Tag Archive for 'Julie & Julia'

Rachel Abramowitz of the LA Times and Lisa Schwarzbaum of EW weigh in on what a Bigelow win means for women (and the business.)

Abramowitz’ piece In Hollywood, female film directors are still the exception lays out the stats on where women are and how far we still have to go:

Bigelow’s likely ascension to the podium at the Academy Awards has provided a jolt of adrenaline.

For instance, neither Warner Bros., the world’s largest studio, nor Paramount Pictures hired a single female director last year, while Walt Disney Studios and Universal Studios hired just one apiece. No woman has ever been hired to direct an event picture with a budget of more than $100 million, the kind of film most valued by the Hollywood machine.

One apparent growth arena for women is in working for other women. Streep, for instance, told The Times that she attributes her box office renaissance to the fact that she opted to do three films, “Mamma Mia,” “Julie & Julia,” and “It’s Complicated,” that were written and directed by women, as well as backed by studios with women as presidents of production or even higher in rank.

And Schwartzbaum’s piece Kathryn Bigelow: If she wins the Oscar for directing, does that mean it’s been a great year for women?

As a movie-lover, I hope Bigelow wins, because of, well, her great directing of The Hurt Locker. As a woman (and thus, apparently, an oracle for the purposes of his little pre-Oscar feature) I’m aware of and excited about the significance of such a win, since she’d be, oh, the first woman ever to take the trophy in that category (and only the fourth ever nominated). But as a movie-lover, I’d like to think that if a man had directed The Hurt Locker as well as Bigelow did, then he would win the Oscar. I’d like to think that if Bigelow wins, the biggest benefit for women who want to make movies in Hollywood — a Hollywood run, as most of the world is run, by men — would be greater industry-wide recognition that talent comes in all sexes, colors, and sizes. A woman can make an action flick or a war movie; a man can make a feminine romance. All we want is to see stories that move us, excite us, entertain us, challenge us. Sometimes those movies are about alien blue people. More often, those movies are about people with whom we can identify, characters who look as young or old as we are. And as male or female, too.

AMEN.

Numbers matter. So we here at Women & Hollywood are going to try and put out as many numbers as we can.  (Just keep in mind that none of these are scientific studies)

Women & Hollywood intern Eva Krainitzki (all the way from England- how cool is that?) took a look at the 2009 box office numbers and also put forward a definition of what is a womencentric film.

Overview

2 of the top 10 grossing films are women centric;

9 of the top 50 grossing films (two of them are animated – The Princess and the Frog, Coraline);

18 of the top 100 grossing films;

26 of the top 150 grossing films

The Films, Their Rank and Total Gross

4 The Twilight Saga: New Moon ($293,897,327)

8 The Blind Side ($238,430,210)

—————————————————————————————————————-

16 The Proposal ($163,958,031)

31 It’s Complicated ($104,782,080)

32 The Princess and the Frog* ($100,352,358)

34 Julie & Julia ($94,125,426)

37 The Ugly Truth ($88,915,214)

39 Hannah Montana The Movie ($79,576,189)

42 Coraline* ($75,286,229)

—————————————————————————————————————-

56 Bride Wars ($58,715,510)

63 My Sister’s Keeper ($49,200,230)

66 Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire ($45,506,888)

67 Confessions of a Shopaholic ($44,277,350)

69 The Unborn (2009)** ($42,670,410)

70 Drag Me to Hell** ($42,100,625)

71 Orphan** ($41,596,251)

74 The Lovely Bones($38,647,080)

94 The Uninvited** ($28,596,818)

—————————————————————————————————————-

115 New in Town ($16,734,283)

116 Jennifer’s Body** ($16,204,793)

126 Amelia ($14,245,415)

129 Whip It ($13,043,363)

132 Sunshine Cleaning ($12,062,558)

144 An Education ($8,795,228)

146 My Life in Ruins ($8,665,206)

150 The Young Victoria ($7,673,21)

[1] Based on Box Office Mojo, domestic grosses for 2009.  As of February the 4th 2010.

* Animated Film

** Horror Film

Two critics organizations comprised on female critics gave out their annual awards.  First up is the Women’s Film Critics (an association of 47 women film critics and scholars from around the country and internationally, who are involved in print, radio, online and TV broadcast media.)  Second is the Alliance of Women Film Journalists a group professional female movie critics, reporters and feature writers working in print, broadcast and online media.

Both organizations give different types of awards focusing on women and women’s issues.  Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker are making many year end lists and she could seriously be on her way to an Oscar win.

Here are some of the winners:

THE WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2009

BEST MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN
TIE
Coco Before Chanel
My One And Only

BEST MOVIE BY A WOMAN
Julie & Julia: Nora Ephron

BEST WOMAN STORYTELLER [Screenwriting Award]
Sunshine Cleaning: Megan Holley

BEST ACTRESS
Abbie Cornish: Bright Star

BEST FOREIGN FILM BY OR ABOUT WOMEN
Seraphine

BEST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
American Violet
Amreeka
The Baader Meinhof Complex
Inglourious Basterds
Lemon Tree
The Messenger
My Sister’s Keeper
Sweet Crude

BEST EQUALITY OF THE SEXES
Julie & Julia

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Gertrude Berg [Posthumous]: Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg: Aviva Kempner, director

ACTING AND ACTIVISM: Emma Thompson – For her work on and off screen against sex trafficking

ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women:
Precious

JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: For best expressing the woman of color experience in America
American Violet

*KAREN MORLEY AWARD: For best exemplifying a woman’s place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity
An Education

COURAGE IN ACTING [Taking on unconventional roles that radically redefine the images of women on screen]
Isabella Rossellini: Green Porno

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN AWARD [Supporting performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored]
Olivia Williams: An Education

ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Best Film:
The Hurt Locker

Best Director:
Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker

Best Actress
Carey Mulligan – An Education

Best Actress In Supporting Role
Monique – Precious

Best Editing
Sally Menke – Inglorious Basterds

Most Beautiful Film
Bright Star

EDA FEMALE FOCUS AWARDS

Best Woman Director
Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker

Best Woman Screenwriter
Jane Campion – Bright Star

Best Animated Female
Coraline in Coraline

Best Breakthrough Performance
Carey Mulligan – An Education

Women’s Image Award
Kathryn Bigelow

Perseverance Award
Agnes Varda

Actress Defying Age and Ageism
Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia and It’s Complicated

Sexist Pig Award
Robert Luketic for The Ugly Truth

This Year’s Outstanding Achievement By A Woman In The Film Industry
Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

Lifetime Achievement Award
Agnes Varda

AWFJ Award For Humanitarian Activism
Rebecca Cammisa for Which Way Home

Women Film Critics Circle 2009

Alliance of Women Film Journalists 2009 Winners

Jeers to the Hollywood Reporter for convening a year end discussion with high-profile producers round-table without a SINGLE WOMAN!  Please don’t tell me a single female producer was not available.

Here are two points, from the conversation of note:

Laurence Mark: on How Julie & Julie got made:

Mark: “Julie & Julia” happened, without question, because of Meryl Streep. We all know it, Meryl knows it, Sony is certainly happy to say it.

And Ivan Reitman talking about casting Vera Farmiga and the discussion he had with his son writer/director Jason.

I’d say the biggest disagreement we had was over Vera Farmiga, who is a wonderful actress but she was eight months pregnant about two months before he started shooting. He said “Look, I wrote it for her, I think she’ll be perfect.” And she was as big as a house! As a producer, I have to say to him, “I know she’s a great actress, she’s going to be great in it, but she’s got to be someone George Clooney is going to fall in love with.” There were all kinds of actresses who wanted to play this part, bigger names than Vera was at that moment, so I kept saying, “Well, how about her?” But he just hung in there. I had to really defend his decision, and I know he agonized about it enormously. There were a couple rough opening scenes — first days — that he reshot at the end of the schedule to give her a little more time to get into shape. Apart from that, there was really no downside.

Thank goodness Jason stuck to his guts.

And our second jeer of the day goes to CNN and this story, When Actresses Turn Ugly which is basically about the fact that Mariah Carey wore no makeup for her part in Precious.  How does wearing no makeup make you ugly?  Unacceptable.

Awards Watch: Producers Roundtable (Hollywood Reporter)

When Actresses Turn Ugly (CNN)

Amelia grossed about $ 4 million at about 818 theatres this weekend at the box office.  Not that good.  But the fact that it grossed almost $5,000 per screen even with the bad reviews shows that there is a desperate need for films that appeal to older women (that means women over 25 in movie business terminology).  I also believe that the icon Amelia Earhart resonates very strong feelings among women who feel she is a role model for generations of women.

Here’s what Variety said about the box office this weekend:

Searchlight’s “Amelia” was the clear choice among older females, who made up more than 60% of the audience. Film played well across top markets despite generally poor reviews. The studio specialty arm believes the film did well enough to have legs.

I honestly am not surprised that the film did not do better.  My feelings for Amelia which I wrote about last week was very, very mixed.  I really liked the premise, but a premise does not make a successful film and this one is far from successful.  It’s just plain not good.  One of the things I struggle with on this site is trying to be supportive of films by and about women when they fall short.  I try to see the glass half full when the bottom is staring at me like it was in the crowded theatre last week.

So how did this happen?  How did a film with such a great pedigree, great cast, accomplished writers and director make a film that doesn’t work?

I can’t really answer the question I just posed,  but to me it’s illuminated in the difference between the trailers.  The first trailer was about Amelia, the woman, the icon, the trailblazer, and second trailer put out closer to release trailer focuses more on the romance between Amelia and George Putnam- her backer and husband. If I never see another man say to his wife as she is about to embark on the most important event of her life “come back to me” it will be too soon.  That line illuminates to me where the film went wrong.  Why did they think a romance between Amelia and George would engage audiences more than a strong female icon in history?  NEW THOUGHT: Also their marriage seemed so bizarre with him seeming so needy.  I just look to the great, equal marriage between Julia and Paul Child in Julie & Julia as an example of creating a partnership that works in a film.

The minute they decided to focus play up the romance more than the accomplishments of this amazing woman they were screwed because it lost its focus.  Check out the difference between the trailers.

Did you see the film this weekend?  What did you think about it?

‘Paranormal’ cuts down ‘Saw’ at box office (Variety)

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As you know by her constant presence on this site, Meryl Streep is one of my obsessions.  Julia & Julia opens up in England this weekend and in the pre-press for the film, Meryl let loose on male Hollywood executives.

God, I love her.  I love that she says the truth without fear cause she is a freakin’ huge box office star now.

“It’s always a shock to the studio,” Streep says with real firmness, “because men run the studios and live their own fantasies through them. It’s harder for a man to jump inside a woman character’s mind and imagine, ‘This could happen to me’ than it is for a woman to imagine herself as a male character.” But surely the profits count? “They see it and they understand that there is a market and it will make them an enormous amount of money, but we all respond to instinct and it’s their inner boy that jumps up and goes: ‘Yeah, I wanna see another GI Joe’.”

“Parts are rare,” Streep says, “the amount of product is rare. It’s a large machine that markets these films, that makes theatre [cinema] owners commit their theatres half a year in advance — that’s how it works. Are they gonna buy GI Joe or are they gonna buy Mamma Mia!?”

Mamma Mia! did great business, I say. “They’re still not sure,” Streep counters. “You need a good salesman. Those films have done well, yes, that audience is there, but it doesn’t go on the first weekend [which the industry nervously observes].”

Nora Ephron also chimed in a bit:

When she was inducted into the Academy of Achievement in 2007, Ephron said she took up directing because “90% of the men directing movies have no interest in women in any real way, except as girlfriends or wives. They don’t really want to make movies about them, and they don’t.”

Thank goodness we have these women speaking out.  Anyone in England needs to get their butt to the theatre this weekend.

Meryl Streep on why Hollywood’s men don’t trust women (The Times of London)

The dirty little secrets of Nora Ephron (The Guardian)

I couldn’t hold this one.  Had to share immediately!

As you head out to see Meryl Streep as Julia Child in Julie & Julia here is Meryl Streep’s next film to look forward to.  I am beyond excited for this film.

Nancy Meyers + Meryl Streep = AWESOME

What do you think?

Ariel Levy who has been kicking some serious ass in writing profiles in the New Yorker of late, spent some time with Nora Ephron as she readies Julie & Julia for release next month.  (You can only read the article online if you have a subscription to the New Yorker.)

To me, Julie & Julia is the biggest film of the summer for women.  It’s got everything– Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Nora Ephron as writer and director.  What more can you need?   I bet it’s going to be big.

I’ve always been fascinated with Ephron.  I loved the script for Silkwood with she co-wrote with Alice Arlen.  I also think her directorial debut This is My Life (which she also wrote) starring Julie Kavner (where is she now- I know she is Marge Simpson’s voice, but where is she?) is an under appreciated feminist gem.

Ephron has had some serious hits in her life.  Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally (which she wrote) are two of the movies that will live on forever.  Not many people have a single movie that has made such an impact and she has had several.

She’s a commercial director with a feminist bent who grew up in a Hollywood writing family.  When you think of female directors whose films actually make money there are only a couple — Ephron, Nancy Meyers and now Anne Fletcher and Catherine Hardwicke.  That’s pretty much it.  Both Ephron and Meyers have movies this year that star Meryl Streep, so this it a very fine year.  (Meyers’ movie just wrapped last week so let’s hope she can make the December 25 release date.)

Having grown up in Hollywood Ephron saw how women were treated:

Female screenwriters, like Ephron’s mother, Phoebe, almost always had a husband they collaborated with, and “woman director” was an oxymoron.

Here’s what Nora said about women and directing:

Most directors, I have discovered, need to be convinced that the screenplay they’re going to direct has something to do with them, and this is a tricky thing if you write screenplays where women have parts that are equal to or greater that the male part…You look at a list of directors and it’s all boys; it certinaly was when I started as a screenwriter.  So I thought, I’m just going to become a director and that’ll make it easier.”

I wonder if a guy director would say the same thing.  Do guys who are directing horror films think that those types of movies have something to do with them?

Ephron detests whining: you can acknowledge a problem, but only in the service of solving it.  “nobody really has an easy time getting a movie made,” she said.  “And furthermore I can’t stand people complaining.  So it’s not a conversation that interests me, do you know?  Those endless women-in-film panels.  It’s like, just do it!  Just do it.  Write something else if this one didn’t get made.  It’s my ongoing argument with a whole part of the women’s movement.”

Ok  people.  Nora Ephron is tired of the complaining.  She’s tired of being asked to be on any more panels where the topic is why aren’t there more women directors and why is it so hard for women to get a film made.

Geez Nora.  Don’t you think after 25 or 30 years we’re all tired of these panels?  Isn’t everybody tired of asking the same question for 30 years?  Wouldn’t it be great to never need to have a panel that focused on the lack of women directors anymore?    But since there are so few female directors that are successful isn’t it all of our jobs to keep pushing and hounding and asking the questions?  Yes there is complaining, frustration and whining at times.  But there are also legitimate conversations about box office issues, the lack of interest in scripts about women and the ongoing SEXISM in the business.  If we didn’t have these panels and agitate and complain and pushed — where would we be?

I am all for solutions.  I try never to do a panel without talking about next steps and solutions but to blame the women’s movement (which by the without which you never would have had a career) seems a bit extreme.

And I wonder.  Does Nora mentor younger women directors?  Does she make sure to have up and comers on the set?  The only way we will get past the whining to solutions is for women who have made it to help the ones behind.

Nora Ephron is lucky.  She’s made money for her studio.  She also has a champion in Amy Pascal at Sony.

I cannot wait for Julie & Julia (although from the article it sounds like we will love all the Julia parts and be bored with the Julie parts.)  I will be there for anything Ephron does cause she’s a vital, singular mainstream women’s voice that we so desperately need.

Jane Lynch is one of those actresses who has been EVERYWHERE for years.  She is an amazing supporting player (Best in Show) and usually plays funny but also can do drama as she does on Criminal Minds as the mentally ill mother of brainiac Spender Reid.  She’s also one of the most visible and vocal lesbian actors.

She’s one of the people that if she is in something I will go out of my way to see it because I know she’s that good.

Tonight after the season finale of American Idol she co-stars in the preview of the highly anticipated series Glee.  She’s also in Julie & Julia out August 7th playing Julia Child’s sister.

Check out the trailer for Glee.  Here’s a NY Times interview with Lynch.

I’m still traveling, but here’s something to keep you occupied, the recently released trailer of Julie & Julia.  Yeah. Write it down. August 7th.

This summer as usual is full of big action packed blockbusters AND for the second year in a row (and the last 3 out of 4 years) a Meryl Streep flick.  I still wish we would get over the whole counterprogramming and fluke discussion.  The thing I love most about this is that Meryl Streep was a movie star who became a box office success.  Until a couple of years ago no one thought it possible but this woman who gets nominated for basically everything she is in, can now print dollar bills. In case you care the world wide gross of Mamma Mia! is up to $600 million.

I am more than excited to see Julie & Julia and I have never cooked a french dish in my life.  I know very little about Julia Child but I do remember seeing her in passing on PBS when I was a kid.  I love the fact that she went to Smith, and was a spy.  I also think it’s smart that the movie (written and directed by Nora Ephron) uses Child’s autobiography as well as the memoir Julie & Julia for its basis.

USA Today and EW both help build the anticipation with recent pieces.  USA Today calls Streep “the streep-inator” and this is from EW’s summer preview issue:

Thanks to The Devil Wears Prada and last year’s Mamma Mia!, Streep has become the queen of counterprogramming, a box office draw for predominantly female audiences hungry for movies that are pyrotechnics-free. ”It’s completely improbable, and no one in Hollywood can understand it,” says Streep of her newfound bankability. ”Which is so thrilling!” Adds Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal, ”Every now and then, the world rediscovers there’s a female audience — ‘Oh, my God! Women go to the movies!”’

OMG, women go to the movies!  Duh!  Put August 7 in your calendar now!

Meryl Streep was steeped in Julia Child for ‘Julia’ role (USA Today)

Nora Ephron cooks up a rich stew filming ‘Julie & Julia’ (USA Today)

Julie & Julia Summer Preview (EW)