BY Women and Hollywood
MPAA Data Shows Women and Men Each Buy Half the Movie Tickets Sold
For the second year in a row the MPAA has released data showing that men and women each buy half the tickets to movies. (Here’s the post of the 2010 stats.) Two years ago women bought more than...
Teaser Trailer: The Host
This is from Stephenie Meyer the writer of the Twilight saga. It stars Saoirse Ronan and will open March 29, 2013. Here’s the description on Deadline: Saoirse Ronan stars as Melanie Stryder, one of...
Interview with Nina Jacobson: Producer of the Hunger Games
Nina Jacobson is poised to have a really great weekend. She’s about to open The Hunger Games which if tracking and advance sales hold will be one of the best opening weekends ever. She answered...
What Do the New Changes at Sony Mean for Amy Pascal?
Yesterday, the news broke that Michael Lynton who is now co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment along with Amy Pascal will be promoted to running all of Sony’s entertainment operations in the...
Will The Hunger Games Be The First Real Female Franchise?
In a little less than two days the film based on the first book of The Hunger Games trilogy will hit the big screen. Already over 2,000 screenings on Thursday night are sold out and theatres are...
Season Two of The Killing Returns April 1
Mad Men, Game of Thrones and now The Killing all returning within the next two weeks. Awesome. As the tag line says, The Killing is just the beginning. Can’t wait to see what Veena Sud and company...
Nicollette Sheridan Desperate Housewives Lawsuit Ends in a Hung Jury
Nicollette Sheridan’s $5.7 million lawsuit against ABC, Touchtone TV and Marc Cherry ended yesterday with a hung jury. The jury was deadlocked at 8–4 one vote short of giving Sheridan...
Hollywood Feminists of the Day: Chris O’Dowd and Jon Hamm — The Guys from Friends with Kids
It’s not very often that I think about a movie several weeks after I’ve seen it, but I have had Friends with Kids on my mind. The more I think about it, the more I like it. It’s just an adult...
Guest Post: Just Do It: One Woman’s Journey to Making a Feature
I wish someone had told me when I started out that if you want to make a feature, you need to find a way to do it. Don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait for someone to recognize your brilliance...
Exclusive: Mad Men — Set Me Free
In this remix musical, the women of Mad Men get together to sing the 1966 Diana Ross hit, Keep Me Hanging On. A metaphor for both the rigid gender roles of the time and the much anticipated season of...
Trailer Watch: New Snow White and the Huntsman Trailer
It’s all about Charlize vs Kristen. https://medium.com/media/44c117fa08eaff6d962dabbeeb3e0bfb/href
The Return of Anjelica Huston
I remember a time when Anjelica Huston was a movie star. From the mid-80s to the mid-90s she was making some really great movies. Prizzi’s Honor, The Dead, The Addams Family, The Grifters and...
Misogyny Run Rampant
I’m feeling a bit depressed this morning. It’s March and we are supposed to be celebrating the strides that women have made, yet, right now it feels like things suck. I’m hearing some horrific...
Interview with Rachael Harris — Star of Natural Selection
Natural Selection is a small but very touching movie about a woman who has spent 25 years locked in a world and a marriage that have kept her from being a full person. Rachael Harris plays Linda a...
A Pick Me Up for A Cloudy Day: Bernadette Peters Sings Mama Rose on Smash
NBC.com Video Widget
Lena Dunham Curates Hey Girlfriend, A Program of Eight Films at BAM Beginning April 2
Lena Dunham is pushing her brand mightly well. To coincide with the premiere of her new HBO show Girls on April 15, Dunham has joined forces with BAM to curate a program of eight films entitled...
Tribeca Shorts 2012- The Women
Right off I was pissed when I read the press release of the shorts because the first section listed is called “Men-hattan.” Here’s how it is described: “Our New York shorts program takes a...
Guest Post: It’s a Wild Thyme for Women in 21st Century Hollywood
One afternoon during the marketing campaign for the film Fried Green Tomatoes I received a call from Betty Friedan, legendary feminist crusader, author of The Feminine Mystique and the first...
Interview with Megan Griffiths — Director of SXSW Audience Winner Eden
I was a little late to finding out about Eden but I am glad I did. It’s a really good and interesting film on a difficult topic — sex trafficking. We all think the sex trafficking occurs...
Producer Watch: Nina Jacobson at the Premiere of The Hunger Games
Nina Jacobson has been around Hollywood for a while. She’s one of a handful of women to run a studio having run Buena Vista Studios at Disney until 2006. She’s about to come on everyone’s...
Walking the Walk and Talking the Talk: Meryl Streep Saluting Hillary Clinton
Check out this AWESOME video of Meryl Streep introducing Hillary Clinton at the Women in the World Summit in NYC this past weekend. Make it to the end and you with see La Streep take out her Oscar...
Guest Post: Losing Control on the Way to Distribution
Filmmakers are often told, write what you know. And I know a lot about being so attached to a plan that it can be difficult to move forward when it isn’t working. So, as my protagonist was trying...
SXSW Quick Interview with Robin Tunney of See Girl Run
Like Grown Ups, this a story about a 35 year old dog groomer who flirts with infidelity when she develops an overwhelming longing for her high school sweetheart. Her high school sweetheart is a dream...
Having Trouble Finishing Your Film? Maybe You Could Get a Grant
The Women in Film Foundation announces the 27th cycle of their finishing fund grants which provide up to $15,000 in cash as well as some serious in-kind donations towards finishing your film. The...
Interview with the Director Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Producer Kelcey Edwards of Wonder Woman — The Untold Story of American Superheroines
I am one of those girls who grew up watching Wonder Woman and The Bionic Woman. I loved those shows. The feminist in me was alive way back then when Lynda Carter and Lindsey Wagner were kicking butt...
Viola Davis to Play Congresswoman Barbara Jordan
Maybe this could be the one to put Viola Davis up on the stage on Oscar night with a win in her column. Several reports state that Davis is circling to star in and produce a biopic on the...
Tribeca 2012: The Rest of the Lineup
Here are the rest of the women directed films that will be playing the Tribeca Film Festival in April. There are also several women centric which I will hopefully check out. The shorts program will...
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Garry Trudeau
A big shout out to the funny guys on TV like John Stewart and Stephen Colbert — who are standing up for women’s rights during this absurd period where the right wing thinks its possible to...
Cross Post: Nina Menkes — Cinema as Sorcery
I have fallen in love with Nina Menkes. Her films have taken me there, in their descent to the depths of her psyche, and by way of hers, to my own. I continue falling in love with her as she shares...
A Newbie Filmmaker Hits SXSW
I kicked off my SXSW Film adventure by running into my sidekick for the evening, fellow blogger, Dr. Goddess. Our SXSW Interactive panels were neighbors. I was on a mission to make it to the Alamo...
Interview with Jennifer Westfeldt — Writer and Director of Friends With Kids
Jennifer Wesfeldt was kind enough to answer some questions (by email) about her new film, Friends with Kids which opened yesterday. Women and Hollywood: You were hesitant to step behind the camera...
Exclusive: Poster for Eden Directed by Megan Griffiths — Will Premiere at SXSW on Sunday
This looks like a really interesting film. It is based on a true story of human trafficking. Here’s the description: In 1994 Korean-American teenager, Hyun Jae, went to a bar in New Mexico where a...
Friends With Kids — Written and Directed by Jennifer Westfeldt
What’s interesting about Friends with Kids is that Jennifer Westfeldt has the skills to make a film feel subversive and mainstream at the same time. The story she tells (which she also produces...
Trailer Watch: Where Do We Go Now — Written and Directed by Nadine Labaki
The film will open the New Directors/New Films series on March 21 in NYC. Here is an interview I did with Labaki in Toronto back in September where it won the audience award. NYTLogo_gray#888888
Happy International Women’s Day: Watch Saving Face on HBO Tonight
I started today watching the harrowing Academy Award winning documentary Saving Face directed by Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. The film tells the story of women in Pakistan who have been...
Happy International Women’s Day: Women in Film and TV (UK) Releases 2012 Power List
Women in Film and Television (UK) partnered with Screen International and Broadcast have released the 2012 Women in Film and Television Power List. Here’s a quote from the head of Women in Film...
The 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction — The Longlist
The Orange Prize celebrates fiction written by women from authors across the world. It is now in it’s 17th year. The shortlist will be announced April 17th and the award will be held on May 30....
Trailer Watch: What to Expect When You Are Expecting — The Dude Version
This version is the studio trying to get some dudes to come and see this movie. Best line- it’s a dude club — like fight club but with babies. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone will see...
Poster for VEEP
Gotta love this.
Happy International Women’s Day: More on Women Not Getting Gigs Voicing Trailers
This is building on a piece from last month: Sexism Watch: Film Trailers. The piece includes a line from an agent that books people in trailers that men’s voices are stronger and that science has...
Guest Post: Elizabeth Olsen Speaks Volumes in Silent House
Silent House is centered entirely on one woman’s terror as she is systematically stalked by an unknown assailant in a creepy, spooky old house. At first glance, this plotline might seem like it...
Sigourney Weaver to Channel Hillary Clinton in USA Series Political Animals
Aside from the big news that Sigourney Weaver is coming to a TV near you, the fact that she will be playing a character quite close to Hillary Clinton makes this announcement so exciting. Point A-...
Want to Write a Guest Post for Women and Hollywood?
I’m looking to diversify the voices and experiences of people on the site. As you can tell there are already a variety of guest posts on the site, but I want to be a bit more proactive. If you...
Tribeca 2012 World Narrative and Documentary Competitions — The Women Directors
The films for the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival started rolling out yesterday. Here are the women directed films in competition in both the narrative and documentary sections as well as the out of...
The Depressing Reality of Women Directed Films in 2012
I really wish I wasn’t writing this but over the last couple of days it has become clear to me that 2012 could be another depressing year for women directed films. I started feeling sad last week...
Women in the World Newsweek Package
Newsweek/The Daily Beast has released its annual Women in the World package with a great overview from Leslie Bennetts on where we are with the leadership gap. I’ve got a quote in the piece...
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Gross
Something is a brewing in this country and we can thank Rush Limbaugh for it. I haven’t seen people this worked up in a long time. And the great thing is that young women are leading...
Trailer Watch: Now is Good
Dakota Fanning all grown up and falling in love Yahoo! Video Player Opens in the UK on May 25. US who knows? h/t Playlist
Julie Taymor Responds to Lawsuit Fighting for Her Reputation and Future Jobs
There is nothing like reading legal papers on a Monday morning to get your blood boiling. Late last week Julie Taymor’s lawyers responded to the part of the Spiderman lawsuit that has not been...
Hedy Lamarr: Way More Than Just a Pretty Face
Hedy Lamarr was a big Hollywood star in the 40s. But what most people don’t know is that she was also an inventor. An inventor who created a gudiance system for torpedos using frequency hoping...
Book Excerpt: In Our Prime: The Invention of Middle Age
The forthright presentation of lustful middle-aged women is probably the starkest example of a change in media portrayals. This development has both boosted and distorted our view of female midlife....