Tag: Women Film Directors

Movie Review: How ‘Vamps’ Showcases the Importance of Women Friendships

Movie poster for Vamps
Vamps, the new indie film directed by Amy Heckerling and starring Alicia Silverstone and Krysten Ritter (the upcoming star of the TV show Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23) takes the vampire genre and turns it into a fun, feminist celebration of youth culture and female friendship. The film is part spoof of the recent onslaught of vampire fare, part romantic comedy, part buddy movie—with women!—part history documentary, with some astute political commentary thrown in, and, ultimately, a film about aging, which pays particular attention to the struggles women face within a culture that values youth and beauty above all else.

Jason Buchanan on Rotten Tomatoes effectively captures the plot as follows: “Radiant New York City vampires Goody (Alicia Silverstone) and Stacy (Krysten Ritter) find their immortality in question after learning that love can still smolder in the realm of the undead. Meanwhile, Russian bloodsucker Vadim (Justin Kirk) prowls the streets in search of the next big thrill, and Dr. Van Helsing (Wallace Shawn) seeks to exterminate the creatures of the night as young Joey Van Helsing develops an unusual fixation on Stacy. As ravenous ‘stem’ vampire Ciccerus (Sigourney Weaver) presides over her dark dynasty with the help of her loyal assistant Ivan (Todd Barry), oddball Renfield (Zak Orth) strives to impress Stacy and Goody by any means necessary. Amidst all of the bloodshed and intrigue, nefarious vampire Vlad (Malcolm McDowell) works to perfect his knitting skills.” 


Alicia Silverstone as Goody and Krysten Ritter as Stacy in Vamps
It’s a fun cast of characters for sure, but Silverstone and Ritter shine as the main (women) characters. And for once there’s almost no reason to discuss The Bechdel Test; these two ladies barely talk about men for the first half of the film. Instead, we get to see them playing practical jokes on each other, hanging out in their shared apartment (often texting back and forth while inside their two side-by-side coffins), discussing their fashion choices—which is hilarious, as they struggle to make sure they’re fitting in with the latest 2012 trends (Stacy was first turned into a vampire in the 80s, and Goody lived all the way through the 1800s)—and generally looking out for each other and even (gasp) looking out for other women.

[SPOILER] Case in point: one of my absolute favorite scenes in the film happens early on, when Goody and Stacy head out for their nighttime ritual of club-hopping and imitating the new dance moves of the local youth “Day Walkers” (the term they use to refer to The Living among them). A couple of particularly horrible dude vampires approaches a woman after she bends over, ass in the air, with the word “Juicy” written on her tight pants. The dude vamps merely introduce themselves to her, to which she responds, “I’ll get my coat.” Goody chastises the horrible dude vampires—Goody and Stacy drink only the blood of rodents, not humans—and the dudes respond with, “She’s asking for it,” referring to her “Juicy” attire. It’s a pretty fucking great commentary on the victim-blaming that always accompanies any instance of the rape or sexual assault of women. 


Stacy and Goody on the computer
Goody walks over to the woman with the goal of getting her to stay away from the vampires, but she ultimately ends up hypnotizing her; in this film, vampires have the power to erase the memories of Day Walkers. At first Goody says something to the woman (paraphrasing), “Listen, you don’t want to leave with them. They’re really bad guys.” The woman says, “I like bad guys.” Goody begins hypnotizing her, repeating, “No, I like nice guys.” The woman walks away, passing the horrible dude vampires, while saying, “I like nice guys. I like guys who listen to me when I say things.” (I laughed out loud at that.)

This scene makes me so happy for a couple of reasons. First, a woman intervening to help another woman avoid getting killed by two horrible dude vampires—an obvious metaphor for rape in this scene, rarely happens in movies. How lovely to see that! Because women looking out for their friends certainly happens in real life—first-hand experience! Second, while I don’t necessarily like the implication that women always go for Bad Boys, I appreciate the acknowledgment that bros like this, who want to harm, abuse, and assault women, definitely exist. 


Stacy, Goody, and Sigourney Weaver as Cisserus in Vamps
Also, get this: I turned 33 six months ago. I still have my crappy 35-dollar Blackberry that my sister’s dog spent an hour chewing on. (There are bite marks on the fucking battery.) Let me just say, I could relate to the commentary about youth culture in this film. Heckerling makes wonderful observations about technology, with constant mentions of Twitter, Facebook, texting (there’s a funny reference to someone being in a “textual relationship” due to lack of real-life communication), and other technological stuff I’m probably forgetting because I don’t know what it is. While the film definitely celebrates youth culture, especially in its appreciation of women’s fashion (which reminded me so much of Heckerling’s famous film Clueless), it also juxtaposes that celebration with a critique of the value our society places on youth. That theme comes into play throughout the film, but the focus on women and aging sharpens with the introduction of the head vampire in charge.

Two words: Sigourney Weaver. Do we not adore her? The Alien films, mainly due to Weaver’s badass role as Ellen Ripley, remain one of the quintessential go-to franchises for getting that much-needed feminist fix that Hollywood movies today seem less willing to provide. (Quick shout out to Hunger Games, though!) And Weaver’s role in Vamps as Cisserus, the head vampire, or “Stem,” as they refer to the few vampires who possess the power to turn people into vampires, displays some feminist qualities—strength, leadership, and ambition, to name a few—but her character isn’t without flaws.

While the other vamps fear Weaver’s character—because she’s In Charge—they mainly fear her because she’s the evil, murderous villain. She obsesses over acquiring the love of young men, and when she doesn’t get it, well, you know, she eats them. In many ways, she reminds me of a vampiric version of Miranda Priestly, Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada. She often summons Goody and Stacy (by psychically speaking to them), and it’s almost always to make them model clothing. (Ha!) See, vampires can’t see themselves in mirrors (invisible!), so Weaver wants to look at these women wearing her very youthful, fashionable clothing so that she can visualize what it possibly looks like on her. Eventually though, Cisserus’ power goes so far to her head that she begins putting the other vampires in danger, and the tagline for the last act of the film basically becomes “This Bitch Needs to Die.” 


Vampires hanging out at the club
A woman-in-charge who becomes an evil, power-hungry bitch who ruins lives? Where have I seen that before? (Clue: EVERYWHERE.) I did get the sense from Vamps, though, that it’s making light of that trope rather than relishing in it, and casting feminist film icon Weaver in that role further pushes it toward satire. An interview with Weaver in Collider sheds a bit more light on that:
Collider: What made you decide to jump into the vampire genre with Vamps?

Weaver: Well, I’m a big Amy Heckerling fan, and I also loved the character. She was so unrepentant … I love playing delicious, evil parts like that.

Collider: How does your character fit into the story?

Weaver: She is the person who turned the girls into vampires. So, they have to do her bidding, and she’s very unreasonable and demanding. I would have to say that the one change I made was that I thought she was not really enjoying herself very much, in the original script. I thought, “What’s not to enjoy?” She’s 2,000 years old, she can have anything, she can have anyone, she can do what she wants, so I wanted her to be totally in-the-moment. So, I talked to Amy about it and she just evolved that way. She’s a really happy vampire. She digs it.

(I have to admit, I can kind of get behind a woman—vampire or not—saying, “Fuck it; I own this town.”)
Most of the descriptions and plot summaries I’ve read of Vamps say things like: “Two female vampires in modern-day New York City are faced with daunting romantic possibilities” … (from imdb). True, but not quite. It’s ridiculous to reduce the film to the status of cheesy rom-com because, while both Stacy and Goody somewhat struggle with their hetero-romantic relationships, Vamps ultimately celebrates the friendship and love between the two lead women. (I will say that I have a feminist critique of the ending, but I can’t give it away YET; the movie only recently got picked up by Anchor Bay Films and will be released in theaters around Halloween.)

Stacy and Goody at the club
Overall, it’s pretty significant that I left the theater feeling that this movie—a vampire movie that follows most of the same vampire tropes as all vampire movies—explores something new. It’s also disappointing that I left with that feeling. Because when I thought about it later, I realized what felt so new to me was the depiction of a female friendship that seemed wonderfully authentic. Their dude problems were fairly secondary; their loyalty to each other trumped all other obstacles. Their friendship, in fact, resembled my real-life friendships with women: we don’t fight over men; we don’t sit around endlessly talking about men; we don’t get together and stuff our faces with entire cakes if a man doesn’t call.

That’s why this close relationship between Goody and Stacy is so important to see on The Big Screen in 2012.

In an interview conducted with the director Amy Heckerling by Women and Hollywood, Melissa Silverstein asks the question, “Do you have any comment on the fact that only 5% of movies are directed by women?” Heckerling’s response? “It’s a disgusting industry. I don’t know what else to say. Especially now. I can’t stomach most of the movies about women. I just saw a movie last night—I don’t want to say the name—but again with the fucking wedding, and the only time women say anything is about men.”

Word.

Biopic and Documentary Week: The Fat Body (In)Visible

This piece on The Fat Body (In)Visible, by Stephanie Rogers, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on December 21, 2010.

I was thrilled to run across a fat-positive documentary by Margitte Kristjansson called The Fat Body (In)Visible, in which she interviews Jessica and Keena about the experience of being a fat woman in a society that doesn’t value—and even openly discriminates against—fat women. 
Quotes from the documentary:

Jessica, on Fat Acceptance:  Fat acceptance is just the radical idea that every body is a good body and that regardless of your shape or your size that you deserve just as much respect as the next person.

Keena, on Fat Acceptance:  Fat acceptance is just accepting your body where it is at.  Whether you’re bigger or you’re smaller. Just accepting what it is, your arms, your double chin, your thighs, and just not worrying about how other people may view you.

Click here to read the full piece and to watch The Fat Body (In)Visible. 

Ava DuVernay Wins Directing Award at Sundance Film Festival

Ava DuVernay, director of Middle of Nowhere

From Essence Magazine:

Congratulations are in order for filmmaker Ava DuVernay, who over the weekend became the first African American woman to take home the U.S. directing award at the Sundance Film Festival.

DuVernay received the award for her second feature film, “Middle of Nowhere,” which tells the story of a young woman who struggles to maintain her identity while her husband serves an eight-year prison sentence.

YES!
Here’s a wonderful interview with Ava DuVernay in which she discusses Middle of Nowhere:

From the Archive: Tiny Furniture

I’m still in the process of getting my shit together in 2012, so here’s a review I wrote in January 2011. Basically, I loved Tiny Furniture. Check it out if you can — it’s streaming on Netflix.
The film follows Aura (played by writer/director Lena Dunham), a 20-something self-described misanthrope who, after graduating from a film program at a small liberal arts school in Ohio, moves back to New York City to live with her famous-artist mother, Siri (played by Dunham’s real-life mother Laurie Simmons) and her budding-genius sister, highschooler Nadine (played by Dunham’s real-life sister Grace Dunham). The film wants to show that Aura is, in fact, Having a Very, Very Hard Time, as the tagline reveals, and it puts her through the typical hell that’s common in the heterosexual coming-of-age stories of early twenties womanhood: the struggle to find a reasonably paying job, a desire to make that college degree mean something, and, of course, a few random hookups with emotionally unavailable men. 
But more than anything, Tiny Furniture is a film about the relationships among women.
When Aura arrives home from college, she’s immediately confronted with her mother photographing her younger sister among a setup of, literally, tiny furniture. And, while the first indication of sibling rivalry appears, it already seems more refreshing and complicated than the traditional cliched portrayal of sister-hate and woman-on-woman divisiveness. The women converse with one another as if Aura hadn’t been in Ohio for four years; in fact, the casualness of their interaction–her mother barely looking up from her photography, her sister making sarcastic comparisons about her slender legs versus Aura’s heavier frame–suggests a comfort with one another that transcends their almost performed familial coldness. 
Perhaps most intriguingly, the on-screen relationships feel so authentic that the unmentioned absent father is hardly noticeable. Who cares, after all?  Women rock the screen, and, unlike a couple of recent woman-centric films (The Kids Are All Right, Winter’s Bone–both arguably feminist) it has nothing to do with a need to compensate for the failings of the men in their lives. 
Almost immediately when Aura moves back to New York, she meets up with her childhood friend Charlotte (played by Jemima Kirke) at a party. Charlotte is portrayed as a spoiled, drama-craving brat, but Aura clings to her, at one point even referring to Charlotte as her best friend. (Her mother later says sarcastically in response, “After two weeks?”) They hang out in Charlotte’s apartment, getting high together and talking about art, men, joblessness, addiction, their parents–and they flatter each other; the audience is never encouraged to view these women as rivals. The point of their friendship is to illustrate the absolute aloneness of being an aimless twenty-something and not knowing what the hell to do in life. In several hilarious scenes, Charlotte begs Aura not to leave, once going as far as to roll around on her bed saying, “Please stay,” which the audience is meant to find both endearing and pathetic.
And while the relationship between Charlotte and Aura works mainly because of their shared loneliness and need to connect, the onscreen relationship between the two sisters thoughtfully investigates the obstacles inherent in familial relationships. In fact, it didn’t surprise me at all when I discovered that they’re actually real-life sisters because their sibling rapport feels incredibly authentic. While Aura drinks bottle after bottle of her mother’s wine with her friends, Nadine runs on the treadmill, does crunches while reading a book, writes award-winning poetry, and teases Aura about her directionless existence. But the back-and-forth nitpicking between them is perfectly juxtaposed against scenes exhibiting such tenderness as can only occur in close relationships.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie involves Nadine throwing a party while her mother is out, leaving Aura to supervise things. Of course, the party gets out of hand–we’re dealing with a slew of highschoolers railing against Aura-as-Authority-Figure (because, let’s face it, if Aura is anything, Authority Figure isn’t on the list)–and Aura starts to have a panic attack. She does the only thing she can think to do, call Charlotte to come over and help her get the party under control. Which is hilarious. Because Charlotte is more of a disaster than Aura is. So, it isn’t surprising at all when Charlotte starts giving lap dances and Aura starts walking around the party in her underwear.
The screaming match that ensues between Aura and Nadine could’ve been taken from a direct transcript of a real-life sibling fight. I cringed at the truthfulness of Nadine’s accusations as she criticized Aura for craving the attention of high school boys. (Those boys, however, reciprocated by making fun of Aura and dissing her body.) And when Nadine starts smacking Aura with a spatula and storms off, the audience feels sympathy for both sisters; neither is the villain in this film, and Dunham’s navigation of that terrain seems effortless from beginning to end. I won’t spoil the brief make-up scene between Aura and Nadine because the film is worth watching for that moment alone.
Aura spends much of the film, when she isn’t fighting with her sister, thinking of herself as somewhat of an artist/filmmaker, as evidenced by her YouTube videos (where she usually wears only her underwear or a bathing suit). Since Aura isn’t traditionally beautiful, and isn’t a size two like most of the half-naked women we’re used to seeing onscreen, at first it’s almost shocking to watch her walk around barely clothed throughout the film (which further illustrates the level of comfort and intimacy she feels with her mother and sister). But Dunham doesn’t include those scenes merely for shock value. The comments left on her YouTube videos consistently make fun of her weight and her looks. She reads the insulting feedback aloud to Charlotte, and they both try to blow it off, but not without Aura remarking on how difficult it is to put that negativity out of her mind.
For anyone who’s ever browsed the comments on YouTube videos, it’s impossible not to notice the disgusting misogyny and homophobia that plague them. Not only does Dunham subtly comment on that, but she also manages to reinforce the importance of supportive women friendships as a way to help combat the barrage of bullshit women deal with daily, especially when it concerns unattainable beauty ideals. It’s interesting to note, too, that Charlotte is traditionally attractive, and yet their friendship never digresses into any sort of competition, least of all one that involves some stereotypical competition over men.
The film doesn’t completely shy away from the subject of men, though, and the two men Aura meets both basically suck. One spends the first half of the movie mooching off Aura–and she lets him–staying in her house, eating her food, drinking her mother’s wine, but when she tries to take their “friendship” to the next level, he refuses. For Aura to attempt to hook up with such a caricature of a loser further drives home her loneliness and desire for connection. With anyone. So it isn’t surprising either when she goes after the chef she works with, who likes “Asian tentacle rape” pornography–whatever the hell that is–and exploits Aura’s obvious crush on him to get her to give him pills (even though he has a girlfriend).
Watching the film, one can’t avoid thinking, “C’mon, Aura, you know better than this.” But the material is so impossible not to relate to–who hasn’t lusted after the entirely wrong person, and known it?–that one can’t fault her for putting herself through it.
Those interactions with men accompanied by Aura’s reading aloud of her mother’s diary (written during her twenties) give further insight into the relationship Aura has with her mother. In many ways, regardless of how often the two women clash, Aura admires her. She’s a successful artist who’s clearly independent. She’s rich. She has no apparent need for a man in her life. Yet her diary reveals many of her obsessions in her twenties: with body image–she constantly journaled her food choices, with men and their inadequacies, and particularly with feeling like she wasn’t living up to her potential as an artist.
The final scene of the film, with Aura curled up with her mother in her mother’s bed, discussing the diary, openly discussing Aura’s horrid sexual encounter from earlier in the evening (completely absent of judgment from her mother–her only concern is that Aura practices safe sex), discussing Aura’s own fears of failure, which her mother squashes with, “Oh, you’ll be much more successful than I am,” feels so heart-wrenchingly honest it’s almost difficult to watch. And the ending, which features a literal ticking clock that could’ve felt contrived and artificial, totally works. It isn’t that the two women desire to stop time; they just don’t want the obvious reminder of its passing. 
As Aura struggles with all these issues, reading her mother’s diary (and sharing it with the audience) serves to remind us that even though coming-of-age ain’t fun, particularly for young women navigating the patriarchy, it’s still possible to come out on the other end fairly unscathed. 

Here’s the part where we ask for your help.

Running a blog is 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.
Bitch Flicks is free from obnoxious ads, which means there has been zero revenue to pay for site hosting, guest writers, upgrades, and the like. There are two ways you can help:
  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 greatly appreciated gesture of support and will help pay for our expenses.  
  2. Purchase items through our Amazon store. We 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 can’t afford a financial contribution, there are a number of things you can do to help.

–Amber & Stephanie

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

    Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

    Creator of The Wire issues heartfelt critique of the “war on drugs” from Feministing

    Last week, actress Felicia Pearson, who plays “Snoop” on The Wire, was arrested as part of a major drug raid that included 30 people. While this is certainly disappointing news, because I think a lot of people are rooting for her success after her involvement with the show, I was particularly struck by the reaction of David Simon, creator and executive producer of The Wire and Pearson’s colleague.

    A History of (Firsts) for Women and Film from The Film Experience

    First woman to receive an honorary regular-sized Oscar: Greta Garbo in 1954. Yep, after 20 or so men had been given one. After another 15 or so men were given non-competitive statues the next woman was Onna White for choreographing Oliver! (1968).

    The ratio continues this way: 1970s men: 14; women: 3; 1980s men: 8; women: 1; 1990s men: 9;women: 3; 2000s men 12: women: 1; This year men: 3; women: 0; What the hell is AMPAS’s problem with women, exactly?

    Interview with Sherry Hormann, Director of Desert Flower from Women and Hollywood

    Desert Flower opens this Friday in NY and LA.  It stars Liya Kebede as Waris Dirie, a woman who escaped from Somalia and became a top fashion model and UN spokeswoman against female genital mutilation.  Director Sherry Hormann answered some questions about the film.

    I Love Lucy: Radical Feminist Propaganda? from Against All Evidence 

    Ricky: All people in the world are divided into two groups… men and women.

    Lucy: [sarcastically] I know. It’s a wonderful arrangement.

    Ricky: Now. Men have short hair, and women have long hair. That’s the difference between them.

    Lucy: Oh?

    Icons of Black Female Empowerment from The Root

    From Diana Ross to Lena Horne to Queen Latifah, black women in pop culture have defied the odds, inspired and awed their fans. In honor of Women’s History Month, we’ve put together a list of some of the icons of black female empowerment.

    March Movies I Won’t Be Seeing (And One I Might) from The Funny Feminist

    First up is Sucker Punch, starring a bunch of life-sized Bratz dolls:

    Summary: A group of girls escape from an insane asylum where they have been imprisoned against their will, kicking ass and taking names on the way!  They also happen to be wearing next to nothing while they do this, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence, right?

    The Feministing Five: Anita Sarkeesian from Feministing

    Anita Sarkeesian is the founder of the fabulous blog and video series Feminist Frequency, where she analyzes depictions of gender in pop culture in an accessible, entertaining way. Sarkeesian believes that popular culture is a powerful force, one that can shape how we think about the world, and that it even though it can seem silly, it deserves serious analysis: she wrote her master’s thesis on representations on strong women in scifi and fantasy television.

    Why I Am a Male Feminist from The Root

    The word turns off a lot of men (insert snarky comment about man-hating feminazis here) — and women. But here’s why black men should be embracing the “f” word.

    Leave links to what you’ve read and written this week about women and film!

    Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

    The general media obsession with Mirren’s sex life has been replaced these days by a kind of awe, no less misogynistic, that a woman in her 60s can look attractive and happy. At 65, Mirren is adored and venerated; if it’s true that, after being made a Dame in 2003 and winning an Oscar in 2007 for playing the title role in The Queen, she has become that dreaded property, a national treasure, then at least she is one with plenty of sharp edges capable of giving you a painful nick if you’re not careful.

    Feminism has gotten somewhat of a bad rap lately. Many people feel that it’s outlived its goals. Don’t women have equal rights now? What is there to complain about? The answer to this is that just giving people the legal possibility to do something doesn’t mean you are genuinely opening opportunities for them. Saying that giving people equal rights leads to them instantly being regarded as equals is like saying that giving African-Americans the right to vote ended racism in America. But what has all this to do with movies? Well, feminism isn’t just a political movement, but also an academic one. And yes, there is something like feminist film theory.

    Feminism Friday: Any Woman Worth Her Salt from Blazing Modesty Changes the World
    Not so for the moment a little earlier when, after spraying CCTV cameras with a fire extinguisher to cover the lens, she inexplicably, with the fire extinguisher still to hand, whips off her knickers to block the final camera.  This she can do easily and a million times more gracefully than any knicker removal I’ve seen or executed in real life, thanks to the massive slit in the tight skirt she wears to her office job in the CIA.  I can’t believe Jolie even did it, really.  I’d have been tempted to punch the director in the face.  There’s also a questionable moment at the beginning of the film when she’s learning to fold napkins for her anniversary dinner with her husband.  I find it very hard to believe this was part of the original script, and while the function of the episode is clearly to establish the husband and the occasion, this would never have been written for the character as Cruise would have played it.

    A Question of Habit from Whalen Films
    In the February 23, 2008 episode of Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey made a seemingly serious case for Hillary Clinton as president, arguing that we shouldn’t mind if she’s a bitch because “bitches get stuff done.” Fey went on to bolster her argument with the following observation: “That’s why Catholic schools use nuns as teachers and not priests. Those nuns are mean old clams, and they sleep on cots and are allowed to hit you. And at the end of the school year, you hated those bitches, but you knew the capital of Vermont.” How did nuns become part of this discussion? And how did they get reduced from the historical reality of their significant contributions to such a narrow and nasty caricature?

    Shortly after the Oscars ended Sunday, Samuel L. Jackson sent an e-mail to a Times reporter wondering why no black men had been chosen to present awards on the film world’s biggest stage.

    “It’s obvious there’s not ONE Black male actor in Hollywood that’s able to read a teleprompter, or that’s ‘hip enuf,’ for the new academy demographic!” Jackson wrote. “In the Hollywood I saw tonite, I don’t exist nor does Denzel, Eddie, Will, Jamie, or even a young comer like Anthony Mackie!”

    Jackson may be on to something, at least when it comes to the young comers.

    For me, this frustration is usually borne of being othered and disrespected, when I simply aimed to be entertained by a trashy novel or TV show. I dipped into Charlaine Harris’ Aurora Teagarden series, hoping to enjoy the books as I enjoy the TV series based on Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series. Instead, I got a bunch of thinly-written, triggering stories where all women (but the protagonist) are routinely judged harshly and women like me (black women) are alternately sassy or angry or dead or running from the law, and blackness or Jewishness or gayness or any other “ness” that is not small-town and conservative and Southern and Anglo and Christian is to be frowned at or remarked upon or, best, hidden. And so, instead of enjoying a cozy mystery in my downtime, I wound up feeling uncomfortable and marginalized.

    I dislike SATC for the way it forced its central characters into stereotypes. To service those stereotypes for the sake of a storyline. Chris Noth was the tall-dark-and-handsome wealthy man. Kim Cattrall the over-sexed hyper-assertive female who had to stumble over failed romances or personal trauma (breast cancer) to show her sensitivity. Cynthia Nixon is the cynical New York career-woman. Kristen Davis the doe-eyed, Rules playing, sweater-set wearing woman on a mission for the nuclear family and nothing else. Sarah Jessica Parker is the child who plays dress-up, even in her marriage, trying on costumes in the hopes that they’ll make her lifestyle complete. These roles needed to be boldly and sharply drawn in oder to parody or even slay some of the stereotypes of women.

    At a do last year to crown Lennox Barclays Woman of the Year, barely half the roomful of 450 of Britain’s brightest women admitted to being a feminist. Lennox was disgusted. “They were afraid,” she says. In a sort of stream of consciousness ramble, she adds: “The word feminism needs to be taken back. It needs to be reclaimed in a way that is inclusive of men. Men need to understand, and women too, what feminism is really about. And it is not the parody that it has been diminished and turned into, and it is not this parody about whether you burn your bra or shave your armpits or whatever. That’s just nonsense. Actually it’s a red herring. It’s really disgraceful that it has become the kind of dumbing down of something that has to do with human rights, social and political values – and where we’re going as a world that is dominated by war and strife. And young women being born still have no rights over what is done to their bodies.”

    Thelma and Louise came out in May of 1991 and change was in the air.  The film touched a raw nerve in women that had been lying dormant during the Reagan backlash years.  It became a cultural touchstone, was on covers of magazines, and got both Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon Academy Award nominations.  Geena Davis tells stories of women seeing her on the road and honking at her and thanking her for the film.  But here we are 20 years later and it feels like that film was never made.

    Today, it’s time to look back at ten women who’ve made cinematic history. I won’t claim that this ten constitutes the “best,” because to do so would immediately detract from the hundreds and thousands of women developing cinema worldwide. These are, quite simply, ten women you should be familiar with. Some have the honor of “first,” while others have left an indelible impact on the industry.

    Consider this your springboard to a rich history of female talent.

    On the silver screen women are usually seen as a helpless mother, submissive wife, devoted girlfriend, overcaring sister, daughter or a vamp, but directors like Vishal Bharadwaj and Alankrita Shrivastava are trying to break the mould and present women in a more realistic, vibrant and unconventional way.

    One-film-old Rajkumar Gupta’s “No One Killed Jessica” was an attempt to bring alive the struggle of Sabrina Lall’s fight with the Indian judiciary for years to get justice for her murdered sister.

    Kathryn Bigelow may have been the first female filmmaker to win a Best Director Oscar for 2009′s The Hurt Locker. But did you happen to notice that for the most recent Academy Awards, the nominees in the same category were all men — in a year when two movies directed by women, Winter’s Bone and The Kids Are All Right, were up for Best Picture?

    Gender inequalities exist throughout the arts, but they’re especially pronounced in the rarefied world of film directing. We all know a few big-name women filmmakers: Bigelow, Sofia Coppola, Susan Seidelman, Catherine Hardwicke, Nora Ephron, Julie Taymor. In honor of International Women’s Day, we present ten great, contemporary female directors who you may not know but should definitely check out.

    The key to the influence of film is HOW film is used to represent violence against women to the masses. The key is to see film as a tool:

    Done well, a powerful documentary, movie, public service announcement, music video or television episode can give might momentum to helping activists and nonprofits working to end violence against women motivate grassroots support for the cause.

    Done right, the film-maker will be able to walk the balancing act of accurately depict the horrors of violence against women while inspiring the viewer to join the movement to end violence against women.

     SHARE YOUR LINKS!

    2011 Spirit Award Winners

    The 2011 Film Independent Spirit Awards Ceremony took place on Saturday night–the night before the Academy Awards–and aired on IFC. (Which I didn’t watch, because I don’t get IFC.)
    In terms of who and which films were nominated, there was a good bit of crossover this year for indie films: four of the five Best Feature nominees were also Best Picture Oscar nominees (Greenberg didn’t make the cut); five of the six women nominated for Best Lead also received Oscar nods; and the Best Foreign Film award went to the Best Picture award winner–The King’s Speech.
    But there are some very important differences, some of which we highlighted in our post about the Spirit Nominees. Namely–you guessed it–how much better women fare in the indie world. Here is a selection of winners, and some thoughts about each. You can see a list of all nominees and winners here.
    Best Feature: Black Swan
    There is nothing near a consensus on how to read this film. Some find it a feminist statement about the unbearable pressures put on women in modern society, while some find it a misogynist exploration of madness and exploitation of the female body. Nevertheless, it is a female-centered film.
    Best Director: Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
    Although a man won, there were two women (Lisa Cholodenko for The Kids Are All Right and Debra Granik for Winter’s Bone) in contention, and the winner directed a woman-centered film. 
    Best Screenplay: Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg for The Kids Are All Right
    This was a great category for women. In addition to Cholodenko, Debra Granik and Anne Rossellini were nominated for Winter’s Bone, and Nicole Holofcener was nominated for Please Give.
    Best First Screenplay: Lena Dunham for Tiny Furniture
    The best “first” categories are important, in that they give exposure to mostly little-known films (in terms of the mainstream audience) and help launch new voices into the world of filmmaking. The other female nominee in the category is Diane Bell, for Obselidia.
    Best First Feature: Get Low

    In addition to promoting new filmmakers, this category is exciting because it often introduces films many of us haven’t seen, or haven’t heard much about, including Tanya Hamilton’s Night Catches Us and Dunham’s Tiny Furniture.

    Best Female Lead: Natalie Portman for Black Swan
    The winner here is no surprise; Portman swept the awards for her portrayal of determined ballerina Nina, which, regardless of how you feel about the film, was an amazing performance. The other nominees were Annette Bening, Greta Gerwig, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lawrence, and Michelle Williams.

    Best Supporting Female: Dale Dickey for Winter’s Bone
    This is another exciting Spirit category, as was the corresponding Oscar category (for different reasons), though there was no overlap between nominees. Other nominees were Ashely Bell for The Last Exorcism, Allison Janney for Life During Wartime, Daphne Rubin-Vega for Jack Goes Boating, and Naomi Watts for Mother and Child.

    While the Spirit Award nominees represent a slightly more progressive and inclusive range of stories and people who tell them, they also reveal a continuing problem: the lack of films about, centering on, made by, or starring people of color. As far as I can tell (as I haven’t seen all the films, nor do I know each storyline), Hamilton’s Night Catches Us is the only nominee focusing on the experience of people of color, specifically Black Americans.

    The Spirit Awards may be better than the Oscars, but we still have a long way to go.

    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.

    Athena Film Festival Preview

    This weekend we’re attending the Athena Film Festival in New York City, billed as a “celebration of women and leadership.” Why a festival dedicated to women and film? 
    From the official website:
    In 2010, for the first time in history, a woman won the Oscar for best director. Directing is the most visible leadership position in film yet, in 82 years, only 4 women have been nominated for best director, and only a single woman has won. In 2009, in the 250 top-grossing domestic films, women made up only 7% of directors, 8% of writers, and 17% of executive producers. 98% of these films had no female cinematographers. And, in front of the camera, as of 2007, women had less than 30% of the speaking roles.

    In addition to feature films, documentaries, and short films, there will be events such as “A Hollywood Conversation with actress Greta Gerwig” and a panel on “The Bechdel Test – Where Are the Women Onscreen?” among others.

    Here are previews of some of the films we’re planning to see. You can purchase tickets for individual films or a pass for the entire weekend. If you’re in the area, you won’t want to miss this festival!

    Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbiased
    Synopsis from the official site:

    Unbought & Unbossed is the first historical documentary on Brooklyn Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and her campaign to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in 1972. Following Chisholm from the announcement of her candidacy in January to the Democratic National Convention in Miami, Florida in July, the story is like her- fabulous, fierce, and fundamentally “right on.” Chisholm’s fight is for inclusion, as she writes in her book The Good Fight (1973), and encompasses all Americans “who agree that the institutions of this country belong to all of the people who inhabit it.”


    The Mighty Macs
    Synopsis from the Athena site:
    In the early 70s, Cathy Rush becomes the head basketball coach at a tiny, all-girls Catholic college. Though her team has no gym and no uniforms — and the school itself is in danger of being sold — Coach Rush looks to steer her girls to their first national championship.


    Miss Representation
    Description from the official film website:
    Writer/Director Jennifer Siebel Newsom brings together some of America’s most influential women in politics, news, and entertainment to give us an inside look at the media’s message. Miss Representation explores women’s under-representation in positions of power by challenging the limited and often disparaging portrayal of women in the media. As one of the most persuasive and pervasive forces in our culture, media is educating yet another generation that women’s primary value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality—not in their capacity as leaders. Through the riveting perspectives of youth and the critical analysis of top scholars, Miss Representation will change the way you see media.


    There are plenty more films being shown at the festival–be sure to check them out!

    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: