Archive for the 'Reviews' Category

I’ve been watching Zoe Kazan since I saw her on stage in The Seagull where she and Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan acted circles around veteran actors Kristen Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard.  Last year was a breakthrough year for her onscreen playing daughters, first of Robin Wright in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and then of Meryl Streep in It’s Complicated.

But this year begins with a bang and Zoe gets her own film.  She stars as the Exploding Girl in Bradley Rust Gray’s new film.  He wrote it for Zoe after they spent a lot of time walking and talking together.  Zoe plays Ivy a young college student home for spring break.  She’s at the beginning of a new relationship with a guy at school and this week away has made Ivy unsure of how they feel about each other.  Ivy is a typical 20 year old and spends a lot on time on the phone.  The cell phone is basically a character in the film.  The conversations with Ivy and the boyfriend are full of awkward silences and remind us that while we might be more connected to people, at the same time it’s even harder to truly connect.

The emotions of a young woman not yet an adult and no longer child are written all over Zoe’s face.  She’s at the stage where everything feels slippery and unsure.  She doesn’t yet know where she fits into the world and to complicate matters she also has to deal with a chronic medical condition that has made her grow up much faster than others around her.  For example, she might have a hard time having children because of the medication she takes.  That’s just her reality.  She also can’t take a bath alone because she could have a seizure and drown.  But she manages this chronic condition with the help and understanding of her long time friend Al (played by Mark Rendall), and their week together (his parents rented out his room so he sleeps on Ivy’s mom’s couch) brings to the fore feelings she really never knew she had.

Zoe Kazan is the real deal.  She’s going to have a long career in film and theatre as an actor and a writer since she is also a playwright.  I am excited to keep watching her work.  Count me as a big fan.

What I love about Andrea Arnold is that she is not afraid to show the grit and grime in everyday life.  In her Cannes Jury Prize winning film Fish Tank (opening today in limited release), Arnold tells the story of Mia, a 15-year-old girl fighting to find her place in the world.  She lives in the “fish tank” which is the low-income high rise of Essex with her mom and younger sister.  They are a family in crisis.  Mom is struggling just to get by, has a bad history of boyfriends, and Mia spend lots of time on her own getting into trouble. So much trouble that she has been kicked out of school and needs to go off to some kind of reformatory. Her dream is to dance her way to a new life.  She finds vacant apartments, plugs in her music and dances for hours creating routines.  When mom brings home a new boyfriend (Michael Fassbender) who shows affection for Mia and her family, Mia misinterprets that affection in her desperation to be loved.

The film is raw and exciting to watch.  You see the uninhibited energy of newcomer Katie Jarvis as she struggles to find her place in the world without any adult guidance.  It’s a sad portrait of a girl who is way too alone, but finds sanity in her dancing.  From the film notes I learned that Arnold did not give the script to the actors before filming began.  She didn’t want them to over prepare.  If you haven’t seen her first film, Red Road, you should.  She is a great talent, telling hard stories about women.  Fish Tank should be seen by anyone interested in seeing a very talented woman director at work.

The best thing I can say about Leap Year is that it was not as bad as I expected it to be.  Films that open in early January are usually really, bad.  Remember Bride Wars?  That being said I still found the movie at times to be infuriating, especially the first 20 minutes when I literally wanted to drop kick Amy Adams’ character Anna across the room.

Adams plays a Type A apartment stager – meaning she pretties apartments about to go on the market so they get better offers.  On a side note I am sick and tired of these female romantic comedy characters who start off as high strung control freaks and through the love of a man they defrost and start to let go and live life one day at a time.  Enough.

Anna lives with — but is not engaged to — a cardiologist jerk who gives her status which she needs since grew up with a loser dad who lost their house.  (Of course there is no mention of her mother, but I’m not going to get into that one.)

Her best friend tells her one day while trying on dresses that she saw Mr. cardiologist jerk leaving a high- brow jewelry store with a package in his hand.  You know what that means!  But poor Anna jumped the gun and in the package were only beautiful diamond earrings not her expected engagement ring.  Whoops.

But Anna won’t be deterred.  She decides to fly to Dublin where Mr. Cardiology jerk is at a conference and propose to him, because on Leap Day a woman can do that.  Once every four years a woman can propose to a man.  It’s beyond insulting.

Suffice it to say her journey to Dublin is fraught with turbulence — literally and figuratively — and when the plane is diverted due to a storm the one thought that crosses her mind (which unfortunately for us she says out loud) when it feels like the plane might go down is “I can’t die without getting engaged. “  My thought at that moment was please save me.

The film improves with the introduction of Matthew Goode (one of my favs) as a pub owner from a small Irish town who Anna hires to drive her to Dublin in time to make her proposal.  Thus begins the typical  romantic comedy relationship — they first loath each other, then only hate each other, then they discover the other one isn’t so bad, then of course, they fall head over heels for each other.  Been there, done that.  But it made me think that the time has come for Mr. Goode to be the lead in a film.

So watching Leap Year made me come up with my first new year’s wish to Hollywood: stop making stupid formulaic romantic comedies.  People are smarter than you give us credit for.

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.

I’ve been a fan of Rebecca Miller’s work ever since I saw Personal Velocity at Sundance in 1992.  What I like most about her is that she makes movies where the women are necessarily very likable.  They are complicated and screwed up and not your typical Hollywood fare.  Her latest film The Private Lives of Pippa Lee which she wrote and directed (based on her novel) opened last week in NY and LA and will be opening further in the coming weeks.

The film stars Robin Wright as a woman who discovers as she approaches 50, that she has no idea who she is and it scares her into changing her whole life.  Pippa spent most of her adult life married to a man 30 years older because she was desperate for security after growing up with a manic and medicated mother (played by Maria Bello.)  She meets an older book publisher Herb Lee (Alan Arkin) and — after a tragedy with his rich Italian wife — makes a life with him and their two children.

As the movie begins, they move from NYC into an Connecticut retirement community (keep in mind that Pippa is nowhere near retirement age) and everything unravels.  Robin Wright gives a very strong performance as Pippa, a woman who begins the movie as a weak, and gradually gets stronger as she realizes she has plenty of time to discover who she is and what she wants in life.  Blake Lively plays the young Pippa, a wild child desperate for love.

What moved me a lot was the relationship that Pippa had with her kids.  Her son Ben (Ryan McDonald) adores her, yet her daughter Grace (Zoe Kazan) cannot stand her.  She’s a daddy’s girl, a high risk photographer and looks down at her mother for having no career or life outside of her family.  My favorite scene was when mother and daughter really talked to each other and Grace admits how she feels and how much effort it takes to hate her mom.  That scene between Wright and Kazan was fantastic.

I don’t really know why Rebecca Miller’s work doesn’t get the recognition it should.  Actors seem to love to work with her based on the stellar cast in this film in very small roles including Julianne Moore, Winona Ryder, and Keanu Reeves among others.  But this film is Robin Wright’s film, and as always, she is really interesting and mercurial.  Now that we are in the year end awards conversations, I think that people should take a hard look at her performance, because she is a woman at the top of her craft.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is now playing in NY and LA.  Here is info on where the film will be rolling out.

Women are going to seriously dominate the box office this weekend with the opening of the juggernaut New Moon as well as the Sandra Bullock starrer, The Blind Side.

New Moon is the 2nd chapter of the Twilight saga the love story between the mortal Bella Swan and the vampire Edward Cullen.  The good thing about this film is that no matter what any critics say this film will be a hit, especially among younger women.

What can I say about the film?  It’s totally cheesy and at times pretty bad that you kind of have to cringe.  But it’s critic proof just like Transformers 2 was. (BTW – Transformers 2 had only 19% on rotten tomatoes compared to New Moon’s still low 28% as of 7am today.)

Even though the movie has so many problems (I know that Summit wanted to rush out the sequel and didn’t want to give Catherine Hardwicke the time she wanted to make this film better but honestly they should have waited and listened to her) the boring script being the big one, I am excited to watch this movie roll out because I can’t remember the last time a movie with a woman at the center was essentially critic proof.  It would be better for all of us if the movie was stronger, but this is a movie that women want to see and they will not be kept away.

If you want to experience a cultural phenomenon go and see it this weekend (if you can get in.)  Just be prepared, there will be lots of screaming fans with you in the theatre.

The Blind Side

Here’s my confession.  I’m a big Sandra Bullock fan.  Don’t know exactly why, but I’m just always rooting for her.  Maybe it’s because she knows exactly the type of movies she will be good in (All About Steve notwithstanding) and lays it all out there.

In The Blind Side, Bullock takes on the role of Leigh Anne Tuohy based on the true story of a wealthy white Memphis family who takes in and virtually adopts a young black man.   They work hard to help this boy, including hiring tutors to help put him on the road to success.  And by success I mean finishing high school, getting a college scholarship, and now having a successful NFL career.

I’m a sucker for a feel good sports movie, but this is not about football the same way that the TV show Friday Night Lights is also not about football.  This film is about family and Bullock is great.  She kicks butt as the gun toting NRA member who astounds herself and her family by taking in and loving a 350 pound black young man.

It’s hard not to think about Precious when writing about this film.  This boy has potential and options that Precious never had.  Sports.  Sports are still a way out for boys that girls just don’t have.  I’m not trying to gloss anything over and say this boy had it easy, he didn’t.  He lived on the streets and was lucky to be alive.  But when you look at a big boy you can see the potential for his life and his future, and when you look at a girl of the same size you see all the limitations she has.  That’s just the reality.

But nonetheless, this is a heartwarming and moving story that’s fun and is a film that both men and women can enjoy.

Precious is one intense and powerful movie.  It’s about an obese, illiterate, sexually and physically abused African American girl who refuses to give up on herself when everything around her conspires to wreck her and beat her down.

The reason why the movie works as well as it does — in spite of a not great script– is the performances of the women.  This is a movie all about women and their struggles to be seen and heard in a world that doesn’t give a shit.  Gabourey Sidibe makes an incredible film debut as Clarieece “Precious” Jones the girl who refuses to give up.   She breaks your heart and mends it all in a two hour period.

Monique, who is best known for her comedy, plays Precious’ vicious mother Mary.  Mary is a monster.  I have not been as terrified watching a woman onscreen since I first saw Margaret Hamilton in her green face holding Dorothy hostage in The Wizard of Oz.  Mary is even scarier than Faye Dunaway channeling Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest.  Just when you think Mary can’t get any worse, she does, and you honestly cannot believe you are watching such horror unfold onscreen.

Paula Patton plays Blu Rain the teacher who helps Precious discover love.  She shows her that people can care about others.  She has a smooth, calm and reassuring voice that guides Precious.  Mariah Carey (sans makeup and any glimpse of her real life) plays the social worker Ms. Weiss who tries to connect with Precious and get her to talk about the abuse.

Precious challenges and assaults every nerve ending.  It pushes the viewer to see people that are mostly invisible in the culture (and onscreen) and humanizes them.  But Precious is by far not a perfect film.  The script by first time screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher is really far fetched and paints a picture that is only there black and white (not talking about color here) and full of stereotypes.  For example, the women who brutalize Precious are dark skinned while the women who help her are lighter skinned.  What does that mean?  Is it intentional?  What if anything is he trying to say?  What is most missing from the film is nuance and gray areas and that is clearly the directing choice of Lee Daniels.   He wants you to think in extremes because Precious’ world is extreme.

I hope that people go out and see Precious.  It’s very much worth it.  But be prepared, it is a movie that will move you, and challenge you and leave you breathless at times.  Don’t go if you are looking for something light.  Go and use this movie as an opportunity to have some really important conversations that most of us usually avoid because they are hard.  That just might be the most important thing this movie can do.  Make us talk and listen.

Precious opens up in limited release today in Chicago, NY, LA, and Atlanta.  Details here.

Sandra Laing and Sophie Okonedo

Skin is the heartbreaking true story of Sandra Laing (played by Sophie Okonedo) as a woman with black skin born to white parents in apartheid S. Africa.  She is a white girl who looked black.  As a young girl she knew she looked different but her biggest problems began when she showed up to school. They couldn’t and wouldn’t believe she was white, and were of course convinced that her mother (Alice Krige) had an affair with a black man instead of the fact that maybe somewhere in her family’s past there was actually mixed race blood.  This poor girl was just torn between two very different worlds.  The place she felt safest and most comfortable was amongst people who looked like her, so she left her family to live in the black community.  Her family then broke all ties with her because they just couldn’t believe their white daughter would rather live with black people. The whole thing just broke my heart.  This is a small film that makes you really think about race and how much racism hurts.  Skin opens today in NY and LA.

Sandra Laing is an very quiet woman (now I understand Okonedo’s understated performance) and she answered some questions about her life and the film.

Women & Hollywood: How did the film come about?

Sandra Laing: Tony Fabian the director of the film phoned me in 2000 that he wanted to meet me and told me that he wanted to make a film about my life.  I agreed because other people — newspaper and tv people — always came to me and they just took the story and went, and in Tony’s case I felt that he was the one who would change my life.  He did but it took 7 years to make the film.

W&H: Did he change your life?

SL: Yes, I was staying in a small rented house wasn’t working and couldn’t support my children, but now I am in a bigger house and my life is much better.

W&H: What was the hardest part for you to watch in the film?

SL: The time when I called my mother from my cousin’s house which was the first time I spoke with her after 10 or 15 years since I left home but I still didn’t know where she was staying she didn’t tell me.  And then the time when I found her in the old age home.

W&H: Why do you feel it was important for your story to get out there?

SL: I wanted to let the world know what apartheid did to a person in S. Africa and to let people know that if something happens to you long ago and you are scared to talk you must talk about it and let it out and you can then go on with your life.

W&H: In the press notes you say that this is a story of family, forgiveness and the triumph of the human spirit.  Have you forgiven your family?

SL: Yes, I have forgiven my family.  I didn’t get a chance to ask forgiveness from my father but I did see my mother before she died and now just my brothers are left.

W&H: Have you spoken with them?

SL: They don’t want to speak to me.  They are still angry with me from when I left home and when I chose black people over them.

W&H: It is so hard to rationalize what you must have felt — you were white but had black skin.  What can your experience teach people about racial issues?

SL: I think you mustn’t see a person through color whether she is black or white or brown.  We are all the same.  We all have the same blood.  Inside we are all the same.

W&H: Were you ever on the set?  What did you thnk about Sophie Okonedo playing you?

SL: Sophie is a brilliant actor.  I do see me in her acting.  She is doing the same things that happened to me.

W&H: Anything else you would like to add?

SL: Ask people to pray for me so that my brothers will one day come and see me.

W&H: Will this film open in S. Africa?

SL: It will it open in S. Africa on January 22, 2010.

It’s opening day for Amelia and Motherhood.

I am out of town today at a meeting so here are truncated reviews of both films.  I will have an interview with Katherine Dieckmann writer and director of Motherhood next week.

Amelia Earhart is one of those women in history who fascinates.  She broke every boundary and convention for a woman in her time.  Hilary Swank takes on the role of Amelia as a woman who just wants to fly and be free in a time when women were literally grounded.  She wore pants, refused to say obey in the vows at her wedding, and didn’t take her husband and promoter George Putman’s name.  It was exciting to watch the story of a woman who was one of the first real celebrities ever, who because she did things and lived the way she did made it easier for everyone who came after her.  There are not many women who can say that.  I kept waiting for the film to soar like Amelia herself but it got bogged down in a sappy love story between Amelia and Putman (played by Richard Gere).  And speaking of Swank and Gere, in real life Earhart and Putman were only 10 years apart, but in the film there is 25 years between the actors (not cool).  Even though you know what happens (well no one really knows what happened exactly) the last ten minutes when they are flying over the pacific looking for Howland island are nail biting and it made me for once wish for a happy Hollywood ending. Film is directed by Mira Nair and it has a wonderful score by Gabriel Yared.  (Opens on 800 screens in most cities.)

Writer/director Katherine Dieckmann wanted to make Motherhood because there were no “decent “comedies about mothers.  So she took pieces from her own life and added Uma Thurman as Eliza a harried mommy blogger desperate to regain her writing voice and herself, and we have Motherhood.  I respect that Dieckmann tried to show the realities of one day in an urban mom’s life, focusing on the mundane issues that women go through on a day in and day out basis that grind on you and suck out your creativity.  Eliza is desperate to regain the edge she had before kids yet no matter how hard she struggles, the lists she creates, or even how early she gets up, she is only able to catch a few minutes here or there for her and her writing.  The film illuminates the frustrations women face but I kind of wish she would have left out the whole Eliza as a mommy blogger storyline.  I think that the problem was that between when the movie was made and released mommy blogging and blogging in general has exploded.  As a blogger and a person who knows lots of mommy bloggers, blogging is a serious endeavor to all of us.  It’s not something you do in the 10 seconds you have between laundry loads just so you can have written something.  That being said, one of the film’s strengths is that it is able to show the joys and challenges of being a certain type of woman today (white, middle class, educated) who was promised lots of opportunities yet still feels held back.  I’m sure there are lots of women who will relate to it. (Opens on 35 screens in NY, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston.)  Also if you buy your ticket through Fandango, $1 will go to the Susan G. Komen Fund for breast cancer research.

This interview of Nair comes courtesy of the folks at MakingOf a behind the scenes look at how movies are made:

The second An Education opened at Sundance last January the buzz began.  The buzz was most especially focused on the star making performance of a pretty unknown English actress Carey Mulligan.  Sometimes the buzz blows over or gets overtaken by new buzz, but the buzz on Mulligan, and the film, has stayed steady all through the lead up to the film’s release today.

I was blown away by Mulligan when I saw her act circles around Kristin Scott Thomas in The Seagull (which they are now making into a movie with most of the same cast) on Broadway in the fall of 2008, and I remember how much I enjoyed her performance in The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard so I knew that she would be great in An Education, and she is.  The good news is that she is one just one of the excellent pieces in a pie full up of excellent pieces.  Everything about An Education is great which is directed by Danish director Lone Scherfig from a script by Nick Hornby based from the memoir by Lynn Barber.

An Education is a feminist coming of age story of Jenny (Mulligan) a too smart, too worldy for her own good, young woman in 1961 London when young women had few choices.  The country is still living in a post war mentality.  The 60s really haven’t begun yet.  What Jenny has going for her is that being the only child of Jack played by Alfred Molina, he has drilled it into his daughter that she must get a proper education in order to be successful.   She believes it and works hard for it.   From those scenes you get the sense that dad has been drilling her about getting into Oxford since she could walk.

But Jenny’s different and her role models of educated women are not very enticing, so when she meets David (Peter Sarsgaard in a creepily good performance) an older con man who opens her up and offers her a different type of education she leaps in head first.  He takes her to concerts, makes up stories about people he knows and not only enchants Jenny, but also her parents so much so that plan A for Jenny’s education — university — is thrown out the window in favor of plan B — marriage.

So Jenny, this young woman with so much potential to be different and special because she is so smart becomes just like all the other girls.  But she doesn’t.  Suffice it to say that things don’t work out with David cause he is a con man and Jenny needs to figure out how to get back onto plan A.

It’s not easy.  Jenny has let down the women who have invested some serious time and attention into her future.  Olivia Williams as her teacher Miss Stubbs is incredibly personally hurt when Jenny betrayed her, as is the school’s headmistress played by Emma Thompson.  These are women who close plan A, but had to make immense personal sacrifices to become educated women in that time.

Most of all An Education is about choices and how each choice we make has consequences and can snowball out of control.  But it also about how those choices teach us — give us an education if you will — so that as we grow up maybe, just maybe, we will make different ones next time.

Film opens today in limited release and will then roll out over the next couple of weeks.

I needed a pick me up yesterday after way too much depressing reading on the Roman Polanski situation and as soon as I arrived at the theatre to see a bunch of awesome women on roller blades with names like Fisty Cuffs and Beatrix Strange skating around outside the theatre I knew that my day had improved.

And the better news is that the film totally rocked.  Whip It is exactly the perfect movie for our time.  It doesn’t hit you over the head with the feminism but it is there in every breath and every beat.  Ellen Page is adorable as Bliss Cavendar a Texas girl who just doesn’t fit in with all the pageant obsessed folks in her town which includes her mom played by Marcia Gay Harden.  She wants to to wear Doc Maartens instead of heels and really hates doing all the pageant crap but does it to please her mom.  Mom is desperate for her daughter to do something, to amount to something, but the only thing she knows is pageants so she points her in that direction. I love the class issues in the film.  Mom was pretty, not gorgeous, and she is now a mail carrier who channels everything into her 2 daughters.  I totally loved Daniel Stern as Bliss’ dad who just wants his daughter to be happy and could care less that she is in roller derby.  Actually, he does care.  He loves it.  He loves that his daughter is an athlete.  The most touching scene was when he proudly hammers her number sign into his yard as so many Texas dads of football players do.

But Bliss wants more for her life than pageants and working in a dead end job.  When she discovers roller derby she finds her tribe.  These women get her.  They get each other.  They kick the shit out of each other on the track and have a ton of fun at it.

Drew Barrymore not only directs, she produces the film and co-stars as Smashley Simpson one of the skaters who constantly gets thrown out of the matches for kicking the shit out of the other women.  It’s hysterical.  And the best news to me is the confidence and comfort that Barrymore shows as a director.  It’s just that good.  Barrymore has had a great year onscreen in Grey Gardens and now on and off screen in Whip It. I want her and her production company to keep making films like this instead of crap like He’s Just Not That Into Me.

Kristen Wiig is fantastic as Maggie Mayhem a doting mom who just loves skating.  But to me the revelation was Juliette Lewis as Iron Maven, a woman who took a long time to find out where she belonged and is going to hold onto it with every fiber of her being.

The script is terrifically written by Shauna Cross and is based on her novel of the same name which is based on her own experiences as part of the LA Derby Dolls.  This is a seriously talented woman and the film gave me a sense of hope because it was able to get the tone of girl power/feminism and realism just right.

Here’s what Barrymore says about the film:

This film is really personal and important to me because it’s about a girl finding out who she is, going after what she believes in and bringing out the best in herself  It’s set agains tthe world of roller derby, which is about grit and toughness, but there’s also this great winnk and celebration and fun to it.  It’s feminine on its own terms, it’s about power without anger and it’s exhibitionism that entertains.  It’s a world where you get to be your own hero and find your own tribe.

Whip It proves that films can be feminist and fun.  That in itself is worthy the price of admission.

Casi Divas tells the story of four very different women vying in a contest to become the next big telenovela star.  It is a story infused with dreams of changing your life and desires for celebrity and success but if you think it is all gloss you will miss the real point of the film.

This film manages to do what so many others miss — it manages to tell important stories and be entertaining.  Francisca (Maya Zapata) is a poor Indian woman from Oaxaca who deals with race issues in the Mexican culture; Ximena Lizarraga (Ana Layevska) is a rich girl who has remade her body to fit into the culture but is miserable and really, really hungry; Catalina (Diana Garcia) works in the factories of Ciudad Juarez and uses her platform to raise awareness about young girls who continue to go missing in her community; and Yesenia (Daniela Schmidt) is struggling with issues of gender identity.

Film opens tomorrow in San Diego, Miami, NY and LA.

Mexican Writer and Director Issa Lopez answered some questions for Women & Hollywood

Women & Hollywood: Why were you drawn to writing and directing this story?

Issa Lopez: Two things were immediately very interesting to me. First, this global obsession with celebrity that plagues us. As if the simple fact of being on a screen, any screen, could wipe away all of our worries. This need to become public, and being massively recognized, accepted, admired. As if the only true proof of our existence could be through celebrity.

Second, the chance to portray the radically different ways to be a woman in Mexico. The radically different struggles that women face in a maddeningly contrasting nation. And the very different motives that can lay behind this search for the spotlight. From finding love, to survival.

W&H: You manage to make a fun story and infuse it with many important political issues including issues of weight, class, gender and race as well as the important topic of young women who are kidnapped.  Why was it important to include these elements and how were you able to keep it light while making sure that people really also thought about important issues?

IL: This was the main challenge in Casi Divas. From the start, the producer of the film, Gabriel Ripstein, and I, realized that if we were going to talk about young women in Mexico, we had to address these huge, vital issues. And in that case, could we bring such serious business to the Mexican middle class, pop consuming culture that goes for Hollywood fare, romantic comedies and telenovelas? Because that is your movie ticket buyer in Mexico. Could we make these things the subject of coffee talk? We had to. Because it is increasingly urgent to bring back the eye of that Mexican and Latino middle class, that decision making group, to look back into these issues. And the one way to do it, was to make it… entertaining. And engaging. And fun. Without taking the finger out of the wound. The way that I describe this movie, is a cake with a blade inside. It was a constant fear, and a very fine line to tread. So we worked carefully together on the script, on the casting, on the general tone to keep this very fine balance between fun and content.

W&H: How did you get started in directing?

IL: I attended film school and directing was my primary passion from the beginning. I had to learn to direct – writing has always been natural to me. But after film school I had to write telenovelas. Very few films were made in Mexico. Slowly and very painfully I squeezed myself into film making, in the beginning as a writer. I was successful as a writer, but I wanted to direct and it was very hard to convince an industry that has  accepted and labeled you as a writer, (or as anything, for that matter) that you can be something else. It’s funny that these days it’s quite hard for me to sell a script without committing to direct it, too.

W&H: This is a film done by a studio clearly trying to break into the spanish speaking market.  What is the goal for the film in the US?

IL: I think we ended up with a movie that addresses Latino issues but also universal issues. We’ve had very powerful responses from latino and non-latino audiences. Right now, it’s core target is the latino community. But celebrity obsession, media manipulation, women abuse, racism, and above all, women dreaming, can appeal to all audiences, I believe.

W&H: What are you doing next?

IL: I am both writing a comedy for the US, and a comedy for Mexico, with Gabriel Ripstein, with whom I worked on Divas. The one for the US is about men. The one for Mexico, about women. Let’s see which one moves faster!

W&H: What type of advice would you offer a female writer and director in the business?

IL: To be incredibly stubborn. If you are doing this it is because you believe you have something to say. And if that’s the case, stay put until you’ve said it.

Film info: Casi Divas

I have to preface my thoughts on this film by saying that my eyes exploded in a huge allergic reaction during the second half of the film.  Weirdly, even though I could barely see I liked the second half better but for a epic type romance there was something vital missing from the film- passion.

I am a huge fan of Rachel McAdams and like Eric Bana, but as a real lover of the book, I found the chemistry between McAdams and Bana sorely lacking.  Granted this must not have been an easy book to adapt.  It is the story of a guy with a gene anomaly which causes him to time travel regularly in different intervals.  He shows up and meets Clare (McAdams) when she was a little girl and she of course, falls in love with him and waits for him until he enters her life at the right time for them to be together.  Complicated, I know.  But it really, really works in the ok and don’t take my word for it, it’s sold million of copies.  I could be very forgiving if I would have felt some of the heat that McAdams had for Ryan Gosling in The Notebook but there was none of that here.

I think this film will have a hard time especially because it is opening so close to Julie & Julia and that has great word of mouth.

Rachel McAdams is an actress of great potential.  I don’t think that any of the roles she has played have showcased her talent enough.  I believe she has some great roles in her.  Sadly, this is not one of them.  But on a positive note there is nothing offensive in this film like a recent romantic comedy which will not be named, so if you are looking for something light…you might enjoy it.

PS- the two friends that I saw the movie with liked it much more than I did.  One had read the book and one had not.

If you’ve ever been to a Weight Watchers meeting one of the first things you are told is to never, ever go to the supermarket when you are hungry.  The same should be said for seeing the film Julie & Julia which opens today in almost 3000 theatres (more than were estimated last week.)  Julie & Julia is hands down the women’s movie of the summer and it could cause many a weight watchers member to fall off the wagon.  While I enjoyed the film a lot, the parts that star Meryl Streep as Julia Child soar whereas the parts that star Amy Adams as Julie Powell the woman who became a blogger before most any of us knew what blogging was feel flat.  It almost feels like Adams is in the black and white scenes of The Wizard of Oz and Streep is in the color scenes.

I don’t blame Adams.  Her character Julie Powell is going through a crisis, not knowing what the hell to do with her life right after 9-11, and to top it off she worked answering questions about 9-11 issues yet had virtually no power to help anyone who called her.  Everyone here in NY was depressed in 2001 and 2002.  So she took up butter and Julia Child and also this new medium of communication, blogging to try and get some of her mo back.  And she does.

Meryl Streep as Julia Child is in Paris with her husband Paul (played by the glorious Stanley Tucci) who is a US government civil servant.  She’s also floundering and takes up cooking because she loves to eat.  Through Streep we see how much Child loved life, loved Paris and loved her husband (how nice is it to see adults having a real relationship on screen?) And she discovered she loved cooking.  Loved it.  One of the things I admire about the film was seeing this woman discover her competency at something that she really didn’t know if she would be good at.  She grows in strength through the film while Adams seems to lose strength in her journey to cook her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Also worth the price of admission is a fantastic scene with Jane Lynch playing Streep’s sister.  Nora Ephron wrote the script from both Child and Powell’s books.  Overall, I love the premise and she gets points for effort but she is so clearly biased in favor of Streep that at times I felt bad that when I was watching the Julie Powell parts because all I kept thinking is when will Meryl be back on screen again?

Transformers 2 has made over $200 million dollars in less than a week.  It’s a monster hit.  I saw the first one and thought it was terrible and had no desire to see this film.  I found this review from a Laura Sundstrom who blogs at Adventures of a Young Feminist and she was kind enough to let me cross post it.

I saw “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen” for the second time last night when I took my neighbors to see it. I was interested in seeing it again not only because I like action movies but also because something about it bothered me the first time. I thought that seeing it a second time would help me get past the explosions and loud noises to help me better understand what bothered me about it the first time.

It was obvious, even the first time, that there were racial stereotypes (even though Michael Bay, the director, claims it’s just comedic relief) and it was also obvious that Megan Fox’s character didn’t really serve a whole lot of purpose, at least not to me.

I’m not going to talk too much about the racial stereotypes, there has been a lot of discussion of that (see Newsday and Valley24 – for a more positive review of the movie). What I do want to talk about is the obsolete character of Mikaela Banes, played by Megan Fox.

To me, it seems like the only thing that Fox seems good at in this movie is having pouty lips and wearing low cut shirts while running in slow motion and falling cleavage first in front of the camera. And the main storyline surrounding Mikaela Banes is her trying to get Sam (Shia LaBeouf) to tell her that he loves her.

The first time she tries to get him to say those three words she changes into a white dress to look like the hot, innocent girl. Throughout the movie, she brings this up numerous times and threatens to leave him if he doesn’t say it. The message that I got out of this is that to get boys to love you, you have to look hot and wear low cut shirts and very high heels and this is your whole purpose in life. You can’t contribute meaningfully to saving the world from killer robots, you just have to get the guy to want you. What kind of message is this sending to the teenage (and younger) boys and girls that are populating the theaters in the thousands (or more, I don’t know exactly)?

When I saw this last night, I took four children (1 girl and 3 boys) all under the age of 12. I didn’t know what to tell them when they asked why I didn’t like Megan Fox’s character. Do I tell them that she’s only there as a sexual object whose only purpose is to have teenage boys stare at her for hours on end (and Fox likes it that way)? What I did end up telling them was that she was setting a bad example for women and teenage girls. But they didn’t really understand what I meant.

How do we talk to children (especially ones that aren’t your own, in my case) about what Megan Fox and her character mean for women? How do we expect these children to grow up to have healthy relationships if they keep seeing these types of ones in the media where girl is desperate to be desired and the guy refuses to say “I love you” until the girl says it first? Not to mention how do you discuss the racial stereotypes of the Transformers with them?

Maybe it’s just me or the fact that these children aren’t my own (I don’t want to step on the toes of their parents), but it was a really awkward moment for me when they asked why I didn’t like Megan Fox. If they don’t understand why this character is harmful to women, what does that mean for them when they grow up?

Laura Sundstrom is a recent graduate with a degree in Women’s and Gender Studies with specific interest in reproductive rights and pop culture who is just trying to find her way in the world.

Here’s a review of a documentary that played at the recent SILVERDOCS Fest done by Anna Pinkert of Still Indie.  Film will air on PBS this fall.  (If you have a review of post you think would be appropriate for this site, please send it to me at melissa@womenandhollywood.com.  I am looking for additional voices and perspectives on the site.)

Gemma Cubero del Barrio and Celeste Carrasco follow two women in their quest to succeed in the machismo world of Spanish bullfighting.  The film itself is beautiful – watching it, I had an incredible sense of the two women not only as devoted athletes and trailblazers, but also as people who are passionate about an art that is significant in Spanish culture.

Maripaz Vega, Celeste Carrasco, Eva Florencia and Gemma Cubero del Barrio. Photo by Anna Pinkert

Both filmmakers and both of the women bullfighters were on hand at the screening I attended.  The filmmakers said that this movie took 9 years to make.  Initially, they conceived of it as a piece on the history of women bullfighters, but when they met Eva Florencia and Maripaz Vega, they decided to make them the center of the story.  On their part, Eva Florencia and Maripaz Vega said that they loved watching the film, and were proud to be a part of it.  Vega, who is an established matador, hoped that the film would improve the situation for women bullfighters in Spain, but that they have a long way to go.

One of the many things I learned at SILVERDOCS is the value of a good relationship with your subjects.  At a screening of Salesman, legendary director Albert Maysles updated us on the status of his four Bible salesmen subjects, 40 years after the film’s debut.  Being warm, generous, and kind to the people in your film has a better chance of yielding the intimate stories that you want to tell as a filmmaker.

Ella Es El Matador will premiere on PBS on Sept 1 as a part of POV.

Anna Pinkert is a multimedia producer working in the Boston metro area and a blogger at Still Indie.

This cross-posted review comes from Tracey at Unapologetically Female:

Monsters vs. Aliens: Believe it or Not is a Feminist Film:

A few months back, Dan and I saw this trailer for the Dreamworks animated film

Since I’m always complaining about the dearth of female characters in animated films, Dan leaned over to me during this trailer and whispered, “female protagonist!”, but I have to admit that while I was intrigued by the idea of a female character who literally takes up space, I was highly skeptical of this skinny blonde bride who is grossed out by bugs and monsters, fumbling, and completely uninterested in being a hero.

We saw it tonight, and, believe it or not, it’s a feminist film.

(From this point on, this post contains spoilers.)

It’s not completely without its problems, but I was totally impressed to watch an animated film with a female hero who discovers for herself that she has no interest in living in a man’s shadow and that she can do amazing things on her own.

First, the problems:

-Even though she is the main character, Susan is still the token girl in the film. The funny ensemble of monsters is, of course, all male, and even the love interest of one of the male monsters is played by an inanimate Jell-o mold.

-The treatment of female screams in the movie is totally problematic. First, a random woman in a room full of men is shown screaming at the top of her lungs at the sight of a series of photographs of monsters. After she is kicked out of the room by a hypermasculine, militarized character, we hear the scream again at the sight of the next monster, and it is revealed that the scream came from the (male) president of the United States. While this may seem funny at face value, it’s actually a cheap laugh at the feminization of a male character — a joke that only works in a culture that is dismissive of women. Later, after the monsters collectively save the world from impending doom, three women utter the same scream at the sight of one of the monsters, only to rush into his arms and cover him with kisses — an annoying twist on the stereotype of the adoring fan-girl who is wildly attracted to the male hero.

-At one point, after Susan does most of the work in defeating an alien robot probe, one of the monsters makes fun of another monster for having been shown up by a girl. This type of comment is so run-of-the-mill in movies with strong female characters, but I hate how it always serves as a reminder that the female hero is the exception rather than the rule.

-After being captured by the aliens, Susan wakes up on the spaceship dressed in a new, skin-tight, spandex outfit. WTF?

These shortcomings aside, I loved this movie. Despite her original role as a bride and her initial fear of the creepy-crawly monsters, Susan is a totally kickass hero. She’s giant with superhuman strength, and once she discovers her power, she does what any male superhero would do with it — she uses it. She pursues adventure, fearlessly chases down bad guys, rescues civilians, saves her friends, and realizes that she doesn’t need a man to take care of her. The whole time I was watching, I truly couldn’t believe I was actually witnessing such positive, feminist messages in an animated film. I’m excited for every young girl who gets to see it, and I can’t wait for writers to go see this and witness how female heroes are done successfully.

Go see it.

Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams) had it all.  The problem for her is she had it all 10 years ago in high school.  She was the popular cheerleader dating the football player and was the envy of all the other girls.  Fast forward ten years and Rose is now cleaning the houses of the girls who envied her as she struggles to keep afloat.

She’s stuck as so many people are with big dreams, too little education and more responsibilities than the weekly pay check can cover.  Rose life starts to turn around after she gets into the crime scene cleanup business which she learns about from her married cop boyfriend.  She convinces her slacker sister Norah (Emily Blunt) to get up off the couch and join her in the business to turn both their lives around.

The sisters clash like most sisters do- one is responsible, the other doesn’t care – but their sisterly bond transcends their differences.  It’s been the two of them and dad (Alan Arkin) since their mom died.  And they miss her.  Their lives have been shaped around her absence, especially Norah’s.  She’s just so sad and unconnected except to Rose, her dad and Rose’s son Oscar.

These two women make crime scene cleanup more than just gross work.  They feel oddly connected to the people they are cleaning up after.  First time screenwriter Megan Holly tells an original, compelling and funny story that could play out in any city across the country especially in this economic climate.  Even though the characters struggle economically, this is not a downer or depressing film.  It’s not tough like Frozen River.  It’s light and funny, yet meaningful.  This hopeful story of love, trust and family is one that is sorely needed.

(Disclosure- as of March 17, I have been engaged to do outreach to build word of mouth for this film.)

On the surface, Phoebe looks perfect.  She’s played by the stunning Elle Fanning (who like her sister Dakota is really interested in playing complex girls), but Phoebe is not perfect at all.  She’s struggling.  Her mind is making her say uncomfortable things and she has become a danger to herself.  Her mom, Hillary (played by Felicity Huffman) is desperate to believe that her daughter is just a little quirky and different and that her eccentricities are harmless.  But deep down she knows that there is something more than just quirky behavior and she’s getting scared, not only for her daughter, but for herself.  She has an enormous amount of guilt because she is overwhelmed and has started to resent her child for sucking up all her time and energy.  Huffman’s guilt over how to mother Phoebe is one of the most interesting elements of the film.  There is no right answer.

The one place where Phoebe feels safe is in the school’s theatre where they are putting on the play Alice in Wonderland.  Miss Dodger (played by Patricia Clarkson) gives the kids the freedom to explore, to be different from who they are in the real world.  Phoebe is so comfortable and safe as Alice that she creates an alternate universe for herself where she lives as Alice and is perfectly normal.

First time writer and director Daniel Barnz has taken a stellar ensemble and put together a lovely, moving story of a young girl’s struggles.  She blames herself for not being able to control her impulses and the toll it has taken on the family is visible and heartbreaking.  But they are trying the best they can, and in the end, that’s all you can ask people to do.

Phoebe in Wonderland opens today in 11 cities: Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington DC, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Dallas, Philadelphia
and Seattle