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Interesting piece from the Age in Australia on the opening of The Women.

There were women who cried when they watched the Sex and the City movie, and it wasn't because they couldn't afford the shoes. These same women probably flocked to see Mamma Mia!, which The New York Times called "the worst performance of Meryl Streep's career" and yet, simultaneously, gave it a positive review. (They likened it to getting drunk on cheap cocktails.) All of these women will again probably go see The Women because, hey - they're mentioned in the very title! They want to see a movie about sistahood.

They've been dubbed GFFs - girl friend flicks - and it's evident that girrrl power has never been so strong in the cinema.

I kind like this term way better than chick flick.

Quote from Diane English

"The old ideas that females have to be rivals and there's only room enough in this town for one of us - that is very old-fashioned, and it's kind of disappeared over the years as women have begun to embrace each other and form networks and comfort each other when there's a divorce or a bad breakup, and just really be there for each other and appreciate each other. I think those kinds of friendships are something very special to women, to being female. I don't think men really have those kinds of friendships as strongly as women do, so it makes sense that that is going to make its way on to the screen."

And now The Women, a remake of the 1939 cult classic that starred Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and Norma Shearer...But, like its recent predecessors, it's really about the power of a girl gang.

I think it's kind of interesting that all these films were framed in this story about women's friendship. So many of the US stories never even touched on that, or if they did it was done it was done in a negative, catty way.
Giving women the flick (The Age)

In case you were wondering...Mamma Mia has now made $280 million overseas and has become the fifth highest overseas grosser of the year. Can they still say that people won't see films about women?

I've been following the press leading up to the opening of Mamma Mia! this week and I have to say, while there have been some negative reviews (and I will be very interested to see if it is mostly guys who hate the film), the overall tenor of the press has been much kinder than it was to Sex and City. There are no nasty articles about any of the women's appearances, or the shallowness of American women for liking the film.

Some of the reviewers have questioned Streep for taking on this type of "light" role, but she has embraced it wholeheartedly, and clearly enjoyed the experience of working with an all female team.

So I can't help but wonder, did we conquer film sexism in the last month? Are women's movies going to be welcomed differently because of how nasty the treatment of SATC? Why is it that this movie --the second one this summer-- which seems poised to have women getting ready to see it with friends and daughters alike getting different treatment?

One reason I think is that most of the critics and blogger are distracted this weekend. When SATC opened it was the dominant film on its weekend (and we don't like women to be dominant at anything); Mamma Mia will be counter programming against the Batman flick.

But I am still wondering -- is Mamma Mia less threatening to the movie industry and the culture than Sex and the City was? Is it that Sex and the City had, well, sexy women and sex while asking some serious questions about our culture, while Mamma Mia comes off as a fun musical about a wedding?

The irony is that this fun musical about a wedding bucks every Hollywood convention, and it makes Mamma Mia one of the most feminist movies of the year. Way more feminist than SATC. It's got women power -- mature women power-- written all over it.

• All the creatives are women over 50.
  
• It stars women.
• Is written by a woman -Catherine Johnson.
• Is directed by a woman - Phyllida Lloyd.
• Is produced by a woman -Judy Craymer.
  

And, it's already a success overseas having made $24 million since its release a couple of weeks ago.

I think its going to open pretty big here. Hopefully at least $25 million this weekend. It already has a built in audience (just like SATC), the show has been running on Broadway for years, has played all over the world, and Abba has got to be the world's most well known band.

It's amazing that Universal Pictures gave these women the power they did to make this film, but not surprisingly, it was another woman, Donna Langley, the president of production at Universal who made the call to trust these women.

Here's some great info on the film's history from a recent NY Times piece:

Ms. Craymer said that she hadn’t been trying to make a feminist point when she first enlisted Ms. Johnson and Ms. Lloyd to help realize her notion of an Abba musical or when she started hiring people for the film. But somehow, as she sought to fill the movie crew with others who “got” the “Mamma Mia!” factor, she ended up with even more women, including the production designer, Maria Djurkovic; the costume designer, Ann Roth; and the editor Lesley Walker.

Ms. Lloyd agreed that “the female team thing” resulted from “personality and talent rather than, ‘Oh, we’re going to have an all-girls team.’ ” But, she added, “I think it was fundamental.” And she reminded Ms. Craymer of something that happened when they first started thinking about the show: “I remember you saying that you asked Benny and Bjorn what they felt about having a woman director, and they actually said they actively liked collaborating with women.” Ms. Lloyd went on to surmise that the men’s Scandinavian ease with women in positions of power informed the whole project.

So I guess it's progress that this film has escaped the sexist overtone of Sex and the City. But I'm still wondering why Sex rubbed people so bad.
The Mamma Mia Factor Times Three (NY Times)
photo credit: Fred R.Conrad/ NY Times
from left to right- Catherine Johnson, Phyllida Law, Judy Craymer

Two pieces on Meryl from the Guardian as Mamma Mia! is opening there this weekend. (I saw it last night, corny, hysterical and fun- fuller assessment to come)

She attributes the strong roles she's landed in the last decade to the rise of female executives such as Amy Pascal and Sherry Lansing. With male executives, she says, they don't employ older women 'because they don't want to see their first wife in a movie'. Super trouper of the silver screen (The Guardian)

But why did she accept the role? "It's a requirement of popular culture that you strike an ironic distance. This doesn't. It's a film about women and their whole experiences being hopeful and youthful and older and suffering the regrets that you have over a long life. It's visceral and I love that."

What happened to all those strong celluloid women? "It's a very big question," says Streep. "Women's real change in our society has been disruptive, but feels evolutionarily necessary. So now 60% of the kids in college are women. More than 50% of medical students are women. They're not at the top in government and business, but there is real change and I think that has terrified everybody. It's terrified men and it's terrified women." As a result, she thinks, "women have performed a compensatory step back". Streep starts imagining out loud what the women who have made that step back tell themselves. "'I won't be sexy if I'm this - even though I want to be paid an equal amount, I still want to appear sexy, I still want to appear fragile, so I'll lose weight.' That's my theory about what women are doing anyway."

How does this theory play out in Hollywood? "Before the war," says Streep, "there were strong women in cinema played by women like Barbara Stanwyck, Hepburn and Crawford, who were allowed to be strong and dominate movies because they were in no way a threat. In the real world, the characters they played were a fantasy. Basically, women were at home. When the second world war - in which women had been working and liked working - was over, in the 50s, suddenly there was Marilyn Monroe, Jill St John and Brigitte Bardot because women could not be seen as strong any more. And that was because, in the real world, it was no longer just a fantasy that there were strong women."

But why did the era of the 70s and 80s, when there were once more strong roles for women in Hollywood, come to an end? I can understand why men might be terrified of strong women, but why would women find them frightening too? "Because," says Streep, "women want to be with men." She starts to laugh and shrugs as if to say - it happens. "You're so slow!"

A legend lightens up (The Guardian)

photo: lahiquera.net

One of my favorite issues of my favorite magazines arrived in my mailbox this weekend -- the Summer Movie Preview from Entertainment Weekly. Summer is the time where Hollywood makes most of its money, where we see all the tent-pole (boy) action-adventure (boy) films. I love going to the movies in the summer and I am usually less stringent about what I see, cause hey, it's summer. Here are some movies to put on your list to look forward to.

Sex and the City- loved the show, can't wait for the movie. I know that some people have feminist issues with the show, I don't - May 30

Brick Lane- A young Bangladeshi woman in London. Based on the best-selling novel- June 20

Wanted- can't really tell enough about this except that it looks like Angelina Jolie is back to her ass-kicking Tomb Raider days.- June 27

Kit Kitteridge: An American Girl- for the girl in your life. Those gigantic dolls come to life in the shape of Abigail Breslin- July 2

Mamma Mia!- Meryl sings along with Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and the daughter with the big eyes from Big Love Amanda Seyfried gets her big break playing Streep's daughter. Can't wait. July 18

Streep was asked this question by EW: This is a female-centered movie, written, directed and produced by women. How did that feel?

Meryl Streep: Very different. And the story celebrates all the good female stuff. So much of what we see now about girls feels retrograde. It's all backniting. But this is right smack back to the sisterhood of the '70s. That made me happy.

Hounddog- Deborah Kampmier's coming of age story starring Dakota Fanning. July 18

American Teen- Nanette Burstein's Sundance winning documentary which looks at teens in Indiana- July 25

Frozen River- Courtney Hunt's Sundance winning dramtic effort tells the story of two women who smuggle illegal immigrants. - August 1

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2- for the tweeners. The film reunites the four actresses who are now in college and navigating young adulthood.- August 8

Towelhead- tells the coming of age story of a 13-year-old girl who is sexually abused by a neighbor. Based on a true story. - August 15


What Else I'll Be Seeing
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull- can't wait, especially to see the return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood and Cate Blanchett as a page boy haired KGB agent.
Iron Man- the thinking man's action film
The X-Files- I Want to Believe
Batman, The Dark Knight