Tag Archive for 'Nancy Meyers'

This past week there have been a lot of stories looking at Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar win from a variety of perspectives.  The fact that we are even having these conversations at all is in itself a huge and gigantic (and every other adjective I can throw in) leap forward as Manohla Dargis wrote in her excellent piece How Oscar Found Ms. Right which ran on the cover of this Sunday’s NY Times Arts & Leisure section.  (Sidenote: I think we all owe Manohla a big wet kiss for her incisive writing and candor in talking about gender during this awards season.  Her visibility on the topic has made a big difference and I know it can’t be easy at the NY Times especially when you are a critic.)  Here’s what she wrote:

Uncharacteristically, the issue of female directors working — though all too often not working — was being discussed in print and online, and without the usual accusations of political correctness, a phrase that’s routinely deployed to silence those with legitimate complaints. I don’t think I’ve read the words women and film and feminism in the same sentence as much in the last few months since Thelma and Louise rocked the culture nearly two decades ago.

But of course, a visible win like an Oscar has unleashed criticism especially because Kathryn Bigelow did not embrace her fellow directing sisters in a big bold, feminist rant.

For example a piece from NOW in Toronto said:

You got the sense she was embarrassed that Barbra Streisand acknowledged the achievement and then Bigelow made no reference to the significance. How she could get up there and not mention the likes of Ida Lupino is baffling.

You know that if she would have gotten up there and talked about women directors and how this was historic for women the next day all anyone would have talked about was how she shouldn’t define herself as a woman director cause that marginalizes women.  Either way she couldn’t please everyone.

The Times of London criticizes her win not as a step forward for women, but confirmation of her selling out and joining the boys club.  Can West News Service reporter Jamie Postman talks about his angry encounter with Bigelow 15 years ago when she was promoting Strange Days and how she has a short fuse and berated and yelled at a female reporter at a press conference because stood up and confronted Bigelow on the fact that her film perpetuated violence against women.

I’m not really down with bringing up stories form 15 years ago to illuminate anything about anyone today, but the comment does bring up one one of the questions that will continue to plague her and this win.  Do women have more of an obligation to women not to perpetuate female stereotypes?  And do women directors have a moral imperative not to make films that put women in situations where they are assaulted, murdered and victimized? Is that part of the responsibility of having a vagina when you are a director?

That is an interesting conversation.  I don’t believe that a woman director should be handcuffed on any topic precisely because a woman could handle those topics differently.  Finally it feels like people have finally awakened to the fact that women directors have been getting the short end of the stick for decades.  Welcome to the party.  I implore you not to just talk and rant but do your part.  Go and see films by women directors.

Another issue that has been illuminated in this conversation — one that I find just as vital and important — is the discussion that movies about women don’t generate the same interest, passion and gravitas that movies about men do especially if they are directed and written by women.  TV writer Sarah Fain wrote on her blog:

My annoyance at Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar win is rooted in the man-off conundrum, which is basically this:  to garner attention and respect, women in Hollywood have to act like/write like/direct like men.

Is this an absolute rule?  No.  (And by no, I mean pretty much yes, unless you’re Nancy Meyers, and even that’s debatable.)

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that Bigelow didn’t deserve her Oscar— she certainly did.  So did Randa Haines, who wasn’t even nominated for Children of a Lesser God in 1986, despite the movie’s nomination for Best Picture.  And so did Niki Caro, whose 2002 film Whale Rider is still one of the most stunning pieces of artistic achievement I’ve ever seen.

This is where we need to focus energy on in the future and I’m afraid that it might even be just as hard — if not harder — to get respect in this area as it is for women directors.  But again, people can do their parts in this fight.  When there is a film about women that gets dismissed by your friends and partners as just a plain old stupid chick flick and it is one that you know deserves better than that — because lord knows some are really crappy — stand up for them.  Have some ammunition in your conversation.  Talk about why films about women don’t get taken seriously.   This is where we can all make a difference.  This is why awards matter.  Because it causes people to talk and consider and question.

Kathryn Bigelow, the absentee feminist (NOW Toronto)

Kathryn Bigelow’s great leap forward — or was it? (The Times of London)

Kathryn Bigelow And The Man-Off Conundrum (Sarah Fain Has Starfish Envy)

Kathryn Bigelow is no ‘bad boy’ (The Guardian)

How Oscar Found Ms. Right (NY Times)

The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow: Don’t mess with her (Vancouver Sun)

I started to get real nervous as I paged through the top 25 since I didn’t run into a woman’s name until SHOCKER, at number 4 is Kathryn Bigelow.  What a difference a year (a great movie, and some awards) make.  Think she would have been on the list last year?

Here’s the list of the top 50

50- Nancy Meyers

45- Mira Nair

30- Sophia Coppola

4- Kathryn Bigelow

Who do you think is missing from this list?

25 Greatest Working Directors (EW)

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.

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)

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.

Women are second class citizens in Hollywood and the best way to illustrate it is to look at the money — how it’s earned and how it’s distributed.  Two very different pieces, Actress Salary Report in The Hollywood Reporter and BO of the ’00’s: The Top Grossing Female Helmed Film Women in IndieWire help illustrate the issue.

IndieWire points out that of the 241 films in the last decade that have grossed over $100 million only five! of them are directed by women.  (Two more Shrek and Shark Tale — both animated — had women as co-directors.)

Here are the five:

Twilight directed by Catherine Hardwicke

What Women Want directed by Nancy Meyers

The Proposal directed by Anne Fletcher

Mamma Mia directed by Phyllida Lloyd

Something’s Gotta Give directed by Nancy Meyers

And to add insult to injury: “only 31 films directed or co-directed by women grossed over $20 million.  Over 1,000 films directed by men did the same.”

WTF?  I do like a Nancy Meyers film but please!  I know it’s very complicated to dissect why women directed films don’t perform as well as films by men.  Some of the reasons include subject matter and the fact that men would rather die than see a romantic comedy, and that in 2009 most of the women directed films still fall into the romantic comedy category.

This has got to change.  Everyone knows it’s abysmal and unacceptable yet there are no clear strategies EVER put forward by people with power to improve the situation.

And compounding the issue is the release of the annual salary list of top Hollywood actresses.  We all know that women make less money than men because most of the films that women star in (except for Angelina Jolie) have lower budgets because not too many things blow up which in turn leads to less marketing and advertising which in turn leads to lower grosses and then the outcome is: women’s movies don’t make money so let’s not make any movies that star women.

On the one hand I think that we are going to need many women to blow shit up to get any respect in Hollywood but then look at The Hurt Locker where Kathryn Bigelow blows lots of shit and people up.  It still has not made a lot of money.  So you can’t really win.  Maybe an Oscar nomination will help.  On the other hand I say fuck it.  Let’s just make the movies we want to see and be better about figuring out how to get women to see them.

The list of the top earning actresses is quite predictable and all white.  Most of the women are desperate for a hit.  The general theme to me is that these women need better scripts.  I’m tired of watching the same crappy movies rewritten over and over again.  Give me a Kate Winslet or a Cate Blanchett film any day (and by the way neither of them is on this list.)

The list and my thoughts:

Julia Roberts – took a pay cut for her next film Eat, Pray, Love but is only one hit away from being back on top.

Katherine Heigl – all I know is that she has one more chance to save herself after the misogynistic The Ugly Truth.  (I recently was watching the early episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and she is so good.  She needs to find a movie worthy of her and worthy of us.

Cameron Diaz – she stays on the list because of Shrek, but please she needs a serious hit.

Reese Witherspoon – I kind of miss her.  Where the hell has she been?  Oh yeah, hanging out with Jake.

Jennifer Aniston – I expect to see more boring romantic comedies from her for another 10 years.

Kate Hudson – if anyone needs a career counselor it is Kate Hudson who is still riding on her one hit wonder performance in Almost Famous.

Meryl Streep – hope she’s buying a big truck to haul all the backend dollars she’s getting because they won’t pay her enough up front.

Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side and The Proposal move her back up to the top.  Now no one remembers All About Steve.

Amy Adams – love her but Leap Year looks like a retread of the bad Hilary Swank film PS I Love You.  It’s another January release and you know what that means.  But I have only seen the trailer and it includes the line “I’m not going to die without getting engaged” which always makes me want to run screaming from the theatre

Rachel McAdams – I want her to star in a film DESPERATELY.

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?