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Update: A fifth film Beyond Belief is opening Friday in NY.


This Friday, 4 movies about women are opening. I just have to say how lame brained this is. I know that the studios and distributors all work separately and set up their own schedules, but people we need to be smarter about this. Talk to each other! Remember last month when 27 Dresses and Mad Money opening on the same day. Things didn't go so well for Mad Money.

To make matters worse, Will Ferrell is opening a remake of Semi-Pro this weekend. Will Ferrell is one of the guy who gets women to go to see his films so Semi-Pro will cut into all the potential box office dollars. It will have the most effect on the films targeted at the younger market like The Other Boleyn Girl and Penelope.

I'm going to write about and have some interviews about all four films between now and Friday.

The films are:

Bonneville- starring Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Joan Allen

Penelope- starring Christina Ricci

The Other Boleyn Girl - starring Scarlett Johannson and Natalie Portman

Vivere- Directed by Angelina Maccarone starring Hannelore Elsner, Esther Zimmering and Kim Schnitzer. (In German)

On vacation I read that Reese Witherspoon will be speaking at UNIFEM's Global Summit for a Better Tomorrow next month to coincide with International Women's Month. She is also acting as Avon's Global Ambassador and will be talking about many issues affecting women including domestic violence in this role.

Penelope, the film she produced through her Type A Films company finally opens opens on February 29th. (I will see it next week). If I was more conspiratorially minded I would think that the folks in Hollywood really want women's films not to succeed because for some bizarre reason Penelope is opening on the same day as The Other Boleyn Girl. (This also happened last month with Mad Money and 27 Dresses.) So there has basically been no movies targeted at women all month and now at the end of the month there are two. What's up with that?

Here is a great exchange from Reese about Penelope from the February issue of Marie Claire:

MC: What drew you most to the zany story of Penelope?

Reese Witherspoon: The ability of this young woman to supersede social expectations of what she should look like and learn to love herself for who she is- including her pig nose. This is a film that lets people know it's ok to be unique. It's ok to be different- it's actually better! I felt I could really speak to people, particularly young women, about self-acceptance.