The radical notion that women like good movies
The Great Gatsby (2013) Written by Leigh Kolb Critic Kathryn Schulz, in “Why I Despise The Great Gatsby,” bemoans the acclaim that the novel receives in literary circles. She says, “It is the only book I have read so often despite failing—in the face of real effort and sincere intentions—to derive almost any pleasure at all … Continue reading “Conspicuous Consumption and ‘The Great Gatsby’: Missing the Point in Style”
The girls, driven by desperation to escape their mundane lives to take part in Spring Break, scheme a robbery of the local chicken shack to raise the necessary funds to get there. To psyche themselves up for the crime, they exhort each other to pretend it’s a video game, to detach themselves and dehumanize their victims in a hurried pep talk to the same end as the grueling boot camp scenes sequences in ‘Full Metal Jacket.’
In a film, as in real life, with no language to defend herself, the lone woman is a suspect. She gets stared at and scowled at and catcalled and often told that she’s making herself vulnerable, or taking unnecessary risks. In short, our culture says she’s asking for what she gets. A woman alone is unloved, uncared for and written off. In ‘Wild,’ the film based on Strayed’s memoir of her months solo hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, she has several uncomfortable and frankly terrifying encounters.
# 50/50 5 Broken Cameras 500 Days of Summer 45 Years The 40-Year-Old Virgin 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days 9 to 5 1971 101 Dalmations 127 Hours 10 Days in a Madhouse 10,000 km 3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets 300: Rise of an Empire 12 Years a Slave 28 Days Later A Abuse … Continue reading “Film Directory”
‘The Great Gatsby’ Still Gets Flappers Wrong by Lisa Hix via Collectors Weekly Geena Davis: Girls Need More Role Models in Media by Erica E. Phillips via The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy A Dude to Direct Hillary Clinton Biopic by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood Rodham Will Put Hillary Clinton’s Backstory on the Big … Continue reading “Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks”
Written by Max Thornton. Time’s relentless onward march has brought us to the end of April. In just a few days it will be the first weekend in May, which is – in the strange, terrifying minds of Hollywood executives – the first weekend of summer. Summer movies are an odd and frustrating bunch. I … Continue reading “Summer Movie Preview”
Books provide a plethora of inspiration to Hollywood. So we’re kicking off the new year with a theme week featuring Women in Classic Literature Film Adaptations. As usual, we’re interested in exploring depictions of female characters — whether lauding empowering roles or criticizing sexist tropes — and analyzing gender. Here are some suggested film adaptations … Continue reading “Call for Writers: Women in Classic Literature Film Adaptations”
I don’t want to see the film Oliver Stone will want to make about Romney Here is my draft of an open tweet I am working on for directors and producers of Hollywood who continue directing and producing movies mostly about rich white men: @WealthyDirectors&Producers I know ppl r told 2 “write what u know” … Continue reading “Surprise: Rich White Men Dominate the Cinema”
Zeffirelli’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is one told by the older generation. Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo + Juliet’ is one told by “unfaded” youth. When Des’ree was singing “Kissing You” as Romeo and Juliet kiss (and oh, how they kiss), she is singing with deep longing and pain. When Glen Weston sings “What is a Youth?” he sings at Romeo and Juliet, about how youth–and female virginity–fades.
If you were once a certain type of precocious, fanciful preteen girl chances are you encountered ‘Flowers in the Attic.’
Maybe it was the cover drew you in, the face of a young girl, pale and uncertain, peering through red shutters, and when you opened it, three other eerie blonde children huddled together under the spectral form of a sinister old man. Who were these strange beautiful children? And why was unquestionably evil figure about to crush them with his bare hands? If you saw the cover, surely you had to wonder.
