Comments on A Life In Film: Women in Hollywood? It's complicated.

NYT's Manohla Dargis weighs in http://jezebel....

2009-12-15T15:04:25.420+11:00

NYT's Manohla Dargis weighs in http://jezebel.com/5426065/fuck-them-times-critic-on-hollywood-women--why-romantic-comedies-suck

Very good -- and necessary -- post, Matt. I think...

2009-11-27T12:26:56.374+11:00

Very good -- and necessary -- post, Matt. I think we ALL think about this from time to time, some more than others. Because it continually and historically rankles. Then we forget for a time because, really, there are so many good films out there by men and women, that we can just enjoy and appreciate until... awards time comes around again.

What's to be done? Not much until it happens on its own because Academy members decide to get behind a certain movie (like they did last year for Slumdog and a few years back for Crash). In my opinion these were not even particularly good movies, but they acted as magnets. When this happens to a film directed by a woman, she'll get the nomination and maybe the award. (This is why, for me, awards continue to suck. But I guess somebody's got to give' em and somebody else receive 'em.) So women continue to get the shaft from the Academy.

Blacks had their year when Hallie and Denzel won. Gays missed out, in a sense, when Brokeback lost (and Crash won: some say in order to make certain that gays would lose). And so it will be for women, eventually, and then everyone will shout Hosannah! And go back to business as usual.

Women, though -- just like men, but without as much attention paid them -- will keep working, making films good, bad and in between.

Perhaps gender parity will be achieved when female...

2009-11-23T18:04:00.398+11:00

Perhaps gender parity will be achieved when female filmmakers cease being discussed in terms of their sex! Which is why Peter Bart's piece on Bigelow and Campion still rankles: Unlikely Rivals

Great piece, Matt. It makes a great companion to this Indiewire post.

It also reminded me of an essay I wrote a long, long time ago about the diminishing agency of women in Hollywood during the Golden Age. Alas, nothing much has changed. The Silenced Majority>

I like Hurt Locker a lot, but I don't t...

2009-11-21T18:28:23.753+11:00

I like Hurt Locker a lot, but I don't think I was as impressed as some of you. To me, if felt a little derivative of a superior film, the relatively recent Beaufort, about an Israeli bomb disposal unit set in the region of the title's historic Southern Lebanese fort. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

I've often wondered about the lack of women directors. Maybe it's related to the scarcity of women at the highest levels of business. Maybe women don't have the assertiveness and organisational skills. I don't have a position on this, so before you all stone me, I'm just raising the question.

Strange Days indeed. That level of tension I thin...

2009-11-20T15:29:17.178+11:00

Strange Days indeed.

That level of tension I think I've only ever found in the films of Paul Greengrass, especially Bloody Sunday and United 93.

Of course I don't mean to say that Hurt Locker is a bloke's film in the sense that women can't enjoy it, only that the type of men who don't easily shower kudos on women filmmakers might make an exception here precisely because she's made a bloody war film. Which is sad, but there you go.

Bigelow has always been an "a" grade dir...

2009-11-20T15:09:01.914+11:00

Bigelow has always been an "a" grade director. Her choice of project sometimes lacks IMHO.

I'd gone most of the year assuming I'd not see anything as complete in terms of sheer directing skills as Samson and Delilah. But then along came "Hurt Locker" at MIFF this year. I have rarely sat so tensed in all my life. The film is top shelf indeed. But I take your point regarding the facts that it's a bloke's film Matt.

Curiously, this film was temporarily dropped from local distrib's schedule until all that pesky Oscar talk started up. It's my favourite film of the year, it's a Hollywood production, and it nearly wasn't released here. Strange days.