kinsella. Wedding Crashers actress becomes Shopaholic Hollywood Reporter via Reuters

Where are the women?

(written by Mercedes)
“I know it’s boring to gripe and moan about hard it is for women artists, but reading the nominees for the Emmys this morning in the New York Times I was so struck by the glaring gender inequality it made me wonder if we were truly living in the 21st Century. No one disputes that there are women actor categories, and I didn’t look intently at the producers. I paid particular attention to the Director and Writer
categories, as they are in my mind particularly powerful and creative areas in which women are conspicuously absent. I know a plethora of talented women writers and directors, why aren’t they in higher positions of power??????”

The Stats
Directing in a Comedy Series: O out of 6 were women
Directing in a Drama: 0 out of 7
Directing in a Variety, Music, or Comedy:O out of 5
Directing in a Mini Series: 1 out of 5 (Susanna White for Jane Eyre for Masterpiece Theatre)

That’s a grand total of 1 out of 23 or .04%

Writing in a Comedy Series

1 out of 4. Thank God for Tina Fey
Writing in a Drama: 0 out of 7
Writing in a V,M,C
Colbert– 2 out of 10
Stewart-1 out of 15
Conan- 0 out of 16
Letterman- 1 out of 15
Bill Maher- 0 out of 10

Writing in a Mini-Series or Drama Special
2 out of six (one is the Jane Eyre writer)

Grand Total: 6 out of 56 or 11%

Conclusion: Very Sad Indeed.

Thanks Mercedes

From Black PR Wire: Female Directors Struggle in a “Man’s World”
“Out of the 13,400 members of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) only 7% are female directors and less than 1% of directing jobs go to African-American women.” Pathetic.

Whoopi Goldberg has to sign a profanity clause in all her contracts even though she has never sworn on broadcast TV. “Goldberg says people must think she’s “on the precipice” of saying bad words at all times.” (AP)

Elle Magazine is taking over the annual Women in Hollywood Tribute from the now defunct Premiere Magazine. Event takes place October 15. Amy Adams who stars in the upcoming Enchanted will get the Spotlight award.

Tonight is the premiere of the new show on the CW Gossip Girl based on the tween novels. Have seen the premiere episode and if you are over 15 the show is not for you. The girls are horrible to each other, catty, petty and down right mean. It shows the world of the very rich on the Upper East Side of Manhattan where fashion rules and mothers tell their daughters “you will never be as beautiful or thin or happy as you are now,” and “put some more product in your hair, the ends are dry.” Gee thank mom. And the first episode contains underage drinking, drug use and an attempted rape. This is supposed to be a great show for kids?

Castings
Jennifer Garner to play opposite Matthew McConaughey in Ghosts of Girlfriend Past. He plays his typical role of an idiot womanizer who gets visited by old girlfriends only to realize he is in love with his childhood sweetheart. Wonder how much money he’s making for this?

Tatum O’Neal (how funny is she on Rescue Me?) will play the title tole in a Saving Grace (no relationship to the TV show starring Holly Hunter) which will be the directing debut of Connie Stevens. “O’Neal plays a woman who is released from an asylum after 15 years and move in with her sister (Penelope Ann Miller) and brother-in-law (Michael Biehn) in a 1950s-era Missouri town. Her arrival throws the couple’s life into chaos.” (Reuters)

“Delta Burke and Andrea Roth are starring in Bridal Fever, a Hallmark Channel original movie set to air next year.” Hollywood Reporter via Reuters Bridal Fever

Welcome folks to the latest incarnation of the blog about women and Hollywood. I will try and be regular with my postings. Sign up for the RSS feed at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WomenHollywood

Questions, thoughts, commentary, news should be sent to me at: melsil@earthlink.net

Big Deal
Lauren Graham late of the Gilmore Girls just signed a mega deal with NBC. Deal calls for NBC to develop a series around her. Variety reports the deal is for seven figures.

Remember Sean Young?
She was big in the 80s in films like No Way Out with Kevin Costner. To say that it’s been a struggle for her is an understatement. Here is an Entertainment Weekly piece: Sean Young