BY Women and Hollywood
‘Orange is the New Black’ Actress Uzo Aduba to Star in Drama About the Aftereffects of ‘Roots’
Emmy-winning actress Uzo Aduba, best known as Suzanne/”Crazy Eyes” on Orange is the New Black, will star with Maggie Grace in a drama called Showing Roots that explores the socio-cultural...
Jodie Foster to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at 5th Athena Film Festival
In honor of Jodie Foster’s five decades behind and in front of the camera, the 5th annual Athena Film Festival (Feb. 5–8) will salute the Oscar-winning actress and director with its Laura Ziskin...
Melissa McCarthy’s Disgraced One-Percenter Comedy Gets Release Date
Melissa McCarthy isn’t letting the unfair maligning that Tammy received from the entertainment press get her down. McCarthy will return to the multiplex this May in the CIA comedy Spy and is...
HBO Renews ‘Girls’ for Fifth Season
Scarlett Johansson Signs Up to Kick More Ass in ‘Ghost in the Shell’ Adaptation
Scarlett Johansson proved she’s a bankable action star last year by delivering $458.8 million in box-office receipts with Lucy (reportedly budgeted at a mere $40 million) after years of playing a...
Bonnie Arnold and Mireille Soria to Head DreamWorks Animation
Veteran producers Bonnie Arnold and Mireille Soria have been named the new co-presidents of DreamWorks Animation, the studio whose last picture with a female protagonist was six years ago (2009’s...
Trailer Watch: ‘Above and Beyond’ Uncovers the Little-Known American Origins of the Israeli Air Force
If Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken whet your appetite for more tales of WWII heroics, Roberta Grossman’s Above and Beyond will likely satisfy that craving. The Nancy Spielberg-produced documentary...
January 2015 Film Preview
January is widely considered to be a dumping ground for bad movies, but there’s actually an embarrassment of art-house riches to be found this month in theaters, from Oscar vehicles to impressive...
Meet Outlander, the Anti-Game of Thrones
Women and Hollywood is taking a break this week. Please enjoy one of our most popular posts of the year below. We will return with new features, editorials, and news stories on Monday, January 5....
Kristin Scott Thomas Quits Film
Women and Hollywood is taking a break this week. Please enjoy one of our most popular posts of the year below. We will return with new features, editorials, and news stories on Monday, January 5....
Special Look at Ava DuVernay in Action Directing Selma
Here’s what Oprah has to say about Ava: “I’ve never seen anyone with such intense passion and willful direction and yet be such a calming force as well.” And she’s worked with Steven...
Ballet Dancer Misty Copeland to Get Biopic
Women and Hollywood is taking a break this week. Please enjoy one of our most popular posts of the year below. We will return with new features, editorials, and news stories on Monday, January 5....
A Look Back and Pushing Forward Towards 2015
As the year ends I want to thank everyone who is part of the Women and Hollywood community. As you can see we are more than just a website. We are a project made up of people who educate, advocate...
8 Queer Women Films to Watch in 2014
Disney Fans Makeover Newest Disney Princess
Women and Hollywood is on break this week. Please enjoy one of our most popular posts of the year below. We will return with new features, editorials, and news stories on Monday, January 5. After...
Top Designers Refused to Make Melissa McCarthy’s Oscar Dress
Women and Hollywood is on break this week. Please enjoy one of our most popular posts of the year below. We will return with new features, editorials, and news stories on Monday, January 5....
An Oscar-Nominated Director Gets Real About How Women Are Treated in Hollywood
Women and Hollywood is taking a break this week. Please enjoy one of our most popular posts of the year below. We will return with new features, editorials, and news stories on Monday, January 5....
The Women of Hollywood’s Men’s Men’s Men’s World
In today’s NY Times, critic Manohla Dargis gives us her second feature on women directors working in Hollywood entitled In Hollywood, It’s A Men’s, Men’s Men’s World. She focuses this time...
A List of All of Women and Hollywood’s End-Of-Year Coverage
Women and Hollywood is giving 2014 a grand send-off by celebrating as many different kinds of female-centric projects, events, milestones, and achievements as we can. Please check out all of our...
Spotlight on Women of Color in 2014
Women and Hollywood’s end-of-year coverage includes our “Best Women-Directed Documentaries of 2014 (That We Managed to See),” “Best Women-Directed Films of 2014,” “Best Films About Women...
Trailer Watch: Helen Mirren Fights For Her ‘Woman in Gold’
The box-office success of 2013’s Philomena (which enjoyed a worldwide gross of $100 million on a $12 million production budget) apparently convinced the BBC that movies about women — even...
Women and Hollywood Podcast #7: Ava DuVernay — Director of Selma
To end the year on a high note I give you my latest podcast with Ava DuVernay, the director of Selma. Just a couple of things to note: the audio on this is not great. But Ava is so important a...
The Big O: 2014 Delivers, From Ellen’s Pizza to DuVernay’s Historic Milestone
Thanks to a guy named Oscar, 2014 began on a cinematic high note for women. And not just because Idina Menzel composed herself enough to soar through the night’s eventual best-song winner,...
Jena Malone to Star in So Yong Kim’s Road-Trip Romance ‘Lovesong’
Hunger Games actress and indie darling Jena Malone will reunite with director So Yong Kim in Lovesong, a road-trip movie about the romance that develops between two best friends: Sarah (Malone), the...
Reese Witherspoon: “It’s Time That We Start Seeing Women for How Complex They Really Are”
Reese Witherspoon’s makeover from America’s Sweetheart to America’s Bookworm continues with a segment on 60 Minutes, in which the Wild actress and Gone Girl producer talks to Charlie Rose...
Sarah Silverman and Sarah Jessica Parker Developing New Comedies for HBO
Two TV comedy veterans are creating starring vehicles for themselves at HBO. Last week brought news that Sarah Silverman and Sarah Jessica Parker are developing new series around the under-explored...
Weekly Update for December 19 & 24–25: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening December 19 Annie — Co-Written by Aline Brosh McKenna Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) stars as Annie, a young, happy foster kid who’s also tough...
Trailer Watch: Lesbian S&M Returns to the Arthouse via ‘The Duke of Burgundy’
The Most Important Feminist Film Moments of 2014
Women and Hollywood’s end-of-year coverage includes our “Best Women-Directed Documentaries of 2014 (That We Managed to See),” “Best Women-Directed Films of 2014,” “Best Films About Women...
Trailer Watch: Kate Winslet Designs ‘A Little Chaos’
Those of us who have missed Kate Winslet playing headstrong women in period garb have much to look forward to in A Little Chaos. Winslet is reunited with her Sense and Sensibility co-star Alan...
The Best Films About Women in 2014
Women and Hollywood’s end-of-year coverage includes our “Best Women-Directed Documentaries of 2014 (That We Managed to See),” “Best Women-Directed Films of 2014,” and “Best TV Shows and...
Shonda Rhimes to Receive WGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Just fifteen years after the premiere of HBO movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, Shonda Rhimes’ first credited feature screenplay, the Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal creator will receive the...
Women and Hollywood Podcast #6: Kate Muir, Chief Film Critic at The Times of London
Please listen to my podcast with Kate Muir, Chief Film Critic at the Times of London. We discuss Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken and Ava DuVernay’s Selma, as well as the holiday films that will be...
The Best TV Shows and Moments of 2014: Comics, Convicts, and Curmudgeons
The A to Z of Women in Film in 2014: Part 2
Read the first part of this series, “The A to M of Women in Film in 2014,” here. N is for Nicole Perlman The male domination of the Marvel universe became an increasingly hot topic this year,...
The Best Women-Directed Films of 2014
Women and Hollywood’s end-of-year coverage includes our “Best Women-Directed Documentaries of 2014 (That We Managed to See)” list, with much more to come in the next few days. The abysmal...
The Big O: Want to Win Oscar’s Heart? Put Down the Mascara and Hide the Comb
Yep, they are falling for it again. Call it glamming down, uglifying, or letting yourself go, but more actresses than usual are forgoing makeup and regular shampoos in order to impress those...
Liv Ullmann Awarded Coolest-Sounding Honor Ever for ‘Miss Julie’
Liv Ullmann will receive the Nordic Honorary Dragon Award from the Goteborg Film Festival (Jan. 23 — Feb. 2, 2015) in Sweden. The Norwegian actress and director will attend the festival,...
Trailer Watch: Searching for Solutions to Women’s Oppression in ‘A Path Appears’
Trailer Watch: The ‘Broad City’ Broads Ogle Hot Guys in a New Teaser
You know that scene in every 80s teen movie where a couple of high-fiving dorks gawk at a group of ridiculously beautiful women who are weirdly giving them the time of day? Broad City’s Ilana...
Seeking Our Story: The Art of Pioneering Animator Lotte Reiniger
The following is an excerpt from a forthcoming book by author Heidi Honeycutt. Charlotte “Lotte”Reiniger (1899–1981)was a German silhouette artist and animator in the first half of the...
The Best Women-Directed Documentaries of 2014 (That We Managed to See)
It’s very difficult to create a best-of-year list when you haven’t seen everything that’s available. More documentaries were released this year that can be seen by any reasonable person. But I...
13% of 2014 Black List Scripts Written by Women
Kristina Lauren Anderson’s Catherine the Great topped the 2014 Black List. Anderson’s scripted biopic of the Russian royal was the most popular among the 250 film executives who were polled by...
The A to Z of Women in Film in 2014: Part 1
In some ways, it’s been a year like any other. Some extraordinary female talent has broken through. Some miraculous, female-led stories have been told. And yet the industry as a whole has done its...
Brit Marling’s Feminist Western ‘The Keeping Room’ Bought by Drafthouse Films
A new feminist Western will ride into town next fall. Brit Marling will star alongside Hailee Steinfeld and Muna Otaru in The Keeping Room, in which a trio of Southern women band together to fend...
The Sony Hack, Amy Pascal, and Gender and Power in Hollywood
It hasn’t been a good couple of weeks for Amy Pascal and the folks at Sony. I would even venture to say that these last couple of weeks have been the shittiest of Ms. Pascal’s 30-year career in...
Only 5% of Oscar-Qualifying Scores Composed by Women
The statistics for women directors in the film industry are abysmal, but the statics for women composers are even worse. A recent study found that, of the 250 top-grossing films last year, only 2%...
Agnes Varda Criticizes Lack of Recognition for Women Directors at European Film Awards
One of the world’s most respected female directors has spoken out against the lack of recognition given to women in the film industry. Upon receiving a lifetime-achievement honor from the...
Margaret Cho to Host Late-Night Cable Talk Show About Sex
Looks like we’ll finally get some gender diversity in late night. TLC has announced a new show called All About Sex to be hosted by four women: comedians Margaret Cho and Heather McDonald,...
Weekly Update for December 12: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks Based on the international hit play by Richard Alfieri which has played in 24 countries and in 14 languages, Six Dance Lessons in...
Quote of the Day: Ava DuVernay
Earlier this week, Shonda Rhimes thanked her foremothers while receiving the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award for creating cracks in the glass ceiling so she could get through when the ABC VIP began...