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Gamechanger Films Finds Success With Fund for Female-Helmed Features

May 4, 2015 By Thelma Leave a Comment

gamechanger-films  Catch up with my feature via Variety‘s New York Power of Women issue:

Gotham’s Gamechanger Films has already proved it has game. Launched in August 2013, the equity financing fund for female-helmed fiction features came out of the gate with Martha Stephens’ co-directorial debut, Land Ho! The Iceland-set road comedy premiered at Sundance in 2014. Picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, it went on to win the Film Independent John Cassavetes Award. And at the recent SXSW, Gamechanger-backed The Invitation from Karyn Kusama and Fresno from Jamie Babbit premiered. Drafthouse Films just picked up The Invitation.

Not bad for the first round of funding from 36 equity partners that underwrote a five-film slate [[correction seven]].

According to Gamechanger president Mynette Louie: “Our primary challenge is that when the industry and filmmakers hear ‘film fund for women,’ they assume that we make ‘chick flicks’ — not that there’s anything wrong with those, in spite of what most film critics (80% of whom are men) think. There are a lot of people presuming to know what projects are up Gamechanger’s alley, but we really are genre- and protagonist-agnostic.”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Movies & TV Tagged With: Drafthouse Films, feminism, Fresno, Gamechanger Films, Jamie Babbit, Julie Parker Benello, Karyn Kusama, Land Ho!, Mynette Louie, Sony Pictures Classics, The Invitation, Variety, Wendy Ettinger, Women Directors

Review: Keira Knightley Awakens Seattle in ‘Laggies’

October 30, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Keira Knightley dresses down (and out).

Keira Knightley dresses down (and out).

“Suck it up, go with your gut.” That’s the advice Seattle late twentysomething Megan (Keira Knightley) gives to adolescent Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz) at the end of Lynn Shelton’s most commercial movie yet, Laggies. Shelton herself has followed that mantra, pioneering a successful indie career by going with her gut. She’s a generous filmmaker, giving female characters dimension and detail without sacrificing the crispness of her men.

Shelton has created a cottage industry in Seattle making films that are cool, contemporary, and just a little bit angsty without being all tattooed-edgy. I loved the sibling issues raised, and the actresses engaged — Rosemarie DeWitt and Emily Blunt — in the prickly yet tender comedy Your Sister’s Sister. I sighed during the uneven masseuse dramedy Touchy Feely, also starring DeWitt, a yeasty bread that refused to rise. Everyone makes mistakes, though women directors often don’t get a second chance.

But Shelton, who directs both TV (the upcoming Fresh Off the Boat) and has three film scripts in development, sucked it up, undeterred. And along came the Sundance hit Laggies, slang for folks that are lagging behind but don’t have the true philosophical entropy of slackers. It’s a more temporary condition.

The comedy, which Shelton directed from Andrea Seigel’s sexy, sweet-natured screenplay, opens briskly. Megan escapes a claustrophobic wedding reception in which her sympathetic beau (Mark Webber) has just tried to kneel down and propose. He’s doing the right thing, but Megan instinctually recoils: How can it feel so wrong? Is that all there is, my friend? What happened to flat-out fun on the modern woman’s rush to career, love, marriage, and a baby carriage?


Read More on IndieWire’s “Women and Hollywood” blog…

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Chloe Grace Moretz, Keira Knightley, Lynn Shelton, Review, Sam Rockwell, Women Directors

Q&A: Never “Enough Said”: More Talk on Motherhood and Career with Julia Louis-Dreyfus

September 21, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

In vino veritas

In vino veritas


This dialog with Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a continuation of an interview conducted at the Toronto Film Festival for Yahoo! Movies. Julia and I (and director Nicole Holofcener) are of the same generation: working mothers who went to college, had kids and are now, gradually, facing empty nests and, eek, what we see looking forward — and looking back — at midlife.

Here, I continue that part of the interview that was a little more personal, and more about mothers and professional women from our generation. Julia and I were discussing her character, Eva, who is having an awkward summer with her daughter as the pair prepares to separate when Ellen (Tracey Fairaway) heads to Sarah Lawrence in the fall. I said to Julia, about her character, “and she’s afraid…”

LOUIS-DREYFUS: She’s terrified.

Q: Nicole, the writer-director, is also someone who has gone through this transition or will be going through this. Her children are younger, right?

LOUIS-DREYFUS: Her twins are a year younger than my youngest. But still, she thinks about it a lot. And it’s very much on her mind, when her boys go off. And, what that means, and —

Q: Do you think that there’s now this generational shift? That our generation of women, who are writers and actresses and directors, who had kids, are at that point, where their kids are leaving, and are now going to re-embrace their careers with new vigor? Do you think there’s going to be this “Enough Said” renaissance?

LOUIS-DREYFUS: Jesus Christ, I hope so. I mean, the more voices of smart, experienced, women out there, the better for the world, I say, really.

Q: I’m there and, also, you have to be aware — just my personal drum to beat — is that there are, in fact, there were never many female film critics to begin with, and there are in fact less. And a lot of them who are our age have been furloughed off, and are floating, without the seniority that say, a Judith Christ had, or a Pauline Kael. And, just so you know, you need those people out there. We need those experienced women in print and online out there. We have to put that into the conversation too, because the things that we enjoy, and that could be “Enough Said,” or it could be “The Kids Are Alright,” or even “Bridesmaids” and “The Heat.” Male critics have a different lens, and we don’t want them to be the only gate keeper.

LOUIS-DREYFUS: Right. How are we going to do this?

Q: I’m fighting every day, that’s all I can say. I’m telling you and I’m writing about it, and I’m writing in a mainstream place, and I just didn’t — I’m not angry. I just write about you. I just wrote about Nicole. I write about the movies that interest me, and make sure that they are getting sung. And the movies of Catherine Keener; and you’ve done great work because you’re also doing “Veep” on HBO.

LOUIS-DREYFUS: Yep. Thank you very much.

Q: My all-time favorite TV show is Armando Iannucci’s “The thick of It.” And “Veep” is that show’s American cousin.

LOUIS-DREYFUS : “The Thick of It:” Amazing.

Q: Amazing. So, what do you think about the path for women are age. You’ve had success moving from TV to movies and back, but there’s a lot of resistance. I’m sure it’s hard.

LOUIS-DREYFUS : These scripts aren’t bountiful. You can’t just pluck them off trees. And that’s why I jumped when I read “Enough Said,” because it was like, holy shit, there’s nothing like this out there. I’ve got to do this. And, oh God, I’m so happy I did.

Was it good for you, too? Gandolfini, left, Louis-Dreyfus

Was it good for you, too? Gandolfini, left, Louis-Dreyfus

Q: Obviously, you’re looking for more. What’s your next project?

LOUIS-DREYFUS: My next thing? I’m leaving today to go shoot “Veep: Season 3.” So I’m in the thick of that. That’s what I’m laser focused on, at the minute, and also trying to develop something else for film. But I’ve got to keep my eyes on the prize of “Veep” right now. It’s a very demanding schedule, and even juggling this, the film festival, this interview, the premiere, I’m in the middle of “Veep.”

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV Tagged With: Armando Iannucci, Career, Enough Said, Julia Louis-Dreyf, motherhood, Nicole Holofcener, The Thick of It, TIFF13, Toronto International Film Festival, Veep, Women Directors, Yahoo! Movies

Critic’s Pick: ‘Blackfish’

August 1, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Serial Killer Whale

Serial Killer Whale

This is the golden age of documentaries. Exhibit A: Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s eye-opening, edge-of-your-seat feature. “Blackfish” has it all: an oversized villain, chilling attack footage, corporate malfeasance, and girls in bikinis. Add in a righteous save-the-whales cause, and it becomes the perfect nonfiction movie cocktail.

The doc that SeaWorld would rather you ignore opens today week in Shamu’s home town, San Diego, as it widens out of New York and Los Angeles. It’s the story of the killer whale Tilikum, a thirty-something, six-ton Orca, ripped from his mother’s side, tossed into tanks smaller than Olympic Swimming pools, and bred like livestock.

It gets worse: the massive captive animal has killed multiple humans, at least twice, possibly three times, while in captivity at one of America’s most famous, family friendly theme parks.

[RELATED: ‘Blackfish’: The Stunning New Doc about SeaWorld’s Orcas

Sometimes the violence even occurred with an audience, like that of 40-year-old trainer Dawn Brancheau at SeaWorld in Orlando as recently as 2010. “Blackfish,” another name for Orca, rolls the tape. The shocking footage, that’s all the more compelling because it’s not “Sharknado,” derives from an Occupation and Safety Health Administration (OSHA) investigation that found SeaWorld liable for two safety violations directly related to Brancheau’s death.

In a season of cartoon superheroes at the box office, “Blackfish” tells a real-life tale of a complex super-villain. And what makes it all the more horrifying is the degree to which we unwittingly conspired to create the monster. He was a captive animal – and many of us voluntarily became a captive audience to his recurring humiliation. If you’ve ever sat in the audience at SeaWorld’s main attraction and waited for the big splash and the jolly fin wave, with a Shamu plush toy in one hand and your kids’ sticky palm in the other, then you’ll be both appalled and intrigued at how this violence could have happened and, as the film tells it, been hushed up, and how our tourist dollars have underwritten the whole affair.

Bottom Line: A shattering documentary about a serial killer whale.

Watch the video:

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Blackfish, Controversy, Dawn Brancheau, Documentary, Film Review, Magnolia Pictures, Oscars 2014, Shamu, Women Directors, Yahoo! Movies

Critic’s Pick: ‘The Bling Ring’

July 11, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Must-See Movies Beyond the Blockbusters
Emma Watson in 'The Bling Ring'

Love her or hate her, Sofia Coppola has cornered the market on the world of privilege and its discontents. And so it goes with the writer-director’s latest movie, “The Bling Ring,” based on a Vanity Fair true-crime-in-the-Hollywood-Hills article. The film, in limited release this weekend focuses on a celebrity-obsessed Bonnie and Bonnie and Bonnie and Bonnie and Clyde gang that robs from the rich – Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom – and lines their own Prada pockets.

Led by relative newcomers Katie Chung and lush-lipped Israel Broussard, the high school heist comedy benefits from low expectations. Think a dark teen comedy in the tradition of “Mean Girls” and “Heathers.” Both Broussard and Chung are delightfully decent as ringleaders Marc and Rebecca, but the film’s focus frequently shifts to supporting player Emma Watson. In micro-minis, her head bobbling on her slender neck, Watson plays La-La lost girl Nicki, a child of divorce incompletely healed by the New Age platitudes of her mother (Leslie Mann). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Critic's Pick, Emma Watson, Sofia Coppola, The Bling Ring, Women Directors, Yahoo! Movies

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