debor009

I have to tell you that all this talk lately about reaching out to women in film, creating special programs, help, etc rankles a bit. Maybe because it sounds just a bit patronizing and self-congratulatory....like helping disadvantaged children. (Or maybe I'm just having one of those mornings) In any case, women have been heavily involved in producing, directing, writing, and editing films since films were first invented as an art form. Every week their work hits the theaters; it just doesn't get the marketing it deserves typically. Kind of like The Hurt Locker (6 Oscars: Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Editing, Sound/mixing and editing) vs. Avatar (3 Oscars: Cinematography, Visual Effects, Art Direction). Here's what women filmmakers have opening this week in theaters: The Red Pill , directed and co-produced by Cassie Jaye ; 13th , directed and co-written by Ava DuVernay ; Newtown , directed by Kim A. Snyder and produced by Maria Cuomo Cole ; and 37 , written and direct...

Scarlett Johansson was named Esquire magazine's "Sexiest Woman Alive" a few weeks ago (for the second time).  Here's what she said: "The 28-year-old cover star tells the magazine that getting older isn't all fun and games for a woman in Hollywood (shame on you for thinking it was), explaining how 'pretty soon the roles you're offered are all mothers. Then they just sort of stop."  Full coverage in the Mirror here . Well, it occurs to me that if an actress projects largely her sexuality onscreen - i.e. the depth of her cleavage or the perfect roundness of her bum - then the bloom really is starting to go off the rose at 28.  But why does Hollywood do that to women? Playing a "cougar" Marion Cotillard tore up the screen in La Vie en Rose , a 2007 French biopic about the legendary Edith Piaf.  She was wonderful. Yet in the 2010 Warner Brothers Sci-Fi film Inception she is reduced to little more than an artfully positioned potted plant. ...

A big obstacle for actresses of a certain age (mine, for example) is too often being relegated to roles as disempowered characters, even though the world reflects a very different reality and the majority of casting agents (and now many directors and producers) are women. You would think that they would make the connection that if a 55-year-old man can play the "powerful person in charge," so can a 55-year-old woman. Not so. If a woman is cast as a district attorney, for example, she'll more often be 27 and chosen for reasons other than her credibility as a D.A. (Which brings to mind Danny DeVito in Norman Jewison's 1991 Other People's Money , opposite Penelope Ann Miller as the D.A. and his love interest. I think Norman Jewison is terrific, as are both actors, but Miller looked like she was 12 at the time and, yes, the pairing was cringe-worthy.) E. Katherine Kerr as Sen. Grace Comisky In acting, what I see being offered to older actresses are roles as little o...