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Features, News

The Big O: Remembering 2013’s Top Female Film Moments

I have always been a list-maker. After all, they come in handy when it comes to remembering what groceries to buy, what clothes to pack and what chores to nag my husband about. But unlike many film...

Features, News, Women Directors

The High and Low Points of 2013

This was a very interesting year for writing about issues related to women in entertainment. On the one hand, I feel very hopeful and think we may have hit a tipping point with the box-office...

News

Goodbye to Strong Female Characters

We are so over Strong Female Characters. Strong Female Characters were useful a few years ago when there was a dearth of women on film and most were so rubber-limbed, glass-ankled, or prone to...

Documentary, News

Pussy Riot No Longer a Band; First Russian Screening of Their Doc Canceled

Just a day after newly freed Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina announced the disbandment of Russia’s most important feminist punk group, the Putin administration...

News, Television

Happy Holidays

We’re going to take some downtime this week. Hope you have a happy holiday.

Features, Weekly Update

Weekly Update for End of 2013: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You

Films Directed by and About Women Opening Let’s Ruin It with Babies — Written, Directed, and Starring Kestrin Pantera Channing has it all: a beautiful home, a rock-star lifestyle, and a...

Awards, News

Sarah Polley, Nicole Holofcener, Sandra Bullock Big Winners of AWFJ Awards

We previously wrote about the Alliance of Women Film Journalist (AWFJ) nominations, about which the big takeaway was that “female critics have more or less the same tastes as their male...

Awards, News, Videos

Ellen DeGeneres is Utterly Charming in the First Oscars Trailer

After last year’s Seth MacFarlane fiasco, the Academy apparently took a long, hard look at itself in the mirror and asked, “What the hell were we thinking?” because it wisely invited Ellen...

News

Rose Kuo Steps Down as Head of Film Society of Lincoln Center

In a surprise move earlier this week, Rose Kuo announced her resignation from her post as the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s executive director. Kuo has led the Film Society for the last...

News

Feminist Filmmaking Means NC-17 Rating from MPAA

Director Jill Soloway gave a wonderfully insightful interview to Flavorwire yesterday about the crude double standards at work at the MPAA. Soloway directed this year’s Afternoon Delight, a story...

Features, News, Television, Women Directors

TV Superlatives of 2013

All this week, Women and Hollywood will run our own “Best of” lists to honor and celebrate the year’s best women-directed and women-centric movies and TV shows. See our previous posts on the...

Interviews, News, Theater, Women Directors

Maria Friedman Talks Directing Merrily We Roll Along

Last summer when I was in London, I had the opportunity to see one of the most under-rated shows of Stephen Sondheim’s career, Merrily We Roll Along. It’s got some of his best songs, but as a...

Features

Best Women-Directed Films of 2013

All this week, Women and Hollywood will run our own “Best of” lists to honor and celebrate the year’s best women-directed and women-centric movies and TV shows. See our previous posts on the...

Awards, Features, News

The Big O: Looking at the Women of Oscars Past, Present, and Future

The Oscar derby often offers interesting, if disturbing, insights into how women are treated in the world of film. As the year draws to a close, let’s review what happened the last time Hollywood...

News, Television

Blood-Boiler of the Day: TV Show Canceled for Having Too Many Smart, Interesting Girl Characters

Hollywood execs can get awfully creative when they need to come up with excuses for why film and TV should stay so male-centric. Boys won’t watch stories about girls? Wrong. Women and girls...

Features, News

Most Popular Women and Hollywood Posts of 2013

All this week, Women and Hollywood will run our own “Best of” lists to honor and celebrate the year’s best women-directed and women-centric movies and TV shows. See our previous posts on the...

Awards, News, Women Directors

Director Jasmila Zbanic Is Wary of Quotas for Women Directors

Quota is a dirty word in our supposed meritocracy. But it’s a less contentious, even normal, practice in other parts of the world. Sweden, for example, recently mandated that “funding shall be...

Awards, News, Women Directors, Women Writers

10 Films from Women Directors, Screenwriters, or Stars Added to National Film Registry

The National Film Registry has announced its 2013 list of “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” films to be preserved by the Library of Congress, and 10 of its 25 selections...

News, Women Writers

Less Than 20% of Black List Scripts Are By Women Screenwriters

The 2013 Black List — Hollywood’s annual compilation of the industry’s “most liked” but as-yet-unmade scripts — was released yesterday. Of the 72 screenplays that made it on the...

Awards, Women Directors

Less than 10% of Oscar-Eligible Films Directed by Women

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have released their list of films eligible for the 2014 Oscars, and of the 289 films that qualified for Oscar consideration, a paltry 25, or 8.6%,...

Features, News

Best Women-Centric Films of 2013

All this week, Women and Hollywood will run our own “Best of” lists to honor and celebrate the year’s best women-directed and women-centric movies and TV shows. See our previous post on the...

Documentary, Features, News

Best Women Directed Documentaries of 2013

All this week, Women and Hollywood will run our own “Best of” lists to honor and celebrate the year’s best women-directed and women-centric movies and TV shows. With Hollywood in the grips of...

Music, News

Beyonce Caps a Banner Year for Pop Feminism

It’s been a great year for female empowerment in pop. Madonna and Lady Gaga became music’s top earners, Top 40 hosted ballads and art-dance songs about female strength, former riot grrrl...

Features, News, Television, Women Directors

Infographic: Women and Hollywood — Better Luck Next Year…Or Next Decade

Change is the keyword in Hollywood these days. A globalizing marketplace, the exportation of work from Los Angeles to every other corner of the world, the replacement of celluloid by digital, and the...

Features

Infographic: Women and Hollywood – Better Luck Next Year…Or Next Decade

Change is the keyword in Hollywood these days. A globalizing marketplace, the exportation of work from Los Angeles to every other corner of the world, the replacement of celluloid by digital,...

Features, Weekly Update

Weekly Update for December 13: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You

Films About Women Opening Saving Mr. Banks — Written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith A perfectly cast Emma Thompson plays Mary Poppins writer P.L. Travers, who is locked in a epic, 20-year...

Awards, Documentary, Features

Crosspost: Heroines of Cinema: An A to Z of Women in Film in 2013

It’s at times like these that twenty-six letters seems awfully few. Not that this list is intended as an encyclopedia. Instead, please see it as a mere sample of the films worth seeing, the...

Comedy, News, Television

TV: New Black Comedienne to Join SNL (Finally)

Public protests from castmembers, widespread media scrutiny, and the existence of many talented black comediennes have finally convinced longtime SNL producer Lorne Michaels to add an...

Awards, News

EDA Awards Honor Women Directors and Writers, Names Actresses Who Need New Agents

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists, in which our own Melissa Silverstein is a member, has announced their Best-of-2013 list. The big takeaway? Female critics have more or less the same tastes as...

Awards

The Big O: Can a Woman Win an Oscar Without Falling in Love?

Ifthere’s a lesson to be learned from likely multiple-Oscar nominee Saving Mr. Banks — other than, grammatically speaking, the climatic Mary Poppins song “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” should...

News

Geena Davis: “We Are Enculturating Kids to See Women and Girls as Not Taking Up Half the Space”

Geena Davis wrote a must-read essay for The Hollywood Reporter’s “Women in Entertainment Power 100” issue, in which she notes that women and girls only make up 17% of all film characters over...

News

Forbes Releases Top-Earning Women in Music List

Madonna didn’t become the Material Girl for nothing. At 55, she’s still going strong — and making bank. After her last album, “MDNA,” debuted at the top of the pop charts, Madonna...

Documentary, Interviews, News

The Crash Reel Director Lucy Walker on Snowboarding and Simone de Beauvoir

British director Lucy Walker is best-known for her Oscar-nominated film Waste Land, a profile of artist Vik Muniz’s work with Brazilian catadores, or workers who collect recyclables from...

Awards, Television

Golden Globe Noms Reflect the Status Quo of Hollywood Sexism

The 2014 Golden Globe Awards have us excited about Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s return to hosting duties and… that’s about it. With no women directors (minus Frozen co-helmer Jennifer Lee) or...

News

Quote of the Day: Manohla Dargis: “The Movie Industry is Failing Women”

There’s a sadly routine, but still important article, in Variety today about the lack of women-directed films this award season. Only two narrative features are being discussed at all, Nicole...

Features, News

TV: Why You Should Watch Nashville

The ratings for Nashville, ABC’s drama about the personal and professional tribulations of artists on all rungs of the career ladder in the titular city’s country music scene, aren’t exactly...

Awards, News

THR Releases “2013 Women in Entertainment Power 100” List

The Hollywood Reporter released its annual “Women in Entertainment Power 100” ranking, which the publication described as a reflection of “a TV industry in flux, ongoing volatility at the film...

Features, News

Death Walks in High Heels: The Silent Avenger of Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45

In recent years there has been a surge of renewedappreciation for the rape-revenge film and, surprisingly, most of thesechampions have been women. The genre was validated to some extent (albeit...

Awards, News, Women Directors

Ava DuVernay to be Honored by Adrienne Shelly Foundation

Ava DuVernay will receive the Adrienne Shelly Foundation’s Third Annual Woman of Vision Salute. Named after actress and filmmaker Adrienne Shelly, the non-profit organization helps support women...

Box Office, News

When Does a Fluke Officially Become a Trend?

My latest piece from Forbes: The big news last week was rightfully the passage of a towering figure in history, Nelson Mandela. So it’s not surprising that most people — including...

News, Trailers, Videos

Trailer Watch: The Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending

The Wachowski siblings are back with a new film, Jupiter Ascending, that looks much more conventional in form than their last project, the time-shifting Cloud Atlas. Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones,...

Festivals, News

Melissa Leo Steps Up to Fund Women Screenwriters

Actress Melissa Leo has already proven her awesomeness in The Fighter, Frozen River, and one very special, very scary episode of Louie. (If you’ve seen it, you definitely know which one I’m...

Documentary, Festivals, News

Few Women-Directed Films to Premiere at Sundance

A disappointingly few number of women-directed narrative and nonfiction features will debut at Sundance. Only three women filmmakers from a total of sixteen will enjoy the prestige that comes with...

Comedy, News

Bette Midler to Play Mae West in HBO Film

HBO bucked the general biopic trend of focusing on a subject’s early struggles this year with Behind the Candelabra, which explored the last years of Liberace’s life. Now the studio will do the...

Awards, News

Women-Centric TV Shows Dominate WGAs

If the so-called Golden Age of Television — a cultural epoch that deconstructed traditional masculinity while reveling in violence and guilt (The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad...

News

RogerEbert.com Devoting This Week to Women Critics

Gender gaps don’t just plague the film industry, but the field of film criticism too. As we reported earlier this year, the numbers are pretty dire: The study took a look at the 2,000 reviews...

Festivals, News

Sherri Lansing, Keri Putnam, Callie Khouri, Kasi Lemmons to be Honored at Athena FF

The Fourth Annual Athena Film Festival will present former Paramount and 20th Century Fox chief Sherry Lansing with the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as salute Sundance Executive...

Music, News

Rashida Jones Speaks Out Against the “Pornification” of the Music Industry

Near nudity is the new normal. The race to the skimpiest bottoms among female pop stars (and video vixens in the background) arguably began in the eighties, when Madonna writhed around on a MTV VMA...

Awards, Documentary, News

Awards Roundup: Europe, Boston, LA, NY Online, British Indies, and IDAs

The first major award weekend yielded honors for directors Susanne Bier (Love is All You Need), Haifaa al-Mansour (Wadjda), Sarah Polley (Stories We Tell), Jehane Noujaim (The Square). Results from...

News, Trailers, Videos

Trailer Watch: Mia Wasikowska Seeks Adventure and Meaning in ‘Tracks’

Few actresses can get me as instantly excited about a film as Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska. I’ll see almost anything she’s in, though I’ll admit to being turned off her...

News, Videos

Happy Friday: Listen and Watch Idina Menzel Sing the Hell Out of Let it Go

If you haven’t seen Frozen yet and you needed something to tip you towards the theatre, Disney has released the most powerful sequence and centerpiece of the film — Idina Menzel as Elsa...

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