Issue 4 Volume 3: March 2013 – Women in Film
Much has been written recently about the state of romantic comedy films, or more specifically, the downfall of the “chick flick”. There are many out there who take issue with that term because it sounds degrading to material marketed to women, but I think that anger is misdirected. It should be targeted straight at the films themselves and how the female gender as a whole is being portrayed. Back in the ‘30s, a decade when some of the best screwball comedies were produced, the women were never the butt of the joke, they were smart, savvy and yearned for life...
Getting a visit from Aunt Flo, that time of the month, riding the crimson wave: you’d think that something experienced monthly by 53% of the world population would be something that’s more openly talked about. Unfortunately, menstruation–the experience of it, the tools related to it and stories that happen as a result of it–continue to be a bit of a taboo subject in the mainstream media. Hell, there may actually be a whole segment of the population who believe women excrete blue liquid each month thanks to the way maxi pad commercials depict it. Luckily for ladies everywhere, three Canadian...
When I saw Zero Dark Thirty, the same thing happened to me as when I saw The Hurt Locker: I wanted to watch the movie on an infinite loop. Since that wasn’t possible, it being in theatres and all, I was hungry for pretty much any detail about the actual events the film was alleging were true-to-life. During my hunt I came across a video on the BBC’s website titled “How close to the facts is Zero Dark Thirty?” I clicked that immediately. You can imagine my surprise at discovering that what Kathryn Bigelow and the BBC felt was the...
Alright-y then, this blog post shall be about everyone’s favourite topic: weddings. Rather, movies about weddings, or rather, female-oriented wedding comedies. I’ve only just realized how hilariously under-qualified I am to write on this topic. Shall I list thee ways? No? Well I’ll do it anyway. 1) I am not wise on this topic 2) I do not think about marriage 3) Rom-coms sometimes make me cringe 4) Rom-coms about weddings tend to make me cringe 5) Blah 6) Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah 7) Why did I take this assignment? 8) BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Anyway moving right along, you’ve probably noticed the prevalence of the...
Look at her: she’s dangerous, sexy, probably lying to you, and lookin’ good doing it. Who is she? Well, she’s probably Sharon Stone or Demi Moore, and it’s most likely around 1994. I’ve never quite been able to figure out why, but there seems to have been a spate of big-budget Sexy Dangerous Lady movies in the ’90s. The answer is probably that Hollywood likes to maul a trend to death as soon as it garners one mega-profitable hit (see, for example, the spate of “disaster” flicks that sprouted up in the 1970s; The Poseidon Adventure (1972) is a personal favourite of mine)....
Patricia Rozema’s debut film I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing is one that seems omnipresent when people begin making lists of classic Canadian films. The story centres on the ever-whimsical Polly (Sheila McCarthy), a naïve amateur photographer in Toronto who becomes embroiled with the beautiful and sophisticated Gabrielle (Paule Baillargeon) after Polly’s hired to assist in the running of a trendy art gallery. Motivated by adoration, Polly smuggles Gabrielle’s artwork into the gallery for display, initiating events which eventually reveal a conspiracy between Gabrielle and her lover Mary (Ann-Marie MacDonald), to pass off Mary’s artwork as Gabrielle’s. The film also features several...
I was in my early teens when I was first introduced to the unbelievable phenomenon that is Dirty Dancing. It was the early ’90s, about five years after the film actually came out in 1987. I watched it on television and found myself mesmerized by it in a way that I’d never experienced with any other film before, and few films since. At the time, I was at the very start of my adolescence, so to me, the film was a romance, and a dance film, and little else. On that first viewing, I missed the fact that this film...
When we think about a woman’s place in the world in the dawning of the twentieth century we don’t often think of them as having a lot of power over their own circumstances. Without the ability to vote or to further their own education, they were often defined by who they married and the home they kept (for an excellent illustration of this see TV’s Downton Abbey). As with any rule however, there’s aways an exception and in the case of women who forged their own path, there’s no better example than Mary Pickford. Born right here in Toronto in...
When it came time to write an article about chick flicks that guys could enjoy, my name quickly found its way to the top of the list. Who better to write an article such as this one than the guy who openly admitted to finding Eat, Pray, Love a fantastic film? They almost don’t come more ‘chick flick-y’ than that one. While that film may not add up to a fantastic evening with your girlfriend, although she may enjoy it thoroughly, this list should include at least a few films that any guy can enjoy with the women in his...
Sean Garrity’s body of work is marked by constant change. His latest film, Blood Pressure, is proof positive of that, wandering far from the broad sex comedy of his previous film My Awkward Sexual Adventure, to the world of mystery, film noir, and intimate psychological thriller. I sat down to talk with Garrity about his work as a filmmaker, and about Blood Pressure, and the questions it raises. Blood Pressure tells the story of a woman who is unhappy with her life, and the lengths she will go to change it. Nicole Westman (played by Michelle Giroux) is a pharmacist,...
The genre of the “buddy film” is historically male dominated, and has continued to be male dominated with films like Wedding Crashers and The Hangover being hugely successful. A lot of female friendships on film are the premise for sappy sob fests (I say that lovingly and as a huge fan of sappy sob fests like Beaches), but here is a list of funny women starring in funny films, alternately known as female buddy films. Instead of fart jokes and drunken shenanigans (not judging), these films are all genuine in their message, bring the laughs, and rise above the usual...
Lina Wertmüller is a conundrum. The Italian filmmaker (she gets her umlauts from aristocratic Swiss descent) was the first woman to be nominated for a Best Director Academy Award for her masterful 1975 movie Seven Beauties. She’s not exactly prolific, but she does have 23 feature films to her credit. Hell, even Madonna made hubby Guy Ritchie remake (at gun point I imagine) one of Wertmüller’s film, resulting in the abysmal Swept Away (2002). Yet when I mention Wertmüller’s name, even at roundtable of film snobs, I get nothing but blank stares. What’s up with that? Wertmüller gets many contradictory labels...
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