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Women & Hollywood: The Stone Angel is a beloved book in Canada. Were you nervous about taking this well known book to the screen?

Kari Skogland: Absolutely. It is studied in high school and University and everyone in Canada has a love/hate relationship with it, as well as preconceived notions of who Hagar, the lead character, is or isn't. It's a tough read as well and when it came out in the 1960s, it was considered to be quite a feminist book with spiritual questions and was banned in many areas. My daunting task was to turn this epic story told as one woman's stream of consciousness, into a cinematic one, as well as to update her to modern times.

W&H: You tell a very moving story about a woman taking stock of her life and realizing that some of the choices she made, especially relating to her son Marvin, were quite hurtful. What can Hagar's search for peace teach the rest of us?

KS: Such a great question! This story is very much a dialogue with god and spirituality. Hagar questions and rebels against the god she is taught is vengeful, a god where a woman's sexuality and independence is somehow a bad thing - she rebels against false pride but because of the legacy of family and community, she falls victim to it and makes well intentioned but, ultimately, destructive choices. On set we all were continually applying "the Hagar effect" to our own lives as a sort of check list and I certainly have made adjustments and am conscious of when I fall off the rails. Her truth and discovery is that God is love and love is unconditional. Bram and she were in love - outside forces that she bought in caused her to withdraw her approval of him- and therefore put conditions on his love for her. It destroyed him, them, and her life as she applied her 'conditions' to her sons.

W&H: Hagar was clearly a woman ahead of her time. She spoke out, had a mind of her own, followed her heart and clearly did not want to live the life her mother did. Yet it turns out that her pride and love led to a very unexpectedly difficult life for her and her family. Talk a little bit about the character of Hagar and how she is unique from the type of woman we usually see on screen today.

KS: What Ellen Burstyn and I both loved about this woman is that she is strong, archetypal, vulnerable and yet made of steel. She is wonderfully flawed. She survives the best way she knows and fails. Her redemption comes when she accepts the love she feels. That's such a terrific inner journey, filled with depth and humanity.

It's not often you see a woman who isn't a traditional victim; or the flip, smart side kick. I think most women portrayed in films are truthfully various versions of the silent films of the 1920's; i.e. - a woman tied up on the rail tracks with the train coming, or tied up on the logging company conveyor belt headed for the buzz saw!

Generally women characters are imagined by men, and that is not to say men can't imagine a female character, but they have to do their research to get it right, just as a female writer has to avoid stereotypes when writing the male characters. We as women have to be more vocal about it as well - we need to support female driven stories and films because if there is no financial upside, there is no way to get our stories out there. That's my call to action ladies!!!

W&H: The numbers for women directing films here in the US are brutally low. Why do you think women continue to struggle in this area and what has your experience been?

KS: I am so fortunate to be able to make my living as a director given my gender - kind of against the odds. I have to say I've never paid attention to limitations set by others, and perhaps that’s why I've been lucky enough to continue to work. Truthfully, it's about trust whether you are a man or a woman. A financier or a producer needs to know that I will get them there on time, on budget and with a great film. My creative vision is obviously paramount, but it's a blend of sensibilities and stamina, so, one has to always be working on skills.

I've always taken risks. Some work out better than others but, I always learn something I can bring to the next project and I try never to get discouraged. Women will continue to struggle until gender is secondary to skill. I don't think it is a conspiracy by the way, I think it is just a pervasive norm that keeps dropping the women off the list. Work begets more work so, if women aren't working their way up the ladder particularly in the more visible genres like "action", then developing the skills that will allow a studio, actor, producer or financier to trust them becomes difficult to achieve. Sort of a chicken and egg issue scenario. There's no specific solution other than to continue to prove oneself and be a bit "bloody minded" about accepting the word "no".

W&H: I've heard from a variety of people that there are financial resources available through co-production deals and government funds for film made by Canadians based on Canadian material. Is that true? And if it is do you think that having these funds available makes it easier for Canadian women directors?

KS: Yes, there are financial resources around the world so having other passports is a good thing, but I don't think the numbers reflect any difference. I do have to say I've been given many opportunities to work on projects that are not traditionally directed by a woman which leads me to other projects because my Canadian passport gives producers access to some government money at which point the gender issue tends to dissolve...

W&H: What's next for you?

KS: Fifty Dead Men Walking, a political thriller set in the late 1980s in Northern Ireland. I wrote, directed and produced and I am blessed with another great cast: Sir Ben Kingsley, Jim Sturgess, Kevin Zegers, Nathalie Press and Rose McGowan. It's very different from The Stone Angel. The story is tough and edgy, loads of action which I love to do. It's ultimately about doing the right moral thing when everyone around you -- even the good guys are not -- even if it costs you everything, including your life. War is a place of many shades, none of which are easy to decode. I guess I am drawn to exploring the truth as we discover it in ourselves under extreme conditions.

The Stone Angel opens today in NY, LA, Washington DC and Minneapolis.

Here's some info on a couple of the women directed films that premiered at Cannes.

A Lesson in Perseverance
Jennifer Lynch (daughter of David) hasn't made a film in 15 years since that debacle that was Boxing Helena (if you don't remember it, that's ok.) Glad she didn't give up. Her new film Surveillance stars Julia Ormand and Bill Pullman as FBI agents investigating a crime in Nebraska.

Here's one question from her Hollywood reporter interview:

WHAT IMPACT DID THE REACTION TO "BOXING HELENA" HAVE ON YOU. IS THAT ONE REASON WHY YOU'VE WAITED SO LONG BEFORE DIRECTING AGAIN?

Lynch: I took a breather. It was very sad. It was not my cut of the film. And then there was the trial and all that insanity around it. It became an incredibly blown up thing. I spent some time working on a novel, because my other love is writing and telling stories, and I was busy producing and shooting commercials and stuff. Then I became pregnant, and raising a child on my own became my priority for a while. Because of a car accident, I also had to have three consecutive spinal surgeries. Throughout that I was always writing, because it helped to deal with the pain. I am sober and refused to take pain medications. The art of distraction is the art of parenting and pain management. Finally, I got back to the point where I could walk comfortably and my daughter was old enough, so I could go back to work.

Boxing Helena Director on the Combat Trail (AP via HR)
Director Jennifer Lynch reemerges with the thriller Surveillance. (LA Times)

The Press Ignore Class Issues
Salon critic Andrew O'Hehir is one of the most interesting film writers. He writes about many films that the throng of studio pleasing bloggers ignore. This is the first article I have read about this film coming out of Cannes.

He reports that Lucrecia Martel's new film The Headless Woman about class issues in Argentina received boos at its premiere and believes that the reception is because "people just didn't get what Martel was driving at, and that clearly bothered them."

On one hand, maybe people here didn't like "The Headless Woman" because it's a quiet, careful picture that lacks the sexual undertow of "The Holy Girl." On the other hand, maybe they just didn't understand it it because they almost literally couldn't see it. When I met Martel during a group interview session here, I suggested to her that there was a certain irony at work: A bunch of journalists from around the world, assembled in an elite resort town, can't understand a story about the invisibility of class privilege. (Properly speaking, that's not even irony. It's just a striking illustration of the film's point.)

Martel has enlisted herself in a different and less beloved tradition, the tradition of art as a deliberately provocative intellectual exercise designed to compel the viewer to face unpleasant facts about the world, or about himself.

Read the whole piece: Why the Cannes boo-birds are wrong (as usual) (Salon)

I met Joan and her husband and producer David Gordian over a year ago as they were struggling to get a distribution deal for their film A Previous Engagement starring Juliet Stevenson. We became friends and I have been working with them over the last couple of months to try and get the word out about this comedy, which is unique in this film climate, because at its center is a woman over 50.

Joan Carr-Wiggin answered some questions about her film and why its so hard to get women's stories made in the business.

Women & Hollywood: What made you decide to write this story?

Joan Carr-Wiggin: I really wanted to tell a story about an older woman taking control of her life. Not in a "she realizes taking care of her family is the most important thing when she becomes terminally ill" way. I see so many fascinating, funny, and complicated older women living great lives, but I don’t see women like that in films.

W&H: Did you know that you would be directing it when you wrote it?

JCW: Yes. That influenced the script. I don’t think I’d enjoy directing something too depressing. I write a wide range of scripts, I even wrote a sci fi one once which was a lot of fun, and I’ve written some very dramatic pieces, but I’m only interested in directing comedy. Preston Sturges is my favourite director, and I agree with the theme of his wonderful movie Sullivan’s Travels. Watching comedy makes life a little easier for people.

W&H: Most women filmmakers struggle to get financing for their films, but you seem to have had an easier time with it. Why do you think that's the case and what secrets can you share with other women looking for financing?

JCW: It's really hard to finance any kind of character-based film in Hollywood, not just one about women. One of our biggest advantages is that my husband David Gordian, who produced the film, raises our financing in Canada and Europe, which are much more welcoming of women directors and character-based films than the American system. And the less money you need to raise, the more freedom you have as a filmmaker. We’re only interested in doing smaller character driven films that feature performances rather than stunts and explosions. We have no desire to make a number one film at the box office. We just try to make a movie we’ll enjoy ourselves. But Hollywood always wants to maximize gross revenues, even if the budget and the advertising costs wipe out their profits. It’s a “bigger is better” mentality, and we just don’t share it at all.

W&H: The line that resonates the most in the film is: "if people really knew who their mothers really were the world would end." Why do you think it resonates so much?

JCW: It's one of those things everyone knows is true but no one ever talks about it. I think most of us, as we get older, start to glimpse that our mothers were much more complicated than we realized, and we often regret not getting to know the real woman underneath.

W&H: Why do you think it’s so difficult to get films about women over 40 made?

JCW: There's a tendency in Hollywood to see films that have a young and male sensibility as universal, and to see films that have an older and female sensibility as only appealing to a niche. But I’ve discovered that A Previous Engagement strikes a chord with a lot of men as well as women. So their premise just isn’t accurate. Part of the problem is that even when Hollywood does make a film about an older woman, it often ends up presenting an absurd caricature instead of a real woman, so of course the film fails. And then Hollywood uses its failure as an excuse not to finance interesting and promising films about older women. But I was an economist before I was a filmmaker, so I know there are many economic models which can allow films to be made and distributed. I think smart filmmakers should just turn their backs on Hollywood. It operates on a business model which functions, fairly efficiently, for the delivery of simplistic movies for the lowest common denominator. And sometimes I enjoy those movies myself. But usually I don’t, and I would never want to direct one.

W&H: Why do you think that the climate is so hostile to women directors?

JCW: Sexism is the short answer, and that explains a great deal of it. Women make up about 6% of film directors, so there are actually more women law partners, politicians and even astronauts proportionally than directors. The fact that Hollywood lags so far behind other industries helps to explain why they continue to make movies that don’t show women accurately. And they use absurd excuses to resist change, such as the myth that directing is a difficult job for mothers. Except for during the actual filming, which is a small part of the overall job, the hours are flexible and a lot of work can be done from home. And of course no one talks about directing being too demanding a job for fathers. But I’m optimistic that things will start to get better for women directors with the rise of digital cinema and the internet, which are both breaking down the entire economic model of the Hollywood production and distribution system. The world is changing in wonderful exciting ways, even if Hollywood isn’t.

W&H: What advice would you give to other women filmmakers?

JCW: Watch great movies, and remember that once you get past the financing struggles, actors and crew people are really accepting of women directors. A Previous Engagement was an absolute joy to make. And be persistent.

A Previous Engagement opens today in NY and LA.
A Previous Engagement

It took Helen Hunt 10 years to make her directorial debut with Then She Found Me, but boy was it worth the wait. A beautiful and moving film, it tells the story of April Epner a 39-year-old schoolteacher who longs to have have her own child, but time is running out. She’s also a bit of a wreck. Her recent marriage to the immature Ben (Matthew Broderick) has fallen apart, her adopted mother dies, and then she is approached by her birth mother, local TV talk show host Bernice Graves, played by an over-the-top yet warmhearted Bette Midler. Bernice tells a variety of stories (you never know which one to believe) of how she gave up April all those years ago. A natural-born performer, she tries to win April over but fails miserably. In the midst of all this craziness, April meet Frank (Colin Firth), the father of one of her students, and then on top of it all, finds out she is pregnant by Ben.

All the above insanity might seem chaotic, but in Hunt's extremely capable hands, we are able to see flawed characters making everyday decisions and the implications each choice has on everyone else. This is an all-around effort for Hunt who, along with directing and starring, co-wrote the screenplay and helped produce the film. The fact that it exists at all is a testament to Hunt's perseverance. Hunt has said of her characters: “They’re all a little bit awful, they’re all a little bit wonderful, and that makes perfect sense to me.” And it makes perfect sense to the story; all these characters felt real.

Hunt makes a bold statement by making April a normal looking (almost) 40-year-old woman. She's a teacher, she's tired, and, above all, she's been beaten down by life. Hunt lets us see that on her face, allowing herself to be exposed on screen in a very gutsy way. It's been a long time since I saw a close-up of an actress where she wasn't botoxed to death and I could actually discern the reactions on her face.

Along with Midler, the supporting class is stellar. My crush on Colin Firth, as the solid but bruised good guy, stands as strong as ever. Matthew Broderick has gotten older (haven't we all), but he still retains this childlike quality and is perfectly cast as the pathetic Ben, who runs back to his mommy after he escapes April.

Ten years is a long time to try and get a movie made, but sadly for women directors, it's more typical that you would expect. In fact, two other recent releases by female directors, Tamara Jenkins (The Savages) and Kimberly Peirce (Stop-Loss) both endured 10 long years to get their sophomore efforts into the theaters. Here's to hoping that it doesn't take Hunt another decade for her sophomore effort. It would be such a shame after this auspicious debut.

Since I started writing this site several months ago I have been contacted by a variety of women filmmakers who are in different stages of their films. While each woman's story is different, one thing they have in common is the difficulties each faces, how isolated they feel, and how hard it is to get a movie directed by a woman and/or about a woman to see the light of day.

No one said making movies was an easy business, but it seems that its gotten even harder, especially for women, and it's even more important that women directors and writers get support because we are in danger of being stuck in a world of film that is seen only from the male directors and male writers perspectives and we can't allow this to happen.

So, I decided that this site will be a place for women creatives to have their voices heard.

One of these women is Fay Ann Lee, the co-writer, producer, director and star of Falling for Grace an adorable romantic comedy that debuted several years ago at the Tribeca Film Festival to sold out audiences. Fay was hoping that Tribeca would set her up with a distributor but no distributor came calling. The variations of no she heard included, the lack of stars (even though B.D. Wong and Margaret Cho are in it), and the fact because the film stars an Asian woman that mainstream audiences won't accept it. Can Hollywood really believe that people are that narrowminded? People are longing to see good films, its just that the only things available in their communities are the same old, same old, big Hollywood pieces of crap. And, Hollywood has no desire to even try and figure out how to market movies to women.

Lee refused to give up and has been self-distributing the film herself. This past weekend the film played in Phoenix at the main art house and outgrossed another film that was playing on two screens to her one! They are running for another week in Phoenix (so if you know anyone there send them to the Camelview.)

If anyone is interested in helping Fay get a distribution deal, I will get you in touch with Fay.

You can check out the trailer here: Falling for Grace
Website: http://www.fallingforgrace.com/

The lineup for the 61st Cannes Film Festival was announced yesterday and it's the same old story, women directors are noticeably missing from the films in competition. From what I can tell, only 1.5 films out of 19 are directed by women. They include: La Mujer Sin Cabeza directed by Argentine Lucrecia Martel and Linha de Passe which is co-directed by Daniela Thomas and Walter Salles.

Un Certain Regard is a bit better with 2.5 out of 19. Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir's film debut Milh Hadha Al-Bahr (Salt of the Sea) is in the lineup along with and Kelly Reichardt, (Old Joy) with Wendy and Lucy starring Michelle Williams. Joana Hadjithomas co-directed Jeveux Voir with Khali Joreige.

Other women directed films include: Jennifer Lynch's Surveillance; Marina Zenovich's Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired and Alison Thompson's The Third Wave.

Two days ago I posted some comments about an LA Times piece that talked about the influence that John Hughes has had on today's comedies. Check out the original piece here for a recap: The Difference Between John Hughes and Judd Apatow

I emailed the writer, Patrick Goldstein with this response: Just wanted to comment on your John Hughes piece this morning. I think you missed the boat a bit by not talking about the influence that Hughes has on young female characters.

Surprisingly, Goldstein responded with this:

I think you make a good point. I actually quoted Stacey Sher, who produced Reality Bites, talking about Hughes' influence, but we had space issues at the last minute and the copydesk had to take her out of the story. But I confess that everyone I asked who came up with a list of filmmakers who were influenced by Hughes ended up giving me an all male list. Who would you cite among female filmmakers that you think was influenced by him in a big way?

So I put the question to you: Who are the female filmmakers who were influenced by John Hughes? Please don't say Amy Heckerling. She made Fast Times at Ridgemont High before Hughes made Sixteen Candles. They are contemporaries. The fact that everyone has cited Heckerling to me just goes to show that we need more women directors period.

Send me your thoughts.

Patricia Riggen's first feature film La Misma Luna opens on 250 screens across the country today. She answered a few questions about the film and being a female director.

Women & Hollywood: The issue of immigration is so highly charged and you were able to humanize it and also to show that it is a women's issue.

Patricia Riggen: Women are now crossing the border. It used to be men. Now, there are 4 million women in this country who have left a child behind. When people ask me if this is a true story, I tell them that it is based on 4 million true stories. These women have no other options and make the most difficult sacrifice of all because no mother would leave her child unless she was desperate. That was something I wanted to explore. Rosario has a huge dilemma having made this decision in order to provide for her child because she loves him, while at the same time feeling like she's sacrificing that love. It's not just a statistic to me. These are human beings and that's what I wanted to show.

W&H: This film feels very female -- it's from a woman's eye. It's no coincidence that both the director and screenwriter are women. These films are few and far between in Hollywood these days.

PR: It's something that I have struggled with in my career. I'm Mexican, and I never could have become a director in Mexico. I moved here and that allowed me to do this work.

W&H: In Mexico, you didn't have an opportunity to work as a director?

PR: In Mexico, I never gave myself the chance to imagine myself in the director's shoes. It took me a while to discover what I wanted to do. I was already working in the business doing different jobs and feeling unhappy. When I was growing up in Mexico there weren't any women directors around for me to see that it was something I could do. Funny enough I wrote my college thesis on women directors in Mexico when I didn't even know I was going to be a director. There were four, and I interviewed them feeling like being a director was equivalent to being an astronaut -- the hardest most strange thing to be. Completely unaccessible, and it shouldn't be like that.

W&H: Women feel that it is so difficult to be a director here.

PR: That's what my friends tell me and I feel it is so easy here.

W&H: Have the Fox Searchlight people (the film distributor) been supporting your vision?

PR: Fox Searchlight has been wonderful and I'll tell you why- they're all women. There's one guy at the top and then it's all women. Their sensibility is very feminine and it makes it really wonderful for a women's movie. They totally get it and care about the film.

W&H: Adrian Alonso performance as Carlitos really astounded me. Talk a little bit about how you directed him and how you were able to elicit his spectacular performance.

PR: Thank you, nobody ever asks me about this. They always say, where did you find him. It's not the finding, it's the directing. It's all about the directing. I think most kids can act and it's a matter of directing them properly. In this case, Adrian is very talented but he's also a child and has no criteria to understand if he is doing something good or not. Older actors know what they are doing, kids don't.

W&H: The whole movie rests of his shoulders -- if he wouldn't have been good, the movie wouldn't have been good.

PR: I basically knew that if I didn't find the right kid I shouldn't even attempt to make this movie. But the truth is that I worked with him very closely and my eyes were always on him to protect and help him.

W&H: How did you get the script?

PR: I made a documentary called Family Portraits and Ligiah saw it and loved it and sent me the screenplay. I immediately connected with it. We started working together , and when we had the script ready to shoot the financing was there. She was great to work with, she's very smart and she always stood by me. When I felt that the movie wasn't going to happen she came and worked for no money. She did all the drafts and revisions and waited and waited for the movie to happen.

W&H: You are also the film's producer.

PR: This is an important aspect. I did have a way to make this at a studio, and I started working with them but felt I was losing creative control and the decisions being made were wrong and it wasn't going to be a good movie. I was thinking that I was a director for hire, but it was a project that I brought and realized this is not a way I wanted to make my first feature. Fortunately, it was a very low budget so I decided to raise the money myself to keep control which enabled me to make every single decision which allowed me to make the best movie I could.

W&H: What do you want the audience to feel after seeing the film?

PR: I want them to have a good time, and to feel engaged and moved. I want people to see the humanity of those who surround us that we don't necessarily notice like the waiter or gardener and think about their lives.

W&H: What's next for you?

PR: I have several offers from Hollywood. I am keeping my feet on the ground knowing that my fellow female directors have taken a long time to shoot again. They have made successful first films and then it has taken them a long time to shoot their second. I don't want to take 10 years to make another film. I am developing some projects for Hollywood including a romantic comedy and a period drama. But I also have a project of my own that I control in case the Hollywood films don't happen.

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)

The Business of Being Born, the new documentary produced by Ricki Lake and directed by Abby Epstein has been playing in limited release in several cities across the country. For information on where the film is playing: The Business of Being Born

Here is my review: Review of The Business of Being Born

Women & Hollywood: How did you become involved with this film?

Abby Epstein: Ricki Lake and I became friendly when I directed her in "The Vagina Monologues" Off-Broadway. We stayed in touch and I knew that she was planning a homebirth for her second child, although at the time I thought she was completely nuts! A few years later, Ricki had finished her talk show and relocated to LA so I stopped by to see her new house and have a visit. I had just completed my first doc "Until the Violence Stops" about the worldwide V-Day movement and Ricki was looking to start a "dream" project about midwives and birthing. I was completely ignorant on the topic but intrigued by Ricki's passion, so I asked her for some reading material and she gave me a book called "Spiritual Midwifery" by Ina May Gaskin. Then Ricki showed me the home video footage of her homebirth (which we use in the film) and I was completely blown away. We began from there.

W&H: How did your involvement with the film effect your own birth experience?

AE: On the one hand, I was very fortunate having spent 2 years researching birthing options in NYC before I became pregnant. I was not only a highly informed customer, but I had attended several births and did not have any more fear about the birth process. So, I felt like I had all these amazing people to choose from when it came time to selecting a provider (of course not all of them took my HMO, so that limited me a bit) But on the other hand, I was put in a position where there became pressure to include my birth in the film - which I resisted. I had no interest in turning the cameras on myself and was unsure whether we were in fact going to document my birth until the very last moment.

W&H: Explain why you chose the title The Business of Being Born.

AE: Truthfully, we couldn't think of anything short and catchy. None of us really loved the title but it seemed to encompass the broad range of aspects we were looking at in the birthing "business."

W&H: It seems that you and Ricki are both on a type of crusade here - using the film to help educate and organize women to take back their own bodies and their births. Did you ever expect the film would morph into this type of movement?

AE: We never expected that the film would have such an impact on mainstream birth culture. I think we suspected that it would hit a nerve, but we honestly just wanted to put the information out there in a bold way - not watered down. It all stemmed from Ricki's personal experience and grew organically from there. But we have definitely started a movement along with other writers and activists - Jennifer Block's book PUSHED was published at the same time we premiered, which was amazing. I think we are on a crusade to inform, but not to convince women to have natural births or homebirths. The modern woman wants information and options - but no one should feel pressured or regretful about their choices.

W&H: There seems to be a lot of women directing documentaries these days. Why do you think that is?

AE: I think that documentaries often have more substance than features and women are attracted to material that is potent and meaningful rather than commercially viable. Of course, there is also the fact that docs are low-budget and don't pay well (if at all!) so there is less competition.

But mostly I think that docs are usually self-generated passion projects where a director can have total control and women are organized, not afraid of hard work and always like a bit of control!

W&H: What's next for you?

AE: We are still opening the film in major cities (Chicago, Seattle, Boston, DC) so I am busy with that until April. Then, I am planning some vacation time with my family! Ricki and I are in the midst of writing a book based on the movie which will come out in April 2009 and a follow-up DVD that will accompany the book. We are also hard at work on our website - turning it into a resource for birth information and options. So, I will still be busy with all things BOBB for a while and then I plan to direct an independent feature film. I'd like to get back to working with actors and writers, which is truly what I love.

Film is available on netflix now

Just saw this description of the movie I am most excited about this year, The Women directed and adapted by Murphy Brown creator Diane English. Check out the most awesome cast. Mark your calendars!

Starring Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Candice Bergen, Bette Midler, Cloris Leachman, Carrie Fisher, Lynn Whittfield, Joanna Gleason, Ana Gasteyer and Debi Mazar.

“The Women” directed by Diane English from her screen adaptation of Clare Boothe Luce’s play of the same name, first made famous by director George Cukor’s iconic 1939 film.

Set in New York City’s modern whirl of fashion and publishing, “The Women” tells the story of Mary Haines (Meg Ryan), a clothing designer who seems to have it all – a beautiful country home, a rich financier husband, an adorable 11-year-old daughter and a part-time career creating designs for her father’s venerable clothing company. Her best friend, Sylvie Fowler (Annette Bening), leads another enviable life – a happily single editor of a prominent fashion magazine, a possessor of a huge closet of designer clothes and a revered arbiter of taste and style poised on New York’s cutting edge. But when Mary’s husband enters into an affair with Crystal Allen (Eva Mendes), a sultry ‘spritzer girl’ lurking behind the Saks Fifth Avenue perfume counter, all hell breaks loose. Mary and Sylvie’s relationship is tested to the breaking point while their tight-knit circle of friends, including mega-mommy Edie Cohen (Debra Messing) and author Alex Fisher (Jada Pinkett-Smith), all start to question their own friendships and romantic relationships as well.

This sounds fantastic. Can't wait.

It's Oscar week and I'm going to try and highlight the women nominees as much as possible on the road to Sunday's telecast. Here is an interview from Filmmaker Magazine with writer/director Tamara Jenkins. It's a very interesting pieces about the writing (Jenkins was nominated for best screenplay)

Quotes of note:

Filmmaker: Why did it take so long to make The Savages?

Jenkins: I feel like I know so many people who have made movies and then struggle so hard to get their next movie happening. This almost didn’t happen like 100 times. Just getting the financing…. [First] it was at Focus Features, and they really liked it, they financed the writing of the script, but then they were dissatisfied with the casting, which was crazy. And then we were out. They gave it [back] to us so we could shop it around, which took forever. We couldn’t get anyone to finance it, even with Laura and Phil.

I am floored that with Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman committed that this film almost didn't get made.

A great quote on writing

Writing is weird and lonely and makes you grumpy and strange, and it’s nice when somebody understands that. I also have a dog. That helps. Makes you go out into the world. Then your dog’s like, “Okay, I have to walk you.” There’s something about moving and thinking. A treadmill, working out, and your brain just kind of makes connections. Moving — being in cars, trains, being on treadmills, they’re all really good for the writing brain. But I haven’t written in a long time; I have to start writing. To write you really should be writing every single day to keep the muscle going. But then if you write and make a movie, the year of working on the movie goes by and then you’re supposed to start writing again and you have kind of forgotten how. So I have to start writing. I have to buy a new journal; I have to get some nice pens.

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