ALL POSTS
Headlines Matter
The Sundance competition lineup is out. Analysis on the gender breakdown to come. But here’s the first thing I saw when I opened the story in the Hollywood Reporter (I seriously think they need a...
Special Screening Offer for Women and Hollywood
Dear Readers – Here is a special offer for those of you in NYC. I am putting together a screening for the Weinstein Company this THURSDAY (yes, tomorrow) for My Week With Marilyn starring...
Cross-Post: Name It, Change It, Flip It, Quip It
In honor of the Women’s Media Center Awards this evening (and I want to thank everyone who voted for me in the social media award category- I did not win), Nell Scovell and Gloria Steinem have put...
Streep and Chastain Only Women Recognized by NY Film Critics Circle
The NY Film Critics Circle a group comprised of about 30 NY area critics and writers used twitter yesterday to announce their annual winners and not surprisingly women did not figure anywhere on the...
Hope Solo Not Dainty Enough for Dancing With the Stars
Hope Solo is a competitive athlete. She’s won Olympic gold. World Cup Silver. The Golden Glove Award at this summer’s Women’s World Cup. She is probably the best female goalkeeper in...
Where are the Women at the Indie Spirit Nominations?
I just got back from a meeting and broke open the list of indie spirit nominees for 2012 and I am utterly dispirited at the lack of female voices throughout the categories. I am looking back at the...
The Sad Death of Prime Suspect
This TV season has lots of female created and female starring shows. Some stink (Whitney), some are great (Up All Night), and most kind of fall somewhere in the middle (2 Broke Girls). (For a an...
Dirty Trailer for Young Adult — written by Diablo Cody
If you think you knew what Young Adult was about, this will throw a wrench in those thoughts. Just please don’t play this around the kids — it’s good and dirty.
Gotham Award Winners: The Women
The awards season began in earnest last evening with the IFP sponsored Gotham Awards. Here are the female winners: Breakthrough Director — Dee Rees — Pariah — hopefully this is...
Trailer Watch: Katharine McPhee in Smash
Katharine McPhee gets the star treatment in this video from Smash (which is created by Theresa Rebeck.) Show will premiere on February 6. Check out all the other great stars in it. Debra Messing....
My Week With Marilyn
The sad reality that I admitting to here is that I really don’t know much about Marilyn Monroe. Here’s what I knew before I saw the film. She died of a drug overdose realtively young. She sang...
Cross-Post: Oscars 2011: Single Fathers and the Vanishing Mothers
One of the threads running through this year’s Oscar race is the single father who must pull things together for the sake of his kids. This is especially poignant in three films — Moneyball,...
Trailer Watch: Declaration of War directed by Valerie Donzelli
This film is France’s entry to the Academy Awards and it is based on Valerie Donzelli’s real life experience. She also co-stars in the film. Will open in the US in late January.
Angelina Jolie on 60 Minutes
In case you missed it, Angelina was on 60 Minutes last night gearing up for the premiere of her directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey. Some interesting points: she feels more comfortable...
Some Articles to Ponder
Here are some articles worth a look before the work takes over again tomorrow- Cinema Blend: Arthur Christmas Director On The Logic Of Santa And Her Idea For A Sequel New Yorker: CRASS WARFARE LA...
Sexism Watch: The Hollywood Reporter Writers Roundtable
It kind of feels like I am experiencing deja vu. I just don’t understand how the folks at The Hollywood Reporter can continue to publish these types of pieces without anyone saying hey, wait a...
Trailer Watch: Gone
Amanda Seyfried goes all vigilante to save her sister from being the latest victim of a serial killer of young women. Film will open Feb 2012.
Guest Post: In Heaven, Underground
When I was asked five years ago if I could make a documentary about the Weissensee cemetery in Berlin I was full of fascination for Europe’s largest Jewish cemetery still in use — but also...
Lisa Aschan Wins $800,000 From Stockholm Film Fund
Director Lisa Aschan whose first film She Monkeys won the best narrative feature at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival is the inaugural recipient of the Stockholm Film Fund. She receives $800,000...
Taylor Swift Impresses on 60 Minutes
Not having a tween or being a tween, the Taylor Swift phenomenon almost past me by. Saw her last night on 60 Minutes a couple of hours before she won Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards....
Breaking Dawn Scores 5th Highest Opening Weekend Ever
Women dominated the box office this weekend. Breaking Dawn grossed $139.5 million here in the US and another $144 million overseas making it the 5th highest opening domestic weekend EVER. It was...
Trailer Watch: W.E. directed and co-written by Madonna
I totally want to see this. https://medium.com/media/272ed8c627c1744d3fe13ba84afb7792/href h/t The PLaylist
Guest Post: Making Marathon Boy
Six years ago, in an impoverished corner of India, an orphanage director and a slum boy capture the imagination of their country. Plucked from obscurity and thrust into the national spotlight,...
The Documentary Short List: The Women
The Academy released it’s list of 15 films (out of 124) that made the short list for the best documentary feature. The list is sent out with production companies not the directors, so it’s hard...
Announcing the 2nd Annual Athena Film Festival: a Celebration of Women and Leadership
For those of you who don’t know, I am the artistic director and co-founder of the awesome (if I do say so myself) Athena Film Festival. We will launch year two on February 9. We will be announcing...
Women Directed Movies in 2011
Yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter roundtable on directors made me crazy, but it also made me think. While I will give them no leeway on the ridiculous comment asking the directors to name a major...
Guest Post: Breaking Dawn: Part 1 High Heels, White Weddings, Broken Headboards, and Bella as Pregnant Martyr by Natalie Wilson
While the first Twilight film was directed by a woman, all subsequent adaptations have had males at the helm. The first adaptation, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, featured a Bella that was...
Guest Post: Bloody Good By Katie O’Grady
What’s the worst thing a woman can do to another woman in a grocery store? Nope. You can’t guess, but our film opens with it. RID OF ME is the simple story of a mousy newlywed, Meris (played...
Breaking Dawn Gets Ready to Take The Weekend Box Office
Well it looks like the Twilight phenomenon has corrupted one who I thought was immune — Manohla Dargis of the NY Times who wrote in her review today that she “had surrendered.” She also...
Sexism Watch: The Hollywood Reporter Directors Roundtable
This is the picture that has inspired a post I am working on on the movies directed by women in 2011. Again, I don’t know how they could have put this together without including one female...
Trailer Watch: Brave
Pixar’s first female lead kicks some butt. Opens in the summer of 2012.
Guest Post: Creating a New Online Feminist Film Journal by Miriam Bale
Most of my work as editor of a new online feminist film journal has involved crossing out the phrases “I think” and “according to me.” Sometimes “call me crazy” pops up, too, and...
Meryl Streep: Political Biopic of an “Old Lady” Will be a Hard Sell at the Box Office
Evening Standard writer Liz Hoggard reports about a dinner she was invited to at the home of The Iron Lady director Phyllida Lloyd to talk about film with several other female writers along with...
Trailer Watch: Mirror, Mirror
Here’s the trailer for the second Snow White movie coming out next year. It looks much better than I thought it would. Nathan Lane playing sidekick to the evil Queen, Julia Roberts. And Snow White...
Interview with Celine Sciamma: Writer/Director of Tomboy
Women and Hollywood: How did you come up with this story? Celine Sciamma: I had the storyline in mind for a while, as a pitch: “a little girl pretending to be a little boy”. When I decided I...
First Reviews — The Iron Lady
The Iron Lady was unveiled for critics in London and clearly there was no embargo since the reviews have been coming in. Neither one of the reviews below is a rave except for Streep’s performance....
The Bridesmaids Effect: Imogene
The folks from Coming Soon have posted some first photos from Imogene the new comedy starring Kristen Wiig and Annette Bening. Here’s the description from imdb: A playwright stages a suicide in...
Tomboy
Tomboy written and directed by Celine Sciamma is literally one of my favorite movies of the year. I enjoyed every second of it. It tells the story of Laure, a girl who moves to a new town and...
Cross-Post: Seven things Glee gets wrong about The First Time by Therese Shechter
Warning: Brimming with spoilers. Last year, during Glee’s Madonna episode, Rachel, Finn and Emma (the guidance counselor with OCD) attempted to lose their respective virginities during a sexy...
New Commercial for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
This is the commercial I saw on Sunday night during The Good Wife. This one heavily focuses on Lisbeth. Tell me you aren’t excited to...
A Good Day for Women and Film
This morning I posted the trailers for both The Iron Lady and The Hunger Games. I watched them both, got excited and then I went off to do other things. A couple of minutes ago it dawned on me how...
Academy Fetes Oprah Winfrey and Vanessa Redgrave
On successive evenings, the Academy honored two women Oprah Winfrey and Vanessa Redgrave (as well as couple of guys) with two big awards. On Saturday night in LA, Oprah received the Jean Hersholt...
Kim Cattrall Stars on Broadway in Private Lives
Over the last couple of years, Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall has been working in the theatre in Europe. Her latest show, Privte Lives is about to transfer to Broadway. Here is Cattrall talking...
Trailer Watch: The Hunger Games
Bring it On!
Trailer Watch: The Iron Lady (UK Version)
The trailer is clear evidence that Streep will deliver another Oscar caliber performance (as if we had any doubt.) Whether the movie stands up, still remains to be seen. But this is clearly going to...
Melancholia
I had really no desire to see Melancholia the new film by Lars von Trier because the guy is such an ass and every time he opens his mouth he inserts his foot into it. But when Kirsten Dunst won best...
Athena Film Festival Trailer Contest
The Athena Film Festival, a celebration of women and leadership, held from February 9–12, 2012 at Barnard College in New York today announces a competition for the creation of a film festival...
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Gemma Arterton
This is the third time that Gemma has gotten this mention. This young woman talks about being a feminist in her interviews and embraces it unlike any other high profile female actresses. She talks...
Trailer Watch: Snow White and the Huntsman
https://medium.com/media/c53d6b9ceb34c142cc0597bc5a8b2dab/href
Julie Taymor Sues Spiderman Producers
Last week the news came down that Julie Taymor would be the only director eligible for a Tony nomination for the Spiderman musical which is playing to robust audiences on Broadway. When asked at the...
The Hollywood Reporter’s Actress Roundtable
Here is a look at some of the women we will be talking about for the next several months. THR’s Actress Roundtable: Six A-Listers Sound Off on Bad Reviews, Nudity and Playing Hitler (HR)