The radical notion that women like good movies
In no way does this piece condone violence or 8-year-old serial killers. We all know that’s wrong and our mothers taught us better than that. But really, what’s the harm in a female character with autonomy and direction?
In some ways Wolfgang could be a stand-in for all the directors and other outsiders who naively idealize and misinterpret contemporary rural settings and the business of farming.
Because the kidnapped-but-survived ending is the happier one, even though a real-life victim has suffered through an ordeal, we want her to answer our questions. How did you survive? Why didn’t you escape before? What are you going to do now? The new film ‘Room’ directed by Lenny Abrahamson and starring Brie Larson as the abducted woman we know in the first part of the film only as “Ma” attempts to give us some possible answers.
‘Girlhood’ starts on a peak note: a slow-motion scene of what looks like Black men playing American tackle football on a field at night, wearing helmets, shoulder pads and mouth guards, so we don’t realize–until we notice the players’ breasts under their uniforms–that they are all girls.
Misty Copeland, the focus of the new documentary, ‘A Ballerina’s Tale’ (which is directed by Nelson George and started its run in theaters this week) was recently promoted to principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater and with her viral Under Armour commercial (which had a nice body-diversity message)–as well as an autobiography and talk show appearances–might turn into a ballerina the general public knows and loves, the first in decades.
To see a portrait of the inner workings of the FBI we have to look to films like the new documentary, ‘(T)ERROR,’ co-directed by Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe, which opens in the US starting tomorrow, Oct. 7.
What will surprise no one who reads ‘Bitch Flicks’ is: films directed by women and told from a woman’s point of view are often the last to get distribution–and more likely to have limited theatrical runs or are released only on VOD and streaming services, skipping theaters entirely. Two great films by women I saw during the spring are still very much on my mind and will be playing film festivals in October.
This film about a queer woman is, unlike the same year’s ‘Blue Is The Warmest Color’, directed and written by a queer woman (Stacie Passon who was nominated for “Best First Feature” in the Independent Spirit Awards and will be will direct an episode of ‘Transparent’ this coming season), and in many aspects is the answer to those who dismissed ‘Blue’ as a product of the male gaze.
Paul Weitz, who is about my age and is probably still best known as the director of ‘American Pie,’ grew up with Tomlin too, which may be why he centered his latest film, ‘Grandma’ (for which he also wrote the script) around her. 76-year-old women are not often the leads in mainstream American movies, especially not current ones, so I suppose I should be grateful, but I kept wishing this vehicle (and I don’t mean the antique car Tomlin’s character drives in the film) were a better one.
At the very end postscripts for each person who made up part of the Panther leadership appeared–but none of the women are mentioned, an inexcusable omission since the film itself has plenty of interviews with women who were Black Panthers (though all of them could use more screen time).
The male gaze either holds Jo back from the start, or else shows an “educational” transformation from an “unruly” female into a “desirable” young woman who knows her place.
The female gaze, such as it exists in a world that denies its existence, is an insular one that exists between Adele and Emma as opposed to how the film itself is shot. The film presents the case for the female gaze by examining what happens when it’s withheld.
