Film students have a hard time being taken seriously. They’re often depicted as hipsters and hippies, bored 20-somethings majoring in something frivolous to get their overindulgent parents off their back about doing something with their life. There’s nothing about director Dominick Evans that fits within this stereotype. Outside of pursuing his BFA degree in Motion […]
There aren’t a lot of women who look like me leading summer Hollywood blockbusters.
Another Earth (2011) has an interesting concept. This, of course, sounds like kind of tepid praise that is usually followed with a loaded “but”¦“ I have no such follow-up concerns. The current film landscape is filled with unoriginality. In August alone, Hollywood has or will release six remakes or sequels (Rise of the Planet of the […]
Last weekend’s New York Times Magazine featured a funny, insightful, self-deprecating piece by Carina Chocano, in which she discussed one of my favourite hopeless clichés – the Strong Female Character: “Strong female character” is one of those shorthand memes that has leached into the cultural groundwater and spawned all kinds of cinematic clichés: alpha professionals […]
Another day, another trailer. This time, for John Carpenter’s upcoming The Ward (2011).
“Wouldn’t y’all vote for me to be president? That’s right, I can’t make it no worse! If Elizabeth can run England, I can run America. What has she got that I didn’t use to have and can’t get again, that’s what I want to know.” ““ Moms Mabley
In 1916, 21-year-old Marion Wong wrote, directed, and produced the first film by a Chinese American and one of the first by a woman. The Curse of Quon Gwon, the story of Chinese American lovers cursed by the god of war and wealth, abandoned Hollywood stereotypes in favor of more realistic portrayals of Americans of […]
I love Myrna Loy. It started with the Thin Man films, a series of murder mysteries starring William Powell as a private detective named Nick Charles and Loy as his wife, Nora. Nick was very much the typical 1930s film male: dapper, quick-witted, drunk, and sexist. Rather than accept her husband’s conduct, Nora cut through […]
Erica Watson is a funny as hell, talented, badass woman. Born in Chicago, she currently lives and works in New York City as a comedienne and a film/television director. Her one woman show, Fat Bitch, is a personal look at the term, our culture’s obsession with weight, the impact it has for women as a […]
As an avowed feminist and Cinema Studies student, I care about the presence of women in film. I hope that that much would be obvious. However, I think that presence is only part of the equation. In fact, I think it is the less important factor, compared to the representation of women.
The 82nd Academy Awards will forever hold a special significance for me. Kathryn Bigelow’s win for Best Director showed me that women in mainstream Hollywood are capable of producing excellent films worthy of recognition, and gave me a filmmaking role model.
When I first saw Black Swan, I loved it. I thought it was a wonderful movie, and to an extent that first reaction still stands. But the further away I get from it, the more I doubt this original opinion. Darren Aronofsky is a talented and accomplished director. The film is well-constructed and visually spectacular, […]