Tag: Female Directors

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

The Best Black Comedy You’re Not Watching from Colorlines

Hasidic newspaper erases the women from that iconic Situation Room photo from Feministing

Why Bridesmaids Matters from Women and Hollywood

1 in 6 women would rather be blind than fat — so? from The F Word

Eagerly anticipating the Freedom Riders documentary … from AngryBlackBitch

“Bridesmaids”: A triumph for vomit, and feminism from Salon

The Fall of the Female Protagonist in Kids’ Movies from Persephone Magazine

Palme pioneers: women directors at Cannes from The Guardian

Director Spotlight: Tanya Hamilton

Filmmaker Tanya Hamilton

In past Director Spotlight features, we’ve highlighted women with extensive filmographies and those who have been nominated for or who have won an Academy Award for directing. Today’s Spotlight, however, looks at a woman who has made only one feature film: Tanya Hamilton.
Last December, Arielle Loren wrote about her experience watching Night Catches Us, in a piece titled Seeing My Reflection In Film: Night Catches Us Struck a Chord With Me. Loren discussed a number of ways in which the film resonated with her, from seeing a period in U.S. history thoughtfully explored to finding common values in the film, and especially seeing a strong, complex, black female character.
When I saw the film, it resonated with me as well. As a white woman, I wasn’t necessarily seeing a reflection of myself, but I was looking at a story that is–or at least should be–reflective of all of us. While the heart of the story is about relationships–between a mother and her daughter and between a woman and a man–and the roles we play in our communities, the context is a piece of U.S. history often glossed over, mischaracterized, or completely ignored. This is black history, and it’s also U.S. history–something Americans all share, something that is part of all of us. 

*****
Hamilton was born in Jamaica and grew up in Maryland. Before Night Catches Us, she wrote and directed the short film The Killers. The Root asked Hamilton “What are your feelings about the challenges that black female directors face?” and she responded:
There aren’t a lot of black women making movies, which I find interesting in a way. I’ve blindly not really thought of it. I’m race obsessed, and that has been the lens through which I walk through the world. Making the film has made me think about my gender in a way I had previously not bothered [to]. Film is a very male-dominated world, and those positions are very protected. I think it’s interesting in terms of what gets defined as a woman’s film as opposed to a regular film. I haven’t figured it out yet. I don’t have a theory — at least not a smart one.
The Washington Post printed a great profile of Hamilton in December ’10, as Night was playing–in limited release–in theatres. When Night was playing at Sundance, she told indieWIRE about two upcoming projects she hopes to work on:
One is a thriller/love story set in Jamaica during a violent election. The other is a film about two brothers in fledgling Native American tribe building their first casino and confronting the unforgiving world of D.C. politics to achieve their goal.
If her writing and directing feature debut was this strong, I think (hope) we can expect some truly stellar work from Tanya Hamilton.
Night Catches Us (2010)
In addition to an intelligent and emotional look at race, politics, and history, Night is an amazing film–excellent story, acting (it stars Kerry Washington and Anthony Mackie), and directing. After watching it (twice) I strongly felt that Night is an Oscar-worthy film, and that it’s a shame it wasn’t even a contender. Here is the synopsis, from indieWIRE:
In the summer of ’76, as President Jimmy Carter pledges to give government back to the people, tensions run high in a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood where the Black Panthers once flourished. When Marcus returns—having bolted years earlier—his homecoming isn’t exactly met with fanfare. His former movement brothers blame him for an unspeakable betrayal. Only his best friend’s widow, Patricia, appreciates Marcus’s predicament, which both unites and paralyzes them. As Patricia’s daughter compels the two comrades to confront their past, history repeats itself in dangerous ways.
Although the film remained under the radar for a lot of people, it was critically acclaimed. Night Catches Us was nominated for a number of awards, winning five Black Reel Awards–for acting, score, screenplay, and best film.
Refusing to romanticize Black Power, Hamilton chooses the riskier path of examining its emotional and political fallout. The bullet holes and bloodstains that Iris uncovers after peeling away a strip of wallpaper at home suggest that her father died not as a martyr for the cause but as yet another senseless casualty in an endless conflict, with police harassment of African-Americans by the nearly all-white Philly force still continuing in ’76. Jimmy’s parroting of black macho, in turn, leads only to more spilled blood.
Hamilton doesn’t rush to supply answers. She lets her mesmerizing movie sneak up on you and seep in until you feel it in your bones. The fact that Hamilton studied painting at Cooper Union helps the images resonate, as does the haunting lighting supplied by cinematographer David Tumblety. Add a terrific score supplied by the Roots and the movie has you in its grip. Mackie and Washington could not be better; they had me at hello. Night Catches Us is essentially a ghost story, with the past persistently intruding on the present. Hamilton manifests her vision of what politics can do to individual thinking with subtlety and sophistication. Remember her name. She’s a genuine find. 
If you missed Loren’s earlier post, watch the preview here:

Have you seen Night Catches Us? What do you think? Anyone know further news on Hamilton’s next project(s)?

Our 3-Year Blogiversary!

Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda plot their revenge in 9 to 5
Three years of Bitch Flicks! How can it be? Have we done any good? Is the state of women in film any better than it was when we started, on March 28, 2008? Or are we just shouting into the abyss?
Our egos aren’t so big as to think this little ol’ blog would chip away at a machine as big and finely-tuned as Hollywood. However, we see ourselves as part of a growing reaction against conservative, patriarchal values in mainstream film and the lack of women–and especially of diverse women–starring in, directing, writing, producing, and critiquing movies, television, and media in general (check out our “Sites We Like” blogroll for a number of people doing excellent work). We’re (still) sick to death of misogynistic, exploitative, sexist, racist, homophobic, ageist, one-dimensional, etc. portrayals of women in film. We’re (still) sick to death of the reign of the adolescent-male demographic as the coveted Ones. We’re (still) sick to death of being the exception, the Other, the minority, the ignored, the simplistic chicks. 
In other words, we still need Bitch Flicks.
Running a blog is, as those of you who do it yourselves know, difficult and time-consuming work. It’s also often thankless: you don’t make any money, you have to fend off trolls and commenters only interested in personal attacks, and you worry that no one reads that post you spent hours writing. But it’s also very rewarding: you meet people online who share your interests and concerns, you explore ideas that other people help you more fully understand, and you have a venue for fighting back against systems that seem untouchable in everyday life. We’re grateful for all of you who read our pieces, comment on them, link to them and cross post them on your own sites. We’re especially grateful for those of you who have contributed pieces to our site, and expanded the discussion.
Here’s the part where we ask for your help.
We’ve tried to keep Bitch Flicks free from obnoxious, and often offensive, ads (yes, there’s that one Google ad in the sidebar, kept as a mere experiment, as we’ve earned nothing from it)–which means there has been zero revenue to pay for site hosting, guest writers, and upgrades. So we’ve added two ways you can help us pay for these things:
  1. Donate via PayPal. Notice the “Donate” tab at the top right of the page. If you’re a reader who supports what we do, consider donating to the cause. Any amount, however small, is a gesture of support and will help pay for our expenses.
  2. Purchase items through our Amazon store. We sometimes link to products on Amazon in our posts, and have a widget in our sidebar called “Bitch Flicks’ Picks.” If you go on to make purchases through our site, we earn a small percentage of the proceeds, and if it’s an awesome feminist film, TV show, or book–then we all win.

If you support what we do but can’t afford the financial contributions, there are a number of things you can do to show your appreciation and help spread the word about Bitch Flicks.

Finally, a big public thanks to the volunteer who created our new banner. We wanted to re-vamp the look of the site for our blogiversary, and that new banner is the biggest visual change. You might also notice the new pages (not all of which are complete yet!), new sidebar widgets, and new pictures on Twitter & Facebook. There are other new ideas we’ll be implementing in the coming months, so stay tuned, and, as always, thanks for reading!
–Amber & Stephanie

    Documentary Review: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

    Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010)

    Most reviews of the documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work begin by describing how the film opens–with a close-up shot of Rivers’ face, without make-up. This is, of course, a metaphor for the goal of the film (to get behind the facade) and an acknowledgment of  what Rivers has come to be most famous for–her surgically-altered appearance. While her face is surely a piece of surgical work, the far more fascinating work is that of her long life in the spotlight, and her drive to keep going, keep performing, keep selling, when the culture tells her she should stop (or that she should have stopped long ago).
    I went into this film feeling ambivalent. On the one hand, it’s a documentary about an extraordinary woman, made by two women–Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg, who are known for their previous films The End of America, The Devil Came on Horseback, and the forthcoming Burma Soldier, among others. It’s about a mouthy broad (and I love mouthy broads, women who speak their minds and aren’t afraid to put themselves out there), who is funny, and who has been at it since 1966. On the other hand, it’s yet another film about a wealthy white woman (I just watched and reviewed The September Issue, about Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour) who lives like “Marie Antoinette, if she’d have had money.” Though I enjoy most of her comedy, I–like many others–had come to see her primarily through her surgically-altered appearance, her anything-for-a-buck business approach (A comedy icon selling jewelry on QVC? Starring on Celebrity Apprentice?), and her less-than-feminist years hosting the red carpet.

    Watching the film, however, gave me a new appreciation for Rivers–even while not sharing a number of her perspectives. A Piece of Work documents a year in Rivers’ life: she turns 75, faces down a heckler at a stand-up show in Wisconsin, honors George Carlin in a tribute, gets roasted by Comedy Central, and injects new life into her career by winning Celebrity Apprentice. All while still selling that damn jewelry. Her energy level is astounding, and I wonder how she manages to do all she does at the age of 75.

    Rivers is an odd character. Being a superstar female comic alone is odd in the U.S.–only a few came before her–but we get a very real look at her life, at the troubles she has faced  (her husband’s suicide) and continues to face, and at the loneliness that certainly helps her drive to fill her daily calendar. She is vulnerable and still nervous when going on stage, especially when pursuing what she calls the one sacred part of her life–her acting–in which she hasn’t seen a lot of personal success. I came to find her more compelling and interesting than my initial perception of her, and encourage anyone to see this film and learn more about a woman who refuses to stop.

    Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

    It’s Time to Fucking Rally from Feministing:

    Stand Up For Women’s Health!

    Saturday, February 26th
    Foley Square, Across from the Court House in Lower Manhattan
    New York City
    1-3pm 

    “Now long-time screenwriter Tracy Jackson (The Guru and Confessions of a Shopaholic) has divulged a few dirty secrets about how hard it is for a woman of 50 to get a gig as a screenwriter in Hollywood in her memoir Between a Rock and a Hot Place – Why Fifty Is Not the New Thirty.” 

    Movie Review: Just Go With It from The New York Times:

    “None of the women have professional ambitions or money of their own; their primary asset is ‘hotness.’ Ms. Aniston proudly shows herself off in a bikini–and looks great, it must be said–while Mr. Sandler keeps his shirt on, hanging loosely over his baggy pants. Yes, I know, the double standard is nothing new, but a wittier, less insecure movie might have at least had some fun with it.”

    Kanye West’s Monster Misogyny from Feminist Frequency:

    “And perhaps this would be a good time to define misogyny because there seems to be some confusion about the word in relation to Kanye’s video. First, when we talk about women, we mean full and complete human beings and all that that entails. Misogyny as defined by the Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology ‘is a cultural attitude of hatred for females simply because they are female. It is a central part of sexist prejudice and ideology and, as such, is an important basis for the oppression of females in male-dominated societies. Misogyny is manifested in many different ways from jokes to pornography to violence to the self-contempt women may be taught to feel toward their own bodies.'”

    The Princess Complex from In These Times:

    “As any parent who has raised both boys and girls knows, even the most strenuous efforts to keep academic, social and economic expectations equal are undermined by the outside world. Men have privileges: better pay, easier entree to every field except teaching and nursing. (And people with privileges–men and women–are as a rule loath to relinquish them.) Undergirding those privileges lies a set of gender expectations, a stereotype of femininity that can drive a fair-minded parent, like Peggy Orenstein, wild. As Orenstein recounts in her new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter (January, HarperCollins), from the time they can walk young girls are in thrall to a consumer market intent on transforming them into sexualized princesses.” 

    Death By Femininity, Again from I Blame the Patriarchy:

    “On one hand, this HuffPo item supports the anti-porn mores of Savage Death Island: Young Berger has died of extreme femininity. Her heart stopped during her 6th breast augmentation surgery and she never regained consciousness. The patriarchy blamer naturally recognizes a familiar narrative: desperate to appease the oppressor through rigorous adherence to deeply internalized pornographic beauty standards, Berger undertook multiple self-mutilations, and paid the ultimate price. Femininity kills.”

    Somewhere? Somewhat. from Feminist Music Geek:

    “I also think Coppola has something to say about growing up female. Yes, she’s addressing a particular kind of femininity. She is concerned with white, heterosexual women and girls gilded with privilege–except maybe the Lisbon girls, who are part of a single-income family supported by a school teacher’s salary. Sure, we have every reason to critique the construction of such limited representations. But I don’t necessarily have a problem with people writing and directing what they know.”

    The Closing of the American Erotic from The New York Times:

    “When I saw the original version of ‘Blue Valentine’ at the Sundance Film Festival last year (the film was subsequently trimmed before it was rated), I wasn’t shocked by the sex–after all, it’s about two lovely young people who can’t keep their hands off each other–but I was startled. American characters–heterosexuals!–were having sex in a movie. Even at this pre-eminent independent festival, American filmmakers shy away from sex, especially the hot, sweaty kind. The old production code might have crumbled in the 1960s and couples can now share a bed, but the demure fade to black and the prudish pan–coitus interruptus via a crackling fire and underwear strewn across the floor–endures.”

    “In contrast to the tall, muscular, brightly garbed, ray-of-sunshine vision of Wonder Woman, with her pretty American Pie expressions and sexually-objectified postures, Lisbeth Salander is a small, queerly androgynous weirdo–sullen, introverted, self-doubting, socially awkward, gloomily clad in black leather and body piercing. She is a Gothic punk outsider, a vigilante genius with a cold penetrating gaze, a mesmerizing pop culture fantasy figure acting out unspoken desires with life-affirming results.”

    Misogyny and the 2011 Superbowl from The Daily Censored:

    “We live in a society where misogyny is increasing to the point that the Republican Party is attempting to redefine rape, as we speak. The Super bowl is so highly touted and hyped as a grand celebration of the nation; it’s no wonder that the ugly United States culture is exposed during this athletic spectacle in which much of the world tunes in. We must reject the hatred of or aggression against women and girls in order to build a culture and society worth living in. Women hold up half the sky.”

    Hollywood’s Whiteout from The New York Times:

    “What happened? Is 2010 an exception to a general rule of growing diversity? Or has Hollywood, a supposed bastion of liberalism so eager in 2008 to help Mr. Obama make it to the White House, slid back into its old, timid ways? Can it be that the president’s status as the most visible and powerful African-American man in the world has inaugurated a new era of racial confusion–or perhaps a crisis of representation?”

    Athena Film Festival Mini-Review: Poster Girl

     
    Poster Girl synopsis:  
    Poster Girl is the story of Robynn Murray, an all-American high school cheerleader turned “poster girl” for women in combat, distinguished by Army Magazine’s cover shot. Now home from Iraq, her tough-as-nails exterior begins to crack, leaving Robynn struggling with the debilitation effects of PTSD and the challenges of rebuilding her life. Directed by Sara Nesson.

    Amber’s Take:
    Poster Girl was, without a doubt, my favorite film at the Athena Film Festival. It’s no surprise that the film is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary – Short Subject, even though this was a first effort at filmmaking from director Sara Nesson.

    Robynn Murray’s trauma was palpable. Her anxiety came through in her near-constant breathlessness, emotional breakdowns, and outbursts of anger. Although she had enrolled in the division of the army sent in after combat missions–to rebuild and ‘win hearts and minds’–she was sent directly into combat. Although women are officially forbidden to participate in combat in the US military, most people will acknowledge that the distinction between combat and non-combat roles is archaic and even non-existent in 21st century war zones. That Murray was assigned a gunner position atop a tank (the most dangerous, exposed position) on the second day of her tour of duty in Iraq shouldn’t surprise the realists among us, but is nevertheless shocking when told from a raw, personal perspective.

    Rooting for this film (and, in turn, rooting for its star and director) is enough to make me excited for next weekend’s Oscar ceremony.

    Stephanie’s Take:

    Watching Poster Girl was by far the highlight of my experience at the Athena Film Festival. Not only is it a convincing portrayal of the serious effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, but it’s a subtle anti-war film, one that illustrates the often disastrous consequences of repeated exposure to death and violence–and not just for women in combat. Nesson gets moving footage of several former soldiers, including Robynn, who create art from their uniforms, and the soldiers all emphasize the healing power of that process. (I personally loved watching each of them rip their uniforms to shreds.)

    Nesson also juxtaposes photos of Robynn prior to her Army experience–where she’s in a cheerleading uniform, smiling and having fun with friends–with the post-Army Robynn, a tattooed, pierced, PTSD victim who stares at the former photos as if they couldn’t possibly be her. And they aren’t anymore. The new Robynn is an activist who speaks out against war and gun violence, even while dealing with debilitating panic attacks.

    The film shows just how screwed up our system is for soldiers returning from service:  it’s heartbreaking to watch Robynn practically beg for the disability checks the government owes her, as well as witness the lengths she has to go to to “prove” that she’s disabled. But even after all this, Poster Girl somehow ends on a hopeful note, with a smile from Robynn that we hadn’t seen since before she entered the Army.

    Watch the preview:

    Athena Film Festival in Photos

    Athena Film Festival @ Barnard College in New York, February 10-13, 2011

    Festival Co-founder Kathryn Kolbert introduces a panel on The Bechdel Test: Where Are the Women? Director of the films Hounddog and Virgin, Deborah Kampmeier, also pictured.
    Bechdel Panel moderator Dodai Stewart, Deputy Editor of Jezebel, and Margaret Nagle, Emmy-winning writer of HBO’s Warm Springs and supervising producer of season one of Boardwalk Empire.

    Delia Ephron (writer of seven films, including You’ve Got Mail and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) discusses the state of women in film on the Bechdel Panel.

    Mighty Macs post-film discussion. L to R: Kathryn Kolbert, Director of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies @ Barnard College; Kathryn Olson, CEO of the Women’s Sports Foundation; Kym Hampton, former WNBA all-star; and Tim Chambers, director of Mighty Macs

    Alumni of Immaculata College, the setting for Mighty Macs

    Actresses from Mighty Macs, who were screening the film for the first time. L to R: Kate Nowlin, Margaret Anne Florence, Taylor Steel, and Jodie Lynne McClintock

    Melissa Silverstein of Women and Hollywood–and Co-founder of the Athena Film Festival–interviews Carol Jenkins, former President of the Women’s Media Center, and Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Director of Miss Representation

    Shola Lynch, Director of Chisholm ’72 – Unbought and Unbossed in a post-film discussion

    Stephanie and Amber, your faithful Bitch Flicks team.

    Director Spotlight: Sofia Coppola

    Sofia Coppola with her Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation
    Sofia Coppola is one of only four women ever nominated for a Best Director Academy Award, and was the first woman from the United States to achieve the honor. Her nomination was for Lost in Translation, for which she won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. (The only woman to win the Directing Oscar is Kathryn Bigelow; other nominees have been Jane Campion for The Piano and Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties.)
    In her four feature films, Coppola has maintained quite a bit of creative control by not only directing but writing each one. Her career began as an actress, and in 1999 she directed her first feature, The Virgin Suicides. Coppola has received a lot of criticism over the years, from her family wealth and industry connections (because no men in Hollywood got where they are today through connections, right?) to the subjects of her films. While I admit to personally thinking that emptiness is sometimes mistaken for profundity in her films, I admire her hard work, vision, and success in Hollywood–and find each of her films lovely and interesting.
    Here are the feature-length films that Coppola has written and directed. She has also directed the short films Lick the Star and Bed, Bath and Beyond.

    Somewhere (2010)

    Coppola’s most recent film, Somewhere, is currently playing in theatres and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

    From the official film website, here is the synopsis:
    You have probably seen him in the tabloids; Johnny is living at the legendary Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood. He has a Ferrari to drive around in, and a constant stream of girls and pills to stay in with. Comfortably numbed, Johnny drifts along. Then, his 11-year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) from his failed marriage arrives unexpectedly at the Chateau. Their encounters encourage Johnny to face up to where he is in life and confront the question that we all must: which path in life will you take?

    Dana Stevens, in her Slate review, “My Sophia Problem,” shares my frustrations with a director who doesn’t transcend “individual filmic moments that transport and transform both the characters and the viewer. She’s the queen of fleeting brilliance, little glimpses of beauty and sadness and truth.”
    But I don’t think it’s revealing too much (no more than the elliptical trailer does) to say that this is a movie about a father and daughter who are learning, however haltingly and briefly, to connect. As they do, there are lovely moments along the way—I adored a casual, improvised-sounding scene in which Cleo and her dad play a video game while Johnny’s childhood friend Sammy (Chris Pontius) heckles them from the sidelines. But there’s no discernible trajectory that joins one epiphany to the next, making Johnny’s last-scene revelation—and his ambiguous final gesture—feel unearned and underwhelming.

    Ann Hornaday, writing for The Washington Post, has a more positive take–and I think accurately calls Coppola’s films “tone poems” in her review, “A Hollywood daughter’s daddy issues”

    As with every Coppola tone poem, “Somewhere” is laced with moments of pure loveliness — Cleo swirling on the ice in a dreamy pastel-colored cloud, or playing Guitar Hero with Johnny on an idle afternoon — and snippets of knowing humor. The inane questions Johnny entertains at a press junket, which range from his workout routine to post-global co­lo­ni­al­ism, are depressingly accurate (take it from someone who’s asked them). Later, when he sits with his head encased in goop for an hour to make a latex mold of his face, the scene is played both for its comic absurdity and, when he sees the results, intimations of mortality. 
     Watch the trailer for Somewhere:

    Marie Antoinette (2006)
    Most of us know the story of Marie Antoinette, though this film is less biopic than exploration of a life of wealth and teenage excess. Marie Antoinette won an Oscar for Costume Design. Here’s the synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:
    Biopic of the beautiful Queen of France who became a symbol for the wanton extravagance of the 18th century monarchy, and was stripped of her riches and finery, imprisoned and beheaded by her own subjects during the French Revolution that began in 1789.

    Carina Chocano, writing for the LA Times, nicely characterizes the theme at the heart of this (and other) Coppola films:
    Coppola has a soft spot for characters who live their lives at once cut off from and exposed to the world. And she captures the gilded-cage experience, in all its romantic decadence, like nobody else. The movie is at its strongest when it focuses on Marie Antoinette’s private, sensual world, which — as she drifts into her much-mocked Rousseau-inspired pastoral phase, in which she attempts, in her inimitably artificial way, to connect with her natural self — becomes ever more abstract and cut off from reality. Dunst’s sleepy, detached quality is perfectly suited to the character. What Marie Antoinette wants is to lose herself in a dream.

    Amy Biancolli’s review for the Houston Chronicle is less forgiving of Coppola’s chosen subject:
    Oh — and that business about feudalism, ignoring the hunger of a nation, losing her head to the guillotine, etc., etc. All that bother. Who cares! It has no business in a movie about Marie Antoinette, queen of rock and sugar baby par excellence. Sofia Coppola‘s latest film doesn’t much care about the sociopolitical genesis of the French Revolution, choosing to zero in on M.A.’s Imelda Marcos-scale shoe collection and 80-foot hairdos rather than the scruffy masses who overthrew the monarchy.

    Watch the trailer:

    Lost in Translation (2003)
    Lost in Translation earned Coppola the Best Director Oscar nomination and Best Original Screenplay win, and received dozens of other nominations and wins, including the Golden Globe for Best Picture, Musical or Comedy, and BAFTA Awards for Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson.

    Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:
    Bob Harris and Charlotte are two Americans in Tokyo. Bob is a movie star in town to shoot a whiskey commercial, while Charlotte is a young woman tagging along with her workaholic photographer husband. Unable to sleep, Bob and Charlotte cross paths one night in the luxury hotel bar. This chance meeting soon becomes a surprising friendship. Charlotte and Bob venture through Tokyo, having often hilarious encounters with its citizens, and ultimately discover a new belief in life’s possibilities.

    With its success on the film festival circuit and with the award attention it garnered, it’s no surprise that Lost in Translation is Coppola’s most critically-acclaimed film. Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum says:
    But much of what’s astonishing about Sofia Coppola’s enthralling new movie is the precision, maturity, and originality with which the confident young writer-director communicates so clearly in a cinematic language all her own, conveying how it feels to find oneself temporarily unmoored from familiar surroundings and relationships. This is a movie about how bewilderingly, profoundly alive a traveler can feel far from home.

    Speaking of the two main characters, played by Johansson and Murray, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie writes:
    What follows is a non-affair to remember, which maintains a delicate balance between friends, lovers and something ineffably greater than either. They are made for each other in a million ways, with sex being one of the lesser ones (though that tension is ever-present). 

    Their relationship — sometimes tender, sometimes hilarious — is the heart and soul of the movie.

    Watch the trailer:

    The Virgin Suicides (1999)

    Adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides’ poetic novel of the same name, The Virgin Suicides was Coppola’s feature film debut, which received several nominations and an MTV Movie Award for Best New Filmmaker.

    The synopsis, again from Rotten Tomatoes:

    On the surface the Lisbons appear to be a healthy, successful 1970s family living in a middle-class Michigan suburb. Mr. Libson is a math teacher, his wife is a rigid religious mother of five attractive teenage daughters who catch the eyes of the neighborhood boys. However, when 13-year-old Cecilia commits suicide, the family spirals downward into a creepy state of isolation and the remaining girls are quarantined from social interaction (particularly from the opposite sex) by their zealously protective mother. But the strategy backfires, their seclusion makes the girls even more intriguing to the obsessed boys who will go to absurd lengths for a taste of the forbidden fruit.

    In a review as interesting for its discussion of female filmmakers as for its actual commentary on Coppola’s film, Stephanie Zacharek of Salon writes:

    What’s interesting in particular about “The Virgin Suicides” isn’t just that it was made by a woman, but that it’s a case of a woman’s adapting a novel about a group of young men’s nostalgia for the unattainable girls of their youth. In the old days, you might have said those girls were imprisoned in the male gaze. But Coppola’s picture is completely nonjudgmental about the narrators’ love for the Lisbon girls (although it should go without saying that love shouldn’t be subject to anyone’s judgment).

    The picture has a feminine sensibility in terms of its dreamy languor, the pearlescent glow that hovers around it like a nimbus. (It’s beautifully shot by Edward Lachman and features a willowy score by Air.) But there’s also a clear-eyed precision at work here, almost as if Coppola subconsciously wanted to make sure she captured Eugenides’ vision, while also giving a sense of the Lisbon sisters as real live girls.

    Watch the trailer:



    Guest Writer Wednesday: The 40% Figure

    Cross posted at Wellywood Woman
     
    There’s so much discussion about the Bechdel Test now (see links below for some examples). I love it all, am interested that men are writing about the test. AND I relate to @marnen’s tweet: “I’m feeling snarky enough to propose the Laibow-Koser test: can 2 female writers have a conversation that doesn’t mention Bechdel test? :)”.

    And then on Facebook, Scarlett Shepard from the San Francisco Women’s Film Festival (@sfwff) provided the link to an Indiewire article, Summer Box Office Report: Women Rule The Art Houses, by Peter Knegt.

    Peter Knegt explains that men directed every one of the 22 summer ‘Hollywood’ films that earned more than $50m, and women actors received top billing in only five, including the three that women ‘flocked’ to: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Eat, Pray, Love and Sex & the City 2. But in the ten top-grossing ‘specialty’ releases* “women dominated: in audience seats, in front of the camera, and, perhaps to an unprecedented degree, behind it.”

    Women directed four (40%) of these films: Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right (earned the most to date, $19m, way ahead of Cyrus with $7m); Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone, Nicole Holofcener’s Please Give, and Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg’s Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. In two more, I Am Love (with Tilda Swinton) and The Girl Who Played With Fire (Noomi Rapace) women were also lead characters. I’m interested in the 40% figure, cross-referencing it to the percentage of women directors in contention for this year’s Australian Film Institute’s awards. Has there been some deep shift, not only in women as audiences—the ‘over-25 women’ quadrant was the largest U.S. cinema audience in 2009—but also in women’s participation as writers and directors of feature films?

    (And two of the ten top-grossing films, Joan Rivers and Babies are documentaries. Which makes me wonder, again, why—as far as I know—no-one in the U.S. has yet picked up Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls. It’s done so well at festivals there and it seems such a no-brainer.)

    And I’m curious. Yes, more women writers and directors are making successful ‘specialty’ releases. Yes, a high proportion of these releases have women as leads. Yes, women are going to see these films. But men directed all of the Hollywood films that women ‘flocked’ to see. Any minute now, Hollywood is going to decide to exploit further the potential of women as audiences. But are men always going to be the directors (and writers) they choose for big-budget projects to attract women viewers and to make a lot of money? What would it take for 40% of next year’s $50m- grossing films to be women-directed, and have women as central characters?

    *which opened in under 1,000 screens and were released by an independent producer or studio subsidiary

    LINKS

    I am woman. Hear me…Please!, by Mark Harris. He mentions QUOTAS

    Just say yes to Mad Men, by Sophie Cunningham in Meanjin’s SPIKE. Has CLIPS, which I always love, including the classic Bechdel Test clip.

    Is the Bechdel Test Overlooking Feminist Films? by Aymar Jean Christian


    Marian Evans is a cultural activist filmmaker who holds New Zealand’s first PhD in Creative Writing. She is currently realising her thesis feature script “Development,” about a group of women filmmakers, set in an imaginary corner of Wellywood, New Zealand’s Hollywood. She’d love suggestions about brands that might like to partner the project, and welcomes introductions to anyone who can help.

    Director Spotlight: Agnès Varda

    Agnes Varda
    I came to Agnès Varda late and by accident. A couple of years ago, scanning Netflix for something interesting to watch, I found The Gleaners and I, and determined it was one of my favorite movies in a very long time. Only then did I look her up and learn how famous and influential she is—something I would have already known if I’d formally studied film. What I love about Varda is her playful intellectualism. She doesn’t take herself too seriously—and it shows in her films—yet she treats her film subjects with love and great care. Her protagonists are often women who live interesting, difficult, and complicated lives.
    Varda’s consuming interest in film as a medium for artistic and sensory inquiry, rather than a mode of entertainment, is a quintessentially French trait. It is also, for this lover and maker of images that live beyond their frame, a trusty bohemian credo.
    I have a bit of a difficult time with French New Wave films; while I can see they are beautiful pieces of art, they don’t always capture me—I can’t quite get inside them. They don’t have the kind of heart I’m looking for in a movie. Varda’s films do—they’re beautiful on the surface (form) and below it (content), and manage to do all of this without a hint of pretension. This is one of the reasons why she is my favorite filmmaker. Here is a sampling of her films.

    La Pointe-Court (1955)
    Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)

    Daguerréotypes (1976)

    Vagabond (1985)

    The Beaches of Agnés (2008)

    Movie Preview: Bluebeard

    Written and directed by Catherine Breillat, Bluebeard (Barbe Bleue) likely explores the same themes that Angela Carter highlighted in her retelling, “The Bloody Chamber.” Read the original fairy tale by Charles Perrault here and Angela Carter’s version here.

    Variety‘s Leslie Felperin:

    Having built a career on provocative, sexually explicit yet cerebral fare (“Romance,” “Sex Is Comedy”), Catherine Breillat shocked auds with her 2007 period piece, “The Last Mistress,” because it was not all that shocking. Now the Gallic helmer’s latest, “Bluebeard,” features considerable blood but no sex. This offbeat but compelling take on the tale, arguably the first serial-killer yarn, emphasizes sisterly bonds but still gets to the original story’s heart of mysterious darkness with impressive results. 

    The New York Times‘ Manhola Dargis:

    In “Bluebeard,” a sly rethink of the freakily morbid fairy tale, the filmmaker Catherine Breillat makes the case that once-upon-a-time stories never end. Divided into two parallel narratives — one focuses on Bluebeard and his dangerously curious wife, while the other involves two little girls in the modern era revisiting the tale — the movie is at once direct, complex and peculiar. It isn’t at all surprising that Ms. Breillat, a singular French filmmaker with strong, often unorthodox views on women and men and sex and power, would have been interested in a troubling tale about the perils of disobedient wives. Ms. Breillat never behaves.

    You can watch the trailer here.

    Director Spotlight: Kathryn Bigelow

    Kathryn-Bigelow-001
    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 the Oscar for Best Picture, the BAFTA for Best Director and Best Picture, and the DGA for Directing, among dozens of other awards for The Hurt Locker). Her win is a source of pride and great relief everywhere, though it’s not without its controversy (chiefly because the Academy rewarded a woman interested in portrayals of masculinity).

    The 2000 book Feminist Hollywood: from Born in Flames to Point Break, by Christina Lane, contains a section on Bigelow that nicely rebuts critical reaction to her and her films.

    Bigelow, who has taken up the traditionally “male” genre of the action film, has been criticized for lacking any new insight into gender politics. Feminist critic Ally Acker contends that Bigelow “adopt[s] the patriarchal values of fun-through-bloodshed and a relishing of violence” creating “nothing more than male clones.” Similarly, more mainstream male critics have echoed David Denby’s remark: “I can’t see that much has been gained now that a woman is free to make the same rotten movie as a man.” These simplistic generalizations do not allow for the nuances in Bigelow’s work, nor do they stop out of essentialist notions about what is possible in the “male category” of action films. I propose that Bigelow’s films rely on a complex relationship between genre and gender, often blending genres or reversing generic expectations, and that they are best understood in the context of her independent origins.

     Bigelow had been making films thirty years before being critically lauded for The Hurt Locker; here is a snapshot of her career.

    The Loveless (1982)
    Bigelow’s feature film debut was also Willem Dafoe’s debut. An homage to The Wild One, The Loveless parodied Reagan-style nostalgia for the 1950s. In a scathing review, Janet Maslin of The New York Times says:

    This movie, a slavish homage to ”The Wild One,” is full of peach and aqua luncheonette scenes, which give it some minuscule visual edge over the original. But otherwise, it’s no improvement. Its evocation of tough- guy glamour is ridiculously stilted. (”This endless blacktop is my sweet eternity,” says the not-very-Brandoesque hero.) And it regards the past with absolutely no perspective or wit.

    A more positive perspective come from Time Out London:

    ‘Man, I was what you call ragged… I knew I was gonna hell in a breadbasket’ intones the hero in the great opening moments of The Loveless, and as he zips up and bikes out, it’s clear that this is one of the most original American independents in years: a bike movie which celebrates the ’50s through ’80s eyes.

    Near Dark (1987)

    Fun fact: the above poster was designed to promote the DVD release of Near Dark, and the resemblance to a certain tween sensation is no coincidence–from a marketing perspective. The poster may, however, be the only thing these films have in common.

    From Maryanne Johanson, The Flick Filosopher:

    As darkly amusing as Near Dark is, though, Bigelow never romanticizes one of the great American perils. This is an intense film, an eerie depiction of the isolated, empty middle of America and the dangers that lurk there… and a surprisingly haunting, if never entirely sympathetic, portrait of the loneliness and torment of the eternally undead.

    Blue Steel (1989)

    Jamie Lee Curtis stars in Blue Steel, a psychologically intense cop thriller. IMDb describes it simply: “A female rookie in the police force engages in a cat and mouse game with a pistol wielding psychopath who becomes obsessed with her.”

    Roger Ebert, in his review from 1990, says:

    “Blue Steel” was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, whose previous credit was the well-regarded “Near Dark.” Does that make it a fundamentally different picture than if it had been directed by a man? Perhaps, in a way. The female “victim” is never helpless here, although she is set up in all the usual ways ordained by male-oriented thrillers. She can fight back with her intelligence, her police training and her physical strength. And there is an anger in the way the movie presents the male authorities in the film, who are blinded to the facts by their preconceptions about women in general and female cops in particular.

    The bottom line, however, is that “Blue Steel” is an efficient thriller, a movie that pays off with one shock and surprise after another, including a couple of really serpentine twists and a couple of superior examples of the killer-jumping-unexpectedly-from-the-dark scene.

    Point Break (1991)

    Perhaps her best-known film before The Hurt Locker, Point Break is a film about an FBI agent (Keanu Reeves) who goes undercover to find a group of surfing bank robbers. It’s campy, goofy at times, but full of suspense and wonderfully-shot action sequences. As with most of her films, critics were harsh.

    It’s hard to decide whether Point Break is a really bad good movie or a really good bad movie. On one hand, it boasts thrilling, original action sequences, a tightly woven caper plot, and a cast jam-packed with Hollywood middleweights acting — and surfing — their asses off. On the other hand, it also suffers from terrifying leaps of story logic, a vacuous emotional core, and some of the silliest dialogue ever spoken onscreen. It’s a Hollywood formula movie at its best and worst.

    Strange Days (1995)

    Written by James Cameron and starring Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, and Juliette Lewis, Strange Days tackles the sci-fi topic of virtual reality.

    The IMDb plot summary:

    Set in the year 1999 during the last days of the old millennium, the movie tells the story of Lenny Nero, an ex-cop who now deals with data-discs containing recorded memories and emotions. One day he receives a disc which contains the memories of a murderer killing a prostitute. Lenny investigates and is pulled deeper and deeper in a whirl of blackmail, murder and rape. Will he survive and solve the case?

    Once again, Mr. Ebert:

    “Strange Days” does three things that will make it a cult film.

    It creates a convincing future landscape; it populates it with a hero who comes out of the noir tradition and is flawed and complex rather than simply heroic, and it provides a vocabulary. Look for “tapehead,” “jacking in” and the movie’s spin on “playback” to appear in the vernacular.

    At the same time, depending more on mood and character than logic, the movie backs into an ending that is completely implausible.

    The Weight of Water (2000)

    Adapted from Anita Shreve’s novel, The Weight of Water stars Sean Penn, Elizabeth Hurley, Sarah Polley, and Catherine McCormick. Perhaps best known for its two-year release delay (complete in 2000, but not released until 2002), the film received uneven reviews.

    Here is the Rotten Tomatoes synopsis:

    Two stories unravel simultaneously in this dark and suspenseful film. The first story, set in the present day, concerns a photographer, Jean (Catherine McCormack). She is working on an article for a magazine about a pair of bloody murders that happened 200 years before on the Isle of Shoals, just off the coast of New Hampshire. To get the pictures she needs she must visit the location of the murders, and so her husband, Thomas (Sean Penn), arranges a yachting trip with his brother, Rich (Josh Lucas), and Rich’s girlfriend, Adaline (Elizabeth Hurley). The foursome pal around, enjoying the sea and the sun, while Adaline shamelessly seduces Thomas. Meanwhile, Jean is reliving the Isle of Shoals murders in her head, which is where the second story comes in. Maren (Sarah Polley) is a Norwegian woman who has recently immigrated to America with her husband. When her sister (Katrin Cartlidge) and sister-in-law (Vinessa Shaw) are brutally bludgeoned to death with an axe, she is the sole survivor, and thus the only one who knows the truth about what happened. THE WEIGHT OF WATER draws a parallel between these two tense episodes, as the surf swirls menacingly, foretelling imminent disaster.

    Stephanie Zacharek’s review from Salon:

    Bigelow’s movie might not come together as cleanly as it should. But as it moves along, there’s always something to watch for, either in the performances or in the way the scenes are so thoughtfully joined. Bigelow is an uneven director — although I find pictures like “Point Break” hugely enjoyable, I couldn’t bring myself to face “K-19: The Widowmaker.” But in “The Weight of Water,” she’s clearly trying to tell a much different type of story, in a way that at least stretches her capabilities. (Considering the way Hollywood pigeonholes directors, that may have been her chief problem in getting this picture released.) We all complain when filmmakers “sell out” and give us recycled Hollywood formula. But maybe it’s also time to stop listening when we hear those handy, zombielike, all-purpose words, “I hear it’s not very good.”
    ***
    Kathryn Bigelow has directed feature-length films, short films, and television episodes which aren’t included here. She isn’t afraid to take risks in filmmaking, and this trait alone insures we’ll see more work from her in the future.

    A last word from Christina Lane:

    By rewinding and fast-forwarding through Bigelow’s films–and thereby refusing to adhere to the counter-cinema/Hollywood divide–we can begin to locate her complication of genre conventions and her re-casting of the politics of gender and sexuality. While there is no need to label Bigelow’s films “feminist” per se, they certainly move within a “feminist orbit” and engage political issues. Her films encourage spectators to ask questions about gender, genre, and power.