The radical notion that women like good movies
Even you’re not in school, September feels like a time for beginnings. It’s when you met the people who would become your close friends, bought new school shoes, and settled into a new year. With that in mind, I decided to look at a selection of coming of age films loosely based around school and learning. As an extra bonus, all five films come from female writer-directors.
Many actresses, especially those in their 30s and older, find themselves relegated to playing “the mother” for much of their careers. Most of these films (like the recent indie hit ‘Boyhood’) seem to go out of their way to tell stories from anyone but the mother’s point of view. For a short time Jen McGowan’s ‘Kelly & Cal’ (also written by a woman: Amy Lowe Starbin) seems like it will be a welcome contrast to this norm.
Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!
But mainstream movies have so much asinine fakery in them, from CGI that looks as if it came off the side of a van in the 1970s to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, audiences hunger for the real. In a time when big American news media are shutting down their offices in other countries (to save money) and more and more Americans are getting their news through the Daily Show and the Colbert Report Jehane Noujaim’s ‘The Square,’ which is nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary and just won The Director’s Guild Award in the same category and Luciana Kaplan’s ‘Eufrosina’s Revolution,’ which was part of Hot Docs and was shown in New York’s 2014 Athena Film Festival follow up on international current events with a thoroughness that is anathema to our amnesia-prone mainstream news media.
Written by Megan Kearns. When people watch movies, they often think it’s just entertainment. That they don’t really matter. But media impacts our lives tremendously. Films reflexively shape and reflect culture. Feminist commentary is vital. It might seem like they don’t but the Oscars matter. The Oscars are the most visible celebration of filmmaking in … Continue reading “2013 Oscar Week: Feminism and the Oscars: Do This Year’s Best Picture Nominees Pass the Bechdel Test?”
This article originally appeared on Thought Catalog. You can follow Thought Catalog on Twitter here. In what’s become something of an unfortunate tradition, James Worsdale applauds the work of five female-directed films who the Academy failed to recognize in its allotment of Best Director nominations, opting to, yet again, bestow the honor to five dudes. … Continue reading “2013 Oscar Week: 5 Female-Directed Films That Deserved Oscar Nominations”
Hey film lovers! Here’s this week’s feminist film question. Who is your favorite female film director? Here’s what you said (along with some of their films): Chantal Akerman — Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; A Couch in New York; The Captive; Tomorrow We Move Gillian Armstrong — Little Women, My Brilliant Career, … Continue reading “Weekly Feminist Film Question: Who Is Your Favorite Female Film Director?”
Emma Stone in Teen Vogue, August 2012; photographed by Josh Olins It’s no surprise sexism permeates the media. Women are constantly judged and praised for their beauty and appearance. Not their merit, intellect or accomplishments. This incessant importance on women’s appearances over their talent reduces us to objects. As I perused my Pinterest feed last … Continue reading “Quote of the Day: Emma Stone Points Out Sexist Double Standards in Media”
Guest post written by Mychael Blinde. NSFW | Trigger warning for survivors of sexual assault Warning: Spoilers abound!! Splice explores gendered body horror at the locus of the womb, reveling in the horror of procreation. It touches on themes of bestiality, incest, and rape. It’s also a movie about being a mom. Though it received … Continue reading “Women in Science Fiction Week: ‘Splice’: Womb Horror and the Mother Scientist”
Welcome to our second installment of Director Spotlight, where we explore the biographies and filmographies of an often overlooked group: women film directors. (We’ve also spotlighted Allison Anders.) Kathryn Bigelow is all over the web right now for being the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Directing (not to mention … Continue reading “Director Spotlight: Kathryn Bigelow”
On the subject of female comediennes, A.O. Scott, ‘New York Times’ movie critic, recently wrote, “The ‘can women be funny?’ pseudo-debate of a few years ago, ridiculous at the time, has been settled so decisively it’s as if it never happened…The real issue, in any case, was never the ability of women to get a laugh but rather their right to be as honest as men.” I love A.O. Scott and his writing is brilliant, and I agree with him—the “can women be funny?” argument is a weird pseudo-debate that managed to gain traction on the big world of the web.
Although director Matthew Warchus isn’t gay, the screenwriter Stephen Beresford is, which, after seeing the film, my gaydar told me even before I looked up his bio. The film starts and ends with the queer characters, not the working class (mostly) straight people, as the focus. Mark (Ben Schnetzer, who’s from the U.S. but went to drama school in London) keeps a huge, “Thatcher Out” banner hanging from the windows of his flat, rallies his friends and closeted newbie Joe (George MacKay) to collect money for striking coal miners as Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners–LGSM (because in those days most queer groups didn’t acknowledge the participation of bisexual and trans people). “Mining communities are being bullied just like we are,” Mark explains to the others, and the group ends up befriending one village’s striking Welsh miners and their families.
