Tag Archive for "Movies"

Posts Tagged Movies

Racist Hunger Games fans illustrate all that is wrong in the world

Despite my immense excitement, I still haven’t yet seen The Hunger Games. While I’m sure there will be some things in the movie that aren’t how I imagined from the books, you know what won’t be surprising? The fact that some of the characters are played by people of color. That’s because it’s abundantly clear in the books that the nation of Panem is a multi-racial society–and at least two major characters are explicitly described as black.

But, as Jos mentioned yesterday, there are some horribly racist people on Twitter who are not only shocked but downright pissed off to learn that Rue and Thresh, who are described in the books as having “dark brown skin,” actually, ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

The Hunger Games: A story for women and girls that everyone can love

The only thing that could have made me more excited about The Hunger Games is if the trailer was put to Rihanna…Oh look!

In case you didn’t notice (ha!), last night The Hunger Games premiered at midnight across the country. The highly-hyped movie sold more advance tickets on Fandago than any other non-sequel film ever and brought in an estimated $19.7 million last night. Its expected box office numbers for opening weekend–between $115 and $120 million–could break records.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but we wrote about the books last year, and I’m excited about its success for many reasons. It’s a story about class and inequality and power that resonates deeply in these times. And ...

The only thing that could have made me more excited about The Hunger Games is if the trailer was put to Rihanna…Oh look!

In case you didn’t notice (ha!), last night The Hunger Games premiered at midnight across ...

By Miriam • 12 years ago

Guest Post: Why I’m rooting against Bridesmaids at the Oscars

By Silpa Kovvali

History will rightly view Bridesmaids as an important milestone in more ways than one. It was a female-driven comedy. It was a box office hit. And despite the ensemble of women at its center, its raunchy humor was characteristic of producer Judd Apatow. But as director Paul Feig suggested, Apatow-esque vulgarity is important for the underlying human sentiment it reveals. In buddy comedies that revolve around friendship between men, for example, characters want their friends to loosen up or to have a good time, however misguided their efforts. When a man acts in a passive-aggressive manner toward his buddy, his behavior stems from very real fears that the relationship will fade away and he’ll get left behind. ...

By Silpa Kovvali

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

Quick hit: And the Oscar for best performance of gender goes to…

As you’re probably aware, the 84th annual Academy Awards are being handed out this weekend. Jill Dolan, a professor of English and Theater, culture blogger and all-around bad ass public intellectual, has a fascinating post about the performance of gender in this year’s crop of Oscar-nominated movies. From Albert Nobbs to Margaret Thatcher, this year’s nominated movies present us with a range of highly skilled performances not just of characters, but of gender.

Close’s performance of Albert’s masculinity in Nobbs is different from Janet McTeer’s as Hubert Page, the housepainter whom Albert learns is also a woman living as a man. Page’s masculinity is terse, marked by his solitary work. Page takes up space differently than Albert, moving ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

Quick hit: Why are all those movie trailers voiced by men?

The New York Times ran an article last weekend about why so few movie trailer voiceovers are performed by women. The article discussed the perception that women’s voices aren’t strong enough to cut through the noise of a movie trailer, and suggested that even if they can, many of us trust men’s voices more than women’s:

Do moviegoers want to hear female voices? Research indicates that our brains are wired to prefer theirs to male ones; that’s the reason robotic voices, like those in GPS devices, tend to be female. (This probably has an evolutionary explanation: fetuses in the womb, identifying with their caretaker, can distinguish their mother’s voice from others, a study published in the journal Psychological Science found.) When ...

By zerlina • 12 years ago

Just how bad is the movie Red Tails?

Red Tails is a new movie about the Tuskegee airmen that the legendary George Lucas financed himself after years of the movie being rejected for Hollywood financing. It was #2 at the box office this weekend. This second place finish was largely based on black people flocking to the theater – myself included.

Jozen Cummings over at The Root put it best, when he said that Lucas played the race card to get people to the box office,

Media outlets like Entertainment Weekly are already spinning how George Lucas’ $58 million passion project, based on the true story of the African-American World War II fighter pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen, did far better than anyone thought it would.

But don’t ...

By Samhita • 12 years ago

Pariah: Best movie of last year*

Eesha, Miriam, Zerlina, Lori, Deanna Zandt and myself all went to see Pariah together last week and I think I speak for all of us when I say, if there is one movie you see this year–make it this one.

Pariah is set in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and tells the story of Alike (pronounced A-lee-kay and brilliantly portrayed by newcomer Adepero Oduye) and her trials and tribulations figuring out who she is, managing her middle class family’s expectations, her crushes, her heartbreaks and her best friend Laura–a very lovable AG. She is also a poet, a talented student and loves indie rock. Alike is probably one of the closest depictions of someone I might know in real life, I have ...

Eesha, Miriam, Zerlina, Lori, Deanna Zandt and myself all went to see Pariah together last week and I think I speak for all of us when I say, if there is one movie you see this year–make ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

What are your favorite quotable lines by #LadiesinFilm?

“Most guys, we can recite all of The Godfather, we can recite all of Caddyshack, we can do all those kind of things. Women, by and large, can’t. You can guys can say you complete me, and that’s about it. And I think it’s because in the history of movies, there have been fewer quotable lines spoken by actresses than actors.” –Aaron Sorkin

Oh really, Aaron? As Shelby points out, to the extent that this is true, it’s directly the fault of dudes like you. Last time I checked, actors and actresses don’t come up with their own lines. Aaron, I know you are capable of writing memorable lines for women characters. (Everything that C.J. ever said, for example.) ...

“Most guys, we can recite all of The Godfather, we can recite all of Caddyshack, we can do all those kind of things. Women, by and large, can’t. You can guys can say you complete me, and ...