Monthly Archive for December, 2009

I don’t really think too often about Tennessee Williams’ women, but in the last couple of weeks I have seen a movie, The Loss of the Teardrop Diamond and a play A Streetcar Named Desire so his women have been on my mind.  In anticipation of seeing Cate Blanchett in Streetcar (which by the way was one of the BEST performance on stage EVER) I pulled out my old copy of the play off the shelf and on the cover was a picture of Marlon Brando.  But then I saw the play and I was reminded — it is all about Blanche.

It made me think more about Williams and his women.  He seriously had a knack for writing these southern women who just couldn’t fit into the culture, who were stultified and driven mad when the constrictions of their world closed in on them.  Bryce Dallas Howard is Fisher Willow (love that name) the latest Williams incarnation in the newly discovered script that Williams wrote directly for the screen, The Loss of the Teardrop Diamond.  The script was found by actress Jodie Markell who fell in love with it and set about making this film her directorial debut.

Howard is very interesting as a young woman who tries to play by a lot of the rules of her stature in 1920s New Orleans but at the same time chafes at those same rules.  She just doesn’t fit in and wants to get the hell out, but at the same time knows she’s stuck.

Film also includes performance by Ellen Burstyn as a woman who wants to die with dignity, Mamie Gummer and a brief cameo by Ann Margaret.

Film opens today in NY and LA.

If you are a Nancy Meyers fan the good news for you is that It’s Complicated will make you happy, but if you have issues with Nancy Meyers and her filmmaking style this one won’t sway you her way.  It’s Complicated is pure Nancy Meyers for better or for worse.  Meyers gives us another aging white, rich baby boomer woman at a crossroads in her life.  Meryl Streep plays Jane Adler the owner of a spectacular bakery in Santa Barbara whose youngest has just graduated from college.  On the trip to NYC to attend her son’s graduation she winds up in bed with her ex, Jake played with lusty hysterics by Alec Baldwin.

Jane becomes unmoored by this turn of events.  She had become comfortable in her life.  She has her friends, she has her kids, she has her work, she about to get a new HUGE addition put on her house that she’s been saving up for for years.  But while she’s content, she’s not really happy and Jake, the guy who left her for a younger woman pushes all the right buttons and she becomes unglued.

What Meyers is able to do is to ask some questions about women’s roles, expectations and disappointments.  She doesn’t challenge anything or put a political spin on it.  She gives us a person who followed the blueprint of a woman of her race and class, married  the guy, had three kids, took care of the family and then like so many other women like her, got left behind for a younger woman.

The thing that you need to be reminded of during this dance of Streep and Baldwin is just how bad the divorce was.  And it’s the kids (now in their 20s) who are the ones not understanding this renewed friendship between their parents.  These are the kids who clearly remember the times when their dad wasn’t allowed in the house.  They are confused, and Zoe Kazan says say eloquently as Gabby, the middle child “I am very damaged from the divorce.”

So even though Jane has had 10 years to get over it, she still has residual anger.  Who can blame her?  But the thing is, she’s not the same person she was a decade before and doesn’t want to revert back to that woman and those habits which you can see is very easy to do.

Baldwin as Jake, sees Jane differently than he did when he left and also sees an independent, adult woman who’s not amped up on hormones wanting to have a baby.  But Jane doesn’t let him off the hook and says, “isn’t a baby part of the package when you marry a woman her age?”  Baldwin is great as a guy who just wants his life to be easy again.  He feels he can ease back into Jane’s life and while he has changed (a bit) in their 10 years apart, she has grown exponentially and they clearly just “don’t fit” anymore.

Streep is able to show Jane’s confusion with the excitement over her personal sexual revolution with her ex-husband to her utter horror over the fact that she is the one having an affair with a married man.  It’s the small gestures by Streep when she is alone that convey Jane’s emotions and nobody NOBODY does it better.

Steve Martin plays third prong in the love triangle and I have never seen him as retrained on screen.  He plays a man who has been bitterly devastated in a divorce and is desperate to find some normalcy in his life.  He likes Jane because she’s an adult and says that her age is one of the things that he finds attractive about her.  (When is the last time you heard that in a movie?)

But there are a bunch of things that bothered me in the film.  The tone deafness about the economy is a big one.  It just kinds of seems in your face.  Everything is white and plush, the people are all white and skinny and it just seems kind of off.

But then I need to remember that this is a Nancy Meyers film.  She makes films for a certain type of woman.  The thing is there are lots of baby boomer women out there who will wistfully look at this film and be able to relate to certain aspects of it.  If enough of them go to see it, it will be a hit.

So it seems I screwed up the tech stuff for the donation button.   Sorry.

If you would like to donate please click on the yellow donate button in the middle column of the site.  (You can’t miss it- it’s under the subscribe to Women & Hollywood by email) or you can try this link.

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Thanks.

Just wanted to let you all know that posting will be a lighter through the new year.  Taking a break to maybe try and read a book and work on some other writing.

I also wanted to take a moment and thank you for all the support and let you know that the blog has grown exponentially over the last year.  We started the year with about 7,500 monthly readers and now there are over 30,000.  Also, the site is also a top 100 film site on technorati.

Below are the most read pieces over the last year.  Thought you might enjoy a recap:

Fat Actors vs Skinny Actresses

Does Being An “Artist” Trump Being a Rapist?

Sexism Alert: The Catfight Begins

Sexism Watch: Date Rape Gets Mainstream Film Release

New Moon Brings a New Dawn in Hollywood

It warms my heart on these cold days in NY to know that people are using the blog to get inspired, get angry, to meet each other, and to have great conversations.

The blog is my labor of love and I so appreciate all of you reading it each and every day.  That being said, there are still many expenses associated with the blog so any donations you can give towards the work would be most appreciated.  The button below will take you to my paypal site.

I hope you have a happy holiday season and a great new year.

Melissa

While being interviewed by the Guardian for her film Nowhere Boy about the teenage years of John Lennon, Kristin Scott Thomas talked about her life and her career and had some very interesting things to say.

The moment that Kristin Scott Thomas knew she didn’t want to be a typical movie star, the moment it seems she switched from playing romantic leads to infinitely more interesting roles, was when a director told her she should make her character more appealing. The idea didn’t grab her. “I just thought, I don’t want to do that,” she says. “I don’t want to have to be pretty. I don’t want to have to be adorable. Because if I’m watching that on screen I get irritated.” She sits back with a sigh. “I can’t bear it.”

But [in general] I don’t want to just be a kind of bouncing board for men to flex their muscles and look brave and courageous and understanding, while I just look bleary-eyed in the background. No, I don’t want to do that. You can also do leading roles that are riveting, but they tend to be – well, certainly in my world – they’re the lower-budget, more arthouse films, because I’m not on the right list to be asked to do those really great meaty roles that you see Meryl Streep or Cate Blanchett doing.”

She has made a brilliant career for herself in France, where she isn’t so typecast, plays far fewer aristocrats, and “can let rip a bit”. By working there, she seems to have avoided the mid-life canyon that many Hollywood actresses fall into, because the French film industry “loves middle-aged women. They love us! They think we’re sexy.” I suggest that other actresses need to learn French. “No!” she says. “Keep away. Not on my patch. There are quite a lot of actresses who can speak really good French. Emma Thompson. Jodie Foster. Cate Blanchett. Keep out.

I find her honesty about life and acting very brave.

Kristin Scott Thomas: ‘I’ve been a very sad person, but I’m not any more’ (The Guardian)

PS- Forgot that she signed the petition supporting Roman Polanski…Not a good thing.

Nixon is speaking out about the anti-choice restrictions in the health care bill.

“It’s a very basic female right that we need to protect,” Nixon said. “What’s so frightening about this Stupak ban is that he’s found a backdoor way to basically not cover abortion for the vast majority of American women.”

No one wants to encourage anyone to have an abortion. One wants to encourage that if you have to make this very difficult decision, that the difficulty of the decision isn’t compounded by having to hide it from people, and having to find a way to pay for it and having to go across state lines to get it.

It’s hard enough. It’s a hard enough decision and we don’t need to make it harder.

Way to go Cynthia.  She is out there on gay marriage, public school issues and now abortion.  Other women should follow her lead.

Cynthia Nixon: Abortion debate’s new voice (CNN)

Check out my appearance on a year end movie segment on GRITtv hosted by Laura Flanders.

Brittany in Clueless (she's on the left)

The death of Brittany  Murphy at 32 is another one of those moments where you can see the toll that Hollywood takes on people.

I mean what 32 year old person has a heart attack?

People are saying drugs, but what about food?  It looks like over the last years that her weight has been up and down (mostly down lately).

And anyone who knows anything about eating disorders knows that your heart gives out.  Not enough food equals heart attack.

This young woman was very promising — think Clueless and Girl Interrupted and then just got caught up in the Hollywood bullshit and to me lost it creatively (Uptown Girls) and it looks like personally too.   It looks like Brittany was another victim of the Hollywood meat grinder.  Very sad.

Here’s what her Clueless director Amy Heckerling said yesterday to Scott Feinberg of And the Winner Is.

I think she felt the pressure to become a different sort of commodity to survive in show business, and I think it was awful.

Check out the full transcript here.  There is also an audio version of the Heckerling interview.

When Tabloids Overshadow the Career: How Do We Memorialize Brittany Murphy? (Defamer)

Nancy Meyers gets the cover of the NY Times magazine this Sunday with a very long piece by Daphne Merkin.  I have no qualms about admitting that I am a big Nancy Meyers fan.  There are many different reasons for my admiration of Nancy, one big one being the fact that she makes the movies she wants to make.  There are lots of people who have issues with Nancy Meyers movies.  Among the reasons people give are that her films are light, fluffy, stupid, make women act stupid, are horribly written, unrealistic, and too white.

Yes, Nancy Meyers creates a rich, white world populated by women (and men) but focused on women that none of us are ever going to live in.  I look at the houses in Nancy Meyers movies (and the houses are so important they are like characters themselves) and I see the beautiful throw pillows, the gorgeous bedrooms and bathrooms, and I know I am on Fantasy Island.  But honestly, I don’t think it’s any different than the world of Sex & the City.

But what Nancy Meyers does better than anyone is make these women relatable to other women, and those women go out and buy tickets to her films.  That’s why she gets paid the very big bucks and has final cut of her films. (According to the article she makes $12 million a movie not including movie she makes on the grosses.)  Of course I know that I won’t be able to write a play in the throes of a breakup and then have it produced on Broadway…but knowing that didn’t make me like the film (Something’s Gotta Give) any less.  I think it made me like the film MORE because Diane Keaton’s character was so competent.

Here’s what Diane Keaton said about her:

“She’s a pioneer with regard to representing older women,” Diane Keaton said over lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “She’s the only one delivering the fantasy for women over 55. You’re beautiful, charming and you get two guys instead of one.”

Fuck yeah.

I think that’s one of the hidden gems (and many one of the reasons why people hate Meyers) is that she portrays middle aged white women and competent and complex.  She shows women as multi-layered and that’s refreshing.

Meyers is supposedly a very difficult director.  She does a lot of retakes.  It takes a long time to make her films.  So she does a lot of takes.  The only reason why this gets so highly scrutinized is because there are so few other women working at her level.  And other women in Hollywood know that she is paving the way for the future.

Here’s a quote from Callie Khouri:

“Nancy inspires a tremendous amount of hope in me,” she says. “She’s defied the conventional wisdom that women are over — both societally and professionally — past a certain age. I root for her in the way I do for all women who are trying to sledgehammer a hole into the wall of an audience and an output that’s almost exclusively male-dominated.”

Here are some other tidbits from the piece that I found interesting:

And this being a Nancy Meyers movie, men are as subject to critical scrutiny via the female gaze as women are subject to the male gaze.

I also found it very interesting to note that since she broke up with Charles Shyer over a decade ago, she has grown in stature as she moved into directing and he has well, not done as well (ie Alfie- need I say more?)

She is valued first and foremost for her track record at the box office; each of her post-Shyer movies has surpassed $200 million in revenue worldwide.  Meyers is also paid for generating “creative value for the studio,” says Jeff Berg, chairman of I.C.M. and her longtime agent. “Studios like to have success,” Berg says, “and then they like to have the halo effect, whereby the films reflect positively on the taste of the studio.”

This woman has clout, power and respect in Hollywood.  That is something we need to note and to learn from.  She is another woman who used her writing to propel her into directing and most of the successful female directors have been going that route.

I am the first one to admit the soft spot in my heart for all things Nancy Meyers.  The woman has written some of movies that I can watch over and over again.  I can’t tell you how many times I have watched Baby Boom.  I can’t tell you how many times I have watched Something’s Gotta Give.  Even the Father of the Bride films are rewatchable and I tell everyone that The Holiday is a misunderstood gem especially the relationship between Eli Wallach and Kate Winslet.

See you at the theatre on Christmas Day!  Can’t wait.

Can Anybody Make a Movie for Women (NY Times Magazine)

I keep hearing about all of this outrage that exists over women not being hired to make movies, either as screenwriters or directors or producers. As a female producer, I am certain that I am discriminated against whether or not it’s on purpose. There is a boys club that exists in Hollywood, no doubt about it.

And I don’t play golf. I keep meaning to take it up but I haven’t…and I’m sure that has affected my career as well.

Being a woman in Hollywood can suck but I think it’s crap for anyone to think that they can’t have a career because someone won’t hire them. To those people, I say, “get off your butt and make your career happen!” I have never once let the boys club of Hollywood stop me from making movies. I will make movies til the day I die no matter what.  And I am certain the successful female filmmakers in Hollywood have the same belief system.

I’m not saying we should stop rallying for change. Keep up the fight! But let’s do something more than whine about it.

The next time you get a rejection, think about how you can make your film outside of the Hollywood system. Partner with an indie producer (male or female) and find the money yourself to get your film made. The money is out there. You just have to work hard to find it.

We could all easily sit back and wait for Hollywood to give us our career. I’m sorry to say though that we would be sitting for a very long time. We all need to make our own careers for Hollywood to take notice. We are not alone in that reality. I know a ton of male filmmakers struggling every day as well.

I really think that women need to get out there and make more movies and network more. As a producer, I am pitched projects all the time. But I have to say that probably 90% of the projects are by and about men. Where are all the projects by and about women? Why am I not approached more by female filmmakers?

What is up ladies?

After five years of being an indie producer,  I am just now partnering with a female director. And it’s not because I haven’t been looking. I make an effort to seek out female filmmakers but for some reason, I get a lot of white noise. It seems we women suck at networking and forging lasting relationships. But I have found that when we do find those relationships that stick, we are extremely loyal and we will go to the ends of the earth to protect one another.

I want to make movies about and for women and with women. I have to ask: where are you female filmmakers? I want to hear from you!

Jane Kelly Kosek is an independent film producer. Her credits include Straight Line, Tennessee, Not Since You, and Take Me Home.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the NYWIFT Muse Awards which honored some amazing women including America Ferrara (Ugly Betty); Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife); Allison Silverman (formerly the Executive Producer of the Colbert Report); Andrea Wong (the head of Lifetime); and Wendy Ettinger, Judith Helfand and Julie Parker Benello of Chicken and Egg Pictures.  (I hope to have an interview with the women from Chicken and Egg next week.)

What was cool about the event was how humble all the women were to be receiving the award.

Here are some tidbits I picked up:

Andrea Wong developed the Country Music Awards and Dancing with the Stars.  In her speech, she singled out her assistant for special recognition saying that she had so much potential.  She also has an engineering degree from MIT.

Allison Silverman talked about having humanity (and crying) in comedy. She went off at length about the now notorious piece from Vanity Fair about how women aren’t funny (which I refuse to link to) and said that it’s the preference that life be fair that makes things funny.

L-R Wendy Ettinger, Judith Helfand, Julie Parker Benello, Allison Silverman, Andrea Wong, Amerca Ferrara, Julianna Margulies, MC Linda Kaplan Thaler

America Ferrara talked about how her fifth grade teacher Mrs. Rodriguez cast her as the Artful Dodger (a part usually for boys) in Oliver and how she never made it a big deal.  She said that effected her because it was done without fanfare but was still a very big deal, and allowed her to see the limitless possibility in imagination.

Julianna Margulies was more than willing to give up the part in The Good Wife (so glad she didn’t) so that she could stay with her family in NYC.  People were afraid to commit to NYC because no one knew if the tax incentives would be renewed.  So she was ready to walk away.  Many productions fled the city but The Good Wife (which takes place in Chicago) now shoots in NYC, and they were able to get many terrific crew members from shows that left.

It’s been a continually uncomfortable decision for me to call this a “Girl DP’s blog”. Some days I want to keep it that way, other days I don’t. It’s an almost daily internal argument.

Reasons to nix the “girl” part:

My talent, style, creative choices and skills as a director of photography are not dictated by my gender. I pride myself on serving the story, not my gendered worldview. I can use my experience and unique perspective as a woman to create an approach, if needed. It sometimes lets me look through a different lens than a man might. But it doesn’t mean I am subject to (or victim to?) a specifically defined and solely “female aesthetic”. …Whatever “female” means here.

I don’t want to be judged more or less harshly because I am a girl. I want to work at a professional level, so I want to be critiqued fairly at that level. As my friend Elle says regarding her critiques of filmmakers, “I’m an equal opportunity hater.” Don’t judge my work through the “girl lens”.

I want to champion women working in Hollywood. But that needs to be separate from my work. When it comes to cinematography, I don’t want to be defined as a feminist cinematographer, a feminist filmmaker, a fem-anything. I just want to be a really damn good cinematographer. Adding a defining adjective like female or feminist just separates me and adds preconceptions and constrictions. I am a cinematographer, not a female cinematographer, because that implies that my scope is limited to whatever definition is given to “female”. (Then why all the fuss about being a girl DP? I’ll get to that in a second.)

And there is some sort of stereotype of femfilmakers going around (even perpetuated by femfilmmakers themselves) that women traditionally make arthouse or romance films, are subject to an apparently over-powering “female aesthetic” they have no control of (that makes it impossible for them to make films like Kill Bill… see previous stereotype link), and “aren’t interested” in making big budget films or films that are traditionally seen as “male”, because those aren’t the movies they want to see. (See Elle’s brilliant response to the article I am referring to here. Who gave these women permission to speak for the rest of us? Why do even women imply that one trait found true for them is indicative to the entire sex?)

It’s as if there is one narrow definition of what “feminine” is, and that defining point trumps all other aspects of a femfilmmaker’s talent, personality, and work. I DON’T CARE if Mandy Walker is feminine on set, and that she has a carrying case for her lipstick on her camera. I want to know why the hell she did or did not choose to go anamorphic, or what freaking stock she’s shooting on. That would be like interviewing Roger Deakins for ASC and asking him what kind of aftershave he uses before he goes to set, and if it makes him smell manlier, and does that help him preserve his masculine aesthetic? WTF.

Continue reading ‘Cross-Post: Why is “female” in front of “filmmaker”? by Lore Haroutunian’

Zoe Saldana is in a unique position.  She is poised to be in not 1 — Star Trek — but two — Avatar — of the top grossing movies of the year.

Not bad.  She recently spoke to the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog and had some great feminist things to say about the state of women and hollywood.

How bad is the landscape out there for decent female roles?

They’re out there — people just aren’t investing in them. We can sit here forever discussing it, because it has a chicken vs. the egg quality. Bottom line, producers are business people. Hollywood is a money-making machine. At the end of the day, they have to produce numbers that will help them keep their jobs and companies alive. But we as consumers have a lot more power than we think. Women need to demand better roles and get audiences to see their films. Because if a film doesn’t make $150 million, producers and studios aren’t going to bankroll a similar film next time. If there were more filmmakers that were female, trust me, it would be all about women.

Avatar” Star Zoe Saldana on the State of Women in Hollywood (Wall Street Journal)

After the Golden Globe nominations, I reached out to several women who write and think about films to get their sense of the stories that came out of the nominations.

The issues that I wanted to hear other people’s thoughts on what I saw coming out of the nominations:

• Meryl vs Meryl
• Kathryn Bigelow
• The return of Sandra Bullock
• Nora (Ephron) vs. Nancy (Meyers)
• Women over 40 rule acting nods
• Bright Star missing
• An Education, no best picture

The woman who participated included: Sasha Stone, Awards Daily; Thelma Adams, Us Weekly; Anne Thompson, Thompson on Hollywood; Monika Bartyzel, Cinematical; Caryn James, film critic Marie Claire; Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer; Ella Taylor, LA Weekly; Katey Rich, Cinemablend; Jan Lisa Huttner, The Hot Pink Pen; Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today; Jenni Miller, Cinematical.

Thanks so much to all the participants.

Sasha Stone

I’m a bit horrified that Jane Campion’s Bright Star was ignored.  On the other hand, it is an extremely competitive year for women and in that way, be careful what you wish for.  The one woman who is playing in the big leagues, Kathryn Bigelow, didn’t direct a gender-based film at all; in fact, her film, like most of her films, is all about the men.

But who’s to say a woman shouldn’t feel free to direct a film about anyone?  Men, women, aliens, politicians – women should have an open playing field.

Nora vs. Nancy is funny – both women kind of corner the market on funny films about older women looking for identity and love.  And there is Meryl Streep smack dab in the middle. Having them both there is call for celebration.

Bright Star is an odd film, not easily sold or packaged.  It didn’t get enough momentum out of the festival circuit and not the fault of the publicity team who worked day and night to get that film the exposure it needed.   Campion’s refusal to make Bright Star and out and out weepy, combined with its distant romantic tale, fought off the very audience it would need to survive: romance-hungry women.  How awful to have it categorized like that but that is what women want.

Campion, however, is an auteur.  Her films will last long after many of the films in play today are merely footnotes.  She in uncompromising and that makes her a powerful force in filmmaking in general, not just in “women’s filmmaking.”  This year is an exceptional leap forward.  One hopes it doesn’t get rolled up and put into a stupid theory that films directed by women don’t win awards unless they’re about men.  That would be a shame.

Finally, it’s a mistake to confuse quality of filmmaking with success in the awards race.  One is a game, the other is art.

Thelma Adams

Here’s another: Vera versus Anna.  Don’t you wish Anna would gracefully bow out so that this terrific veteran actress who really soars in Up in the Air has a chance at best supporting actress?

As for Meryl versus Meryl — this is a speed bump.  It won’t happen at the Oscars where Meryl will be nominated for Julie & Julia — and has a very good chance to take the Oscar.

I LOVE Bright Star but it was a tough sell…..Jane Campion is making brilliant movies, but not movies for the masses.

I so LOVE Marion Cotillard’s nomination — she is the brilliant heart of NINE.  Imagine the movie if all the casting had been equal to hers.

Anne Thompson

What I think happened with Bright Star is that it opened too early in the season in September and didn’t get any real traction.  It was very well reviewed. The thing that struck me about it, why it would have been overlooked it has a very low key effect.  Jane Campion has made a very subtle, intimate, very precise, very beautiful drama and tragic romance that appeals to women.  It is extremely intimate.  There is nothing hugely dramatic about it.  It almost errs on the side of restraint in a way that I admire and I found it very moving but it doesn’t wow people.  A lot of people find it to be a long and quite meditative – it’s like a beautifully wrought Keats poem.  It didn’t score at the box office, it hasn’t been getting prizes from the critics groups and the Golden Globes also completely overlooked it.  My other theory is that Campion may not have realized this when she went with an unknown cast and really junior key players on her crew, a lot of young crew people, in a funny kind of way I think the Oscars are going to overlook it too.  I pray that she gets recognized for costumes and production design and cinematography but finally it feels like a small movie that a lot of people haven’t seen.

From the beginning I thought that Kathryn Bigelow would be the leading contender in that category and because you have 10 best picture slots it’s possible that An Education would get in there remote possibility that It’s Complicated or Julie & Julia would get in there.  But in the director category you only have five and my sense is that there will only one woman getting in there.  But she could win.  I’m very optimistic that the time has come for everybody to come through for Kathryn Bigelow.  People are jumping on the fact that she is competing with her ex-husband, and that’s really not the story.  The fact is that Cameron himself respects her is a big deal.  You have to be pretty great to stand up to Jim Cameron, and he absolutely respects her.

It’s Complicated, The Hurt Locker, Julia & Julia, The Proposal and An Education all did very well with the Golden Globe nominations.  That’s a pretty strong list of women’s pictures.

Sandra Bullock is an interesting siituation where I suspect the Golden Globes came through for her in a way the Oscars may not.  But people are writing about The Blind Side and it has done well at the box office.  The best actress category isn’t as strong as it might be.  We are going to see Gabourey Sidibe, Carey Mulligan, Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep probably for Julie & Julia.  There is a fifth slot there.  Is it going to go to Emily Blunt?  Is it going to Bullock?  Is it going to go to Cotilliard?  These are the contenders for that spot.

Nora Ephron v Nancy Meyers – first of all remember that the Globes have a comedy and musical category.  Without that category they wouldn’t be there.  It’s Complicated, The Proposal and Julie & Julia are considered on some level romantic comedies (not really Julie & Julia) and they don’t do well at the Oscars.  There are a lot of people in the muscial/comedy category who will not show up on Oscar morning.

I couldn’t miss the opportunity to ask Anne if she noticed anything different this  year with the success of female centric films at the box office.

I have been covering the question of hollywood and the women’s audience and women directors for a very long time.  If you’re a screenwriter you have a better shot so Nancy Meyers and Nora Ephron have made their way by virtue of being screnwriters as well as directors.  Bigelow has made her way outside of the so-called women’s genre and she’s managed to make her way as an action director and that’s one of the reapsns why she’s so strong.

I don’t have a sense that Hollywood is jumping up and down to create more projects for women.  What may be going on is that they have to learn that lesson over and over again with the audience thirsty and starving for good women’s fare.  In some ways Manohla (Dargis) is right.  Even though it looks like they are doing well, the studios are not supportive.  They don’t count on women to show up on opening weekend unless it’s a branded entertainment like Twilight, Sex and the City or Mamma Mia.

Monika Bartyzel

While writers like Nikki Finke have called the Golden Globes “completely meaningless,” I found myself inspired and hopeful because of Up in the Air. Not only did Clooney get a nod, but also Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. While someone in the Women Film Critics Circle certainly didn’t like Farmiga’s character, these were two of my favourite female characterizations this year. Each had a few big flaws to ignore (like Kendricks’ ridiculous mid-movie meltdown), but overall, they were women I could really relate to, regardless of age and place in life. With the film getting so much love, I hope it inspires more successful and balanced women on the big screen.

Women Over 40 — It’s great, but the cynic in me wonders if this is only because these women are aging so slowly that no one believes their real ages — that Hollywood can forget that they are, indeed, over 40.

Meryl — She’s definitely worthy for Julie & Julia, she stunningly brought Julia Child to life, but I would’ve liked to see someone else take the other spot. I’ve already noticed complaints of Streep overkill, and she is becoming the safe bet. Since (500) Days was included, maybe Zooey Deschanel to go with Levitt.

Caryn James

I don’t want to take anything away from Kathryn Bigelow; The Hurt Locker is an amazingly-directed film. But it is also a stereotypically macho film, while Jane Campion’s beaufitul, poetic Bright Star plays into stereotypes of what a woman filmmaker might do. It’s true that awards rarely honor subtlety, male or female, and that has hurt Bright Star. But it’s also true that the many nominations for Bigelow play into the old idea that women get ahead by behaving like men, in this case making a movie voters might expect a man to have made. I’m glad Bigelow made the film she wanted to make, but real progress will come when we stop looking at poetic films as if they exist in some lesser, female category.

Carrie Rickey

The only thing you’re missing is Kathryn Bigelow vs. her ex husband Jim Cameron in best pic and director race.  I think the Cameron/Bigelow noms are an excellent illustration of the dif between studio epic and intimate indie and the weirdness of comparing apples to mangoes when it comes to awards.  My principal thought at looking at the Streep, Ephron and Meyers nods is that we’re seeing an illustration of the creative second wind of women of a certain age — what anthropologist Margaret Mead called “post-menopausal zest.”

Ella Taylor

My only comment (as a Brit) is that An Education, a perfectly presentable, perfectly unremarkable film that would do nicely as a television drama, didn’t remotely deserve best picture. But Rosamund Pike, relatively unsung as the blond ditz, certainly deserves a nomination for best supporting actress.

Katey Rich

Meryl vs. Meryl– This doesn’t really seem to be a contest to me. It’s Complicated is such a dud that Meryl should easily be able to win for Julie & Julia. Even though all the buzz is about Sandra Bullock having this comeback year and all, the potential spoiler to watch is probably Marion Cotillard, who is by far the best part of Nine. I still think it’s a supporting role, though, so that could damage her chances.

Kathryn Bigelow– You go girl. She swept the critic’s awards over the weekend and is very much poised as a Best Director frontrunner. The more people who talk up her chances to be the first-ever female Best Director winner, the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that she’ll win.  And it’s not like it’s just some token “time for a woman to win” award– that would never have gotten her so far.  She made an amazing film and is getting rightly rewarded for it.  It’s ridiculous that it’s taken this long for it to happen, but I’ll take it!

Sandra Bullock– I haven’t seen The Blind Side yet, but I’m pretty iffy on awarding for performances in really mediocre movies, which is what I hear about this one. However, more power to her for having such a comeback in her 40s– she and Meryl Streep need to start giving lessons. It’s hilarious, though, that everyone has completely forgotten the existence of All About Steve. I saw that movie! I will not forget!

Nora vs. Nancy– It’s Complicated had a truly, truly awful screenplay, and while Julie & Julia wasn’t exactly a masterpiece of writing, I would have much preferred seeing it get the screenplay nomination instead. But hey, District 9 was co-written by a woman, and it got a completely out-of-the-blue nomination, so that’s pretty cool.

Women over 40– I wouldn’t say they “rule” the acting nods, exactly– there’s plenty of hot young things in there (Anna Kendrick, Carey Mulligan, Gabby Sidibe, Penelope Cruz, Vera Farmiga even is just 36) that make it pretty status quo. Julia Roberts’ nomination, though, thrilled me– Duplicity was so, so great and was quickly forgotten once it was a flop. She wasn’t revelatory in that movie or anything, and I’m sure the Globes went for her for their much-beloved starpower, but I’m glad to see someone else remembers that movie.

Bright Star– It’s a shame that this movie has utterly fallen off the radar, since Abbie Cornish really was remarkable in it, and Jane Campion at least deserves to be part of the conversation. I think it will be back in the Cinematography department come Oscar time, but sadly Bright Star seems to be one of those victims of the December release glut.

An Education– I can’t figure out why this seems to have fallen off the radar except for Carey Mulligan, though a friend of mine has a theory that it only seems to have disappeared in the fast-moving online world. Basically, there was only room for 5 Dramas at the Globes, but only one of the Comedy/Musical nominees (Nine) seems likely to make it at the Oscars, so there’s room for An Education to come back. They need to come back with the marketing campaign though. Maybe if they had sent me a screener I’d be talking about it more.

Jan Lisa Huttner

Bright Star missing: As I told you back in July, Melissa, men do NOT get this film & they’re actively pissed that it’s told from Fanny’s POV (that is, that is it NOT told from Keats’ POV).  Did you see that execrable “review” in recent NY Review of Books?!?  Oy!!!

An Education no best picture: Again, guys don’t really get this picture & they totally missed all the Mr. Rochester references in Acts 1 & 2, which I why I asked Women Critics Circle members to add new “Invisible Woman” category for Olivia Williams as “Miss Stubbs.”  Sure enough, when I received my Chgo Film Critics Assoc ballot, Olivia Williams wasn’t even offered as a candidate for Best Supporting Actress!!!  Oy!!!

I loathed Up in the Air.  Also, saw INGLORIOUS BASTERDS & hated it.  Saw INVICTUS & shook my head in despair–this is the best we can do for Nelson Mandela: a rugby movie?!?  Saw PRECIOUS & liked it but didn’t love it.  Having spent most of my life as a fat girl, I just didn’t believe the fantasy sequences.

Susan Wloszczyna

Well, I sensed Bright Star was frizzling quite soon after Toronto. They went crazy for it at Cannes but it quickly lost momentum. Once it opened, the reviews were mixed and the box office weak. And that was all she said.  Too bad — I root for Jane Campion since she is one of a kind and a true artist. That butterfly scene alone is worth an Oscar. But I think it was the wrong kind of movie at the wrong time, as good as Abbie Cornish was.

It is interesting about An Education being left out because it is such a smart, savvy film with a fine ensemble cast that outshines most crappy female-driven romcooms. But Carey seems to be the only story there now.

Just like people love Robert Downey Jr. and Meryl, they totally love Sandra Bullock. The fact that she gave two great performances in one year in decent enough movies is reason for celebration. Us Sandy fans have been waiting for her to get back on track for ages.

Jenni Miller:

I’m disappointed that An Education didn’t get a best picture nomination, but I do think the others were deserving. My feelings about Up in the Air aren’t as strong as others writers’, though.

I cannot believe that Bright Star didn’t get any nominations. Abbie Cornish, Jane Campion’s direction, the cinematography, the way she wove his poetry into the music — Bright Star was dazzling. Emily Blunt was good in The Young Victoria, but I thought the movie itself was fairly mediocre.

Meryl is amazing, of course. I haven’t seen It’s Complicated (although I would certainly like to!), so I can’t comment on that, and I did think she was great in Julie and Julia, but were 2009 comedies really that dry for actresses? What about Rachel Weisz in The Brothers Bloom, one of my favorite movies? What about any of the women in Whip It?

The Proposal is a guilty pleasure romcom, and as for Duplicity, I watched it on a plane. It’s a double-edged sword, as Monika wrote, about supporting women writers/directors/actors — I’m glad that women over 40 whom I enjoy in general are getting nominated, but they’re not for roles that blow me away, or even qualify (in my mind) as more thansomething I’d catch on DVD.

I can’t decide if that category is so blah because of what’s out there or because of the voters. I feel as though there’s something I’m overlooking.

A couple of weeks ago The Hollywood Reporter held two roundtable conversations that forgot to include any women.  Whoops.  One was with cinematographers and the other was with writers.

The good news is that in their most recent roundtable with directors they included a woman, Kathryn Bigelow.  The woman has so much momentum that they actually would have looked like idiots had they not included her.

The discussion is interesting in the fact that gender is not part of the conversation at all.

Here’s one of most interesting things that Kathryn Bigelow said:

I always want to make films. I think of it as a great opportunity to comment on the world in which we live. Perhaps just because I just came off the “Hurt Locker” and I’m thinking of the war and I think it’s a deplorable situation. It’s a great medium in which to speak about that. This is a war that cannot be won, why are we sending troops over there? Well, the only medium I have, the only opportunity I have, is to use film. There will always be issues I care about.

Awards Watch: Director Roundtable (Hollywood Reporter)

After reading Manohla Dargis’ piece in the New York Times and her subsequent interview with Jezebel.com, I felt the need to write the following open letter to the heads of all the feature film studios in the United States.

Dear Sirs (+ the one madam co-chair):

I would like to introduce myself. My name is Ashley, I am one of your customers. One of your 51 percent, to be exact. Ironically, I’m also on the cusp of two age brackets that seem to allude you. Being 28 years old, I’m just edging past your “Twilight” audience and will soon hit your 35+ when-its-a-hit-it-must-be-a-fluke audience. Not only am I one of your customers, but I also happen to be one of you, albeit a very low-level one of you. I feel this puts me in a unique situation, I know your audience because I am your audience; AND, because I’m somewhat of an insider, I’ve struck upon a solution to your problem. A solution that will make you even more money than you’re making now. I’m talking Twilight, The Dark Night, and Mamma Mia kind of money. Believe-it-or-not, it’s not as hard as you think and it’s actually something you know how to do already: make movies. But not just any movies; movies that 51 percent of your audience can relate to and which feature the work of those members of our 51 percent who make their careers in feature film.

Don’t get me wrong, I know you get cross-over audiences. I’m just as likely to see a romantic comedy as I am the next Bourne movie, but I’m even more likely to see a Bourne movie directed by Kathryn Bigelow. I’d probably even go back for seconds if you decided to expand Julia Stiles’ character or give Joan Allen’s more of a back story. Like Bourne, I want to know what taunts them, what makes them tick and what makes them want to find Jason Bourne (because, let’s face it, it’s beyond just their professional duty at this point).

I like stories with style and substance, but I also like action, chase scenes and even my fair share of violence. My favorite movie is “The Silence of the Lambs.” “SOTL” is a great example of how to make a movie that grabs 100 percent of your adult audience: follow the hero’s journey. In this case, the hero just happens to be a 5′ tall heroine and her unlikely leading man is a serial killing cannibal. There’s blood, guts, gore and most importantly, STORY. Both men and women alike invest in these characters because we learn what makes them tick. But women have an extra investment in this particular story (this is the reason why we go back to see it again, recommend it to our friends, buy it, download it, etc.) we see ourselves up on the screen, a lone woman among men in an elevator. Every woman has experienced that moment, just as every woman’s secret desire (like Agent Starling’s) is to save the world.

I also like my romantic comedies to be smart. Don’t get me wrong, I like to see pretty things and pretty people on a screen, but I’m not an idiot either. I’d trade in a beautiful set and a character’s designer wardrobe for a really good story. Make more movies like “When Harry Met Sally.” Those characters had a story and they had great conversations about things we all discuss at dinner parties or over the phone with friends. Many elements of the script came from actual conversations between Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron. And guess what? That movie appealed to men as well. Why? Two reasons: 1) They saw themselves in Billy Crystal: he is the every man and he got the girl; 2) Insight into women. Yes, we sometimes fake orgasms. Now you know.

The “Buddy Movie” (now recoined as the “Bromance” or “A Judd Apatow”) We, the 51 percent of your audience, have only one of these movies to stick a flag in and call our own: “Thelma and Louise.”  This movie was made in 1991. Oh, wait, there was another female buddy movie! In 2002, producer Cathy Konrad put out a hilarious flick (penned by Nancy Pimental) called “The Sweetest Thing.” I was in college. I saw it two times on opening weekend with seven other female friends. It still remains the closest we’ll ever get to “The Hangover” for women. Speaking of which, if  ”The Hangover” was pitched with an entirely female cast, it would never have gotten made. Though I have no doubt there would have been an audience for it — made up of both genders.

The drama (aka “The Oscar movie” or “The Meryl Streep”). In their current state, these movies have a slightly better shot at appealing to me and my fellow 51 percenters because they feature more screen time for women (usually women who can no longer wrinkle their foreheads, but that’s a different letter for another day). The funny thing about these movies is that they’re rarely directed and/or written by women. Though I love men who can write wonderful parts for women (hello, Michael Cunningham), they are not women, and, as such, they will always leave the character with an unexplored territory. It’s one thing for a woman to be mysterious, but another thing to leave 51 percent of us knowing there is so much more to the story that needs to be told. “The Hours” has a great scene which touches upon this, when Clarissa Vaughn talks to her daughter about a moment in her youth:

“I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn’t the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.”

Contained within those lines are two potential movies for two generations of women, “the sense of possibility” movie, reaching audiences from their late teens – 30s, and “the moment looking back” movie, for the 40/50/60 female audience. I want to know what that woman sees as both a 20-something and then as a 50-something woman. Romantic comedies offer shades of these moments as well, though they are even fewer and farther between.

I believe women go to rom coms and dramas because they crave any glimmer of seeing their lives reflected back at them, no matter how fleeting of a moment it may be. We women store up a mosaic of these moments and play them back in our minds when we need them. A “greatest hits” if you will. They are our touchstone, our reminder that we are seen, we are remembered; we do serve a purpose. But wouldn’t it be even better if we didn’t need a highlights reel? If the marquee at our local theaters advertised movies where we saw ourselves and our husbands/boyfriends/friends/girlfriends/teens depicted by someone like us who knows the way we think, the way we see, who gives us not “women’s movies” but movies from our perspective? And, maybe even a woman who gives us male viewpoints just as dramatically or funny as the Michael Manns or Judd Apatows of the world, but from a fresh perspective.

I am one of your 51 percent. And, I am also your colleague. I want to see a reflection of myself on a screen just as much as I want to see my name in the credits. I am a part of both sides of this letter. And, I will keep moving forward both from my seat and on a set, until my voice is heard. Because when it finally is, there will be 51 percent of the world’s population behind it. I hope you start listening.

Ashley Van Buren is a Manhattan-based film production freelancer and writer. She has worked in feature film development & production (with some side trips into television writing) for ten years. Her most recent production job was on the Nancy Meyers movie, “It’s Complicated.”  This piece was originally posted on The Brow.

The awards are starting to dominate the conversations but not lose sight of the fact that women are still ruling the box office.

The Princess and the Frog, the first Disney film with an African American princess lead (I’m going to let the whole princess thing go here) won the weekend box office with a little of $24 million. 

The Blind Side was number 2 and is still strong having earned almost $150 million in 4 weeks.  Astounding.

New Moon is still going having now earned $267 million in 4 weeks and by the way was still the top film overseas making its total worldwide gross over $627 million.

I didn’t think I could love Manohla Dargis anymore after her awesome piece in the NY Times this weekend, but this honest and angry interview with Jezebel made me swoon with excitement.

We never, ever see a person of Dargis’ stature standing up for women in the film business in this public manner.  I really hope that she is the first to speak out, not the last.  But more importantly, we need to figure out how to get things to change so we have more good women’s films and opportunities for women directors.

But this is an awesome start.

Kudos to the women from Jezebel, in particular Irin Camron for getting this interview.  It totally rocks!

Some choice quotes:

On why women in Hollywood aren’t faring any better: This business is really about clubby relationships. If you buy Variety or go online and look at the deals, you see one guy after another smiling in a baseball cap. It’s all guys making deals with other guys. I had a female studio chief a couple of years ago tell me point blank that she wasn’t hiring a woman to do an action movie because women are good at certain things and not others. If you have women buying that bullshit how can we expect men to be better?

Working within the system has not worked. It has not helped women filmmakers or, even more important, you and me, women audiences, to have women in the studio system. … I think the studio system as it exists now is a no-win situation for women filmmakers.

You can be a male filmmaker and if you’re perceived as a genius – a boy genius or a fully-formed adult genius – that you are allowed to fail in a way that a woman is not allowed to fail.

On women being taken seriously as moviegoers: It’s a vicious cycle. We’re not going to movies because there aren’t movies for us. Therefore we’re not seen as a loyal moviegoing audience. My point is that if there are stories about women, women will come out for that…

That’s why [women] go to a movie like The Devil Wears Prada and make huge hits. They want to see women in movies. People in the trade press constantly frame that as a surprise. This, gee whiz, Sex and the City’s a hit, Twilight, hmm, wonder what’s going on here. Maybe they should not be so surprised. In the trade press, women audiences are considered a niche. How is that even possible? We’re 51 percent of the audience.

I don’t want to be the woman critic. I don’t want to be the feminist critic. I don’t want to be the shrew. What I want to do is talk about the art that I love and point out, every so often, inequities….It’s a weird balancing act and I’m not saying there aren’t contradictions.

Re-reading the piece again this morning is actually making me cry with relief.  Finally.  It’s like the rose color glasses are off and the boxing gloves are on.

Game on Hollywood!

You must read the whole piece: “Fuck Them”: Times Critic On Hollywood, Women, & Why Romantic Comedies Suck (Jezebel)

Critics from across the country are weighing in with their year end awards and Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker are doing really, really well.

Yes, you are reading this properly: a woman is winning best director honors from New York Film Critics Online, San Francisco Film Critics,  Boston Society of Film Critics, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, Southeatern Film Critics Association among others.

In fact (from what I can tell) of the awards that have been handed out, Bigelow has won all but one the National Board of Review.

I am now fully convinced that we will see the 4th woman (maybe a 5th?) get a nomination this year, but who knows what these critics kudos mean to the Golden Globes nominations which will be announced this morning and more importantly to the Oscars.

It’s getting really exciting.

By now everyone has seen the Manohla Dargis’ piece in the NY Times Women in the Seats but Not Behind the Camera which is a solid but late to the party piece about how even though women are buying tickets they still have few opportunities to direct.  I guess people care more about the lack of directors this year because a) women are actually making a difference at the box office and must be reckoned with, and b) for the first time a woman could potentially take home the best director statuette at the Oscars.

It’s not news to me or anyone who reads this site that women have been full and equal participants at the box office buying 50% of the tickets (according to MPAA stats).  And according to a piece in The Wrap last week, women won the battle at the box office this year, Look Who’s Winning the B.O. Battle of the Sexes:

“This is the year of the woman,” Paul Dergarabedian, a box-office analyst with Hollywood.com, told TheWrap. “Female stars or female-driven movies have been unexpectedly dominant. I mean, Meryl Streep is just as vital today as ever.”

But here is where the disconnect comes in.  Women buy tickets, yet still don’t get directing gigs.  As Dargis writes:

Women need to develop their own muscles.  I’m not talking about those buff babes who pop up in adolescent fantasies, licking their lips as they lock and load; I’m talking about movies made for and with women. I’m also talking about movies directed by women.

Why is it so hard for women to get the gigs?  Women spend the money to go to film school and want to direct, yet for reasons that no one has really figured out how to assess (because hardly anyone will talk on the record about it) women do not get the big studio directing gigs.  They just don’t.  You can blame it the old boy’s club.  You can say that men don’t want to see the type of movies women direct.  You can call it whatever you want.  But to me it’s plain old bullshit sexism.  For some reason the studio executives — male and female — don’t want to buy what women have to sell.

If we as women (and men) went out and supported films like Whip It the studios would make more of them.  Nobody went to see Whip It which was an awesome film.  We can blame that on marketing issues but if we don’t go see the good films by women the studios won’t make them.  It’s really simple and yes it is a double standard.  We need to support films by women more than we need to support the film by men.  That’s just the way it is.

Here are some more of the depressing stats:

Of the almost 600 new movies that will be reviewed in The New York Times by the end of 2009, about 60 were directed by women, or 10 percent.

Of the major and mini major studios, here’s what women have directed in 2009:
20th Century Fox: Jennifer’s Body (Karyn Kusama) and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (Betty Thomas)
Fox Searchlight: Amelia (Mira Nair), Post Grad (Vicky Jenson) and Whip It (Drew Barrymore)
Disney: The Proposal (Anne Fletcher)
Sony: Julie & Julia (Nora Ephron)
Sony Pictures Classics: An Education (Lone Scherfig), Coco Before Chanel (Anne Fontaine) and Sugar (Anna Boden, directing with Ryan Fleck).
Universal Pictures: It’s Complicated (Nancy Meyers)

Miramax Films, Focus Features, Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures released no films directed by a woman.

Look Who’s Winning the B.O. Battle of the Sexes (The Wrap)

Women in the Seats but Not Behind the Camera (NY Times)