.Gary Dretzka
.Leonard Klady.
.David Poland
.Ray Pride

June 16, 2003

Y’all know that I am not one to run the feminist flag up the pole to see who will whine.  I looked at all the women who were writing and directing big movies this summer and I still had fingers left to count on one of my dainty little hands.  There were not quite enough fingers left to ball up into a fist to slam into some unsuspecting executive’s face.  I was very close though.

I started my little search by looking for female directors.  You will excuse me if I name every woman I found.  It was a little like looking for a snickers bar in a Bangladesh kindergarten.

Seven women got behind the cameras to make movies that are coming out this summer.   Just one of the films is being sent to a theater near y’all by one of the big movie studios.  That one is called How To Deal.  If you had not heard about it, join the club.  It is written by a woman, rewritten by another woman and directed by another woman.  It stars Mandy Moore, who seems to be the brown-haired teen Popsicle of the week.  I can only guess that it is one of the lowest budget films to be released by a major studio all summer long.  But I will be rooting for lady writers Beber and Ferrer. I will also root for the directora, Ms. Claire Kilner.  She is not an American.  So if y’all want to split your ends, there is no big film from an American director chick all summer long.

The other five from the thighs are all being released by independents.  I am not sure how they came to each distributor.  I do not think that any of the films were financed with the help of an American distributor.

Two of the films are from Fox Searchlight where the long stretch of accent, Peter Rice, rules the roost.  He may look too pretty to be straight, but he sure seems to like the ladies.  Thirteen directress Catherine Hardwicke also has some extra girrrrl power on board with Li’l Niki Reed as co-writer and co-star.  Gurinder Chadha also had some help at the typewriter but directed Bend It Like Beckham all by her good self.  The Searchlight was also out for veteran power typist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who allowed Mr. James Ivory to sit in the director’s seat with her screenplay to guide him just one more time with Le Divorce. 

The final three women writer/directors are all from other nations.  Niki Caro comes from New Zealand.  Danielle Thompson seems to be French.  Emanuele Crialese is Italian.  Their films are also being released by three different companies.  Whale Rider is from Newmarket Films, the company that released Memento.  Jet Lag is from the massive Miramax machine.  Respiro is from Sony Pictures Classics.

All six films directed by women are about women.  Welcome to the Kotex Ghetto! 

My favorite partnership is between Ms. Thompson and Mr. Christopher Thompson.  They co-wrote Jet Lag.  She’s his mommy.  He’s her son.  That is so sweet!

If all anyone expects from us ladies is a bunch of movies about other women, why aren’t women directing the summer’s Reese Witherspoon and Angelina Jolie and Hilary Duff movies?   The hairy ones keep saying that there are no female action directors.  I am not sure that I wish to sit through another Kathryn Bigalow movie like K-19: The Career Killer.  That does not explain why cute, petite and powerful Ms. Witherspoon is not forcing her supporters to support women directors. 

I looked at the credit list for Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blue and there are some women in there.  Kate Kondell, Eve Ahlert, Amanda Brown and token male team member Dennis Drake wrote the movie.  Behind the camera is gay cinema icon Mister Charles Herman-Wurmfeld who made Kissing Jessica Stein.  Karen McCullough Lutz and Kirsten Smith, who have written Ella Enchanted, wrote the original Legally Blonde.  Their new film is being directed by gay cinema icon Mister Tommy O’Haver who made Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss.  It looks like funny women are doing a lot more for gay men than for straight women.  I am not sure that straight women could get through life without gay men.  We would like our jobs back though!

There are only five other movies this summer that have women writers.  The only one that is not a chick flick is The Italian Job.  That film was co-written by Donna Powers and her husband.  The other films are Rugrats Gone Wild, The Lizzie Maguire Movie, Freaky Friday and Uptown Girls. 

Over the rest of the year there are a few more opportunities for women.  If Fox Searchlight is the most girl friendly studio, Meg Ryan is the most girl friendly actress.  Women wrote both of Sex & The Single Meg’s fall movies.  Against The Ropes was written by Cheryl Edwards who wrote Save The Last Dance For Me.  In The Cut was written and directed by Jane Campion, the women’s champion. 

The only other big studio film that I can find with a female director is Love Don’t Cost A Thing.  It is a remake of the teen comedy Can’t Buy Me Love.  Troy Beyer’s last movie was an independent sex thing.  Now she is making kid movies.  She is directing though.

The only other independent film I can find with a female director this fall is Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation.  Finally pleased not to be Winona Ryder, Ms. Coppola also wrote the movie. 

Jerry “Enormous Testicles” Bruckheimer hired two different women to work on the true-life film drama Veronica Guerin, Ms. Carol Doyle and Ms. Mary Agnes Donoghue.

Robert Altman loves women!  The old grouch hired Barbara Turner to work with him on The Company, a movie about a ballet company in Chicago. 

Jeanne Rosenberg is the first woman to have a live-action feature on IMAX.  She wrote The Young Black Stallion.  A woman did not direct the film but some people think that the first Black Stallion film was.  Carroll Ballard is a man, silly!

Jim Sheridan directed In America by himself but co-write with his daughters Naomi and Kirsten. 

All the smashing and killing and running in The Lord of The Rings is directed by a man.  But he shares writing credit with Philippa Boyens and Frances Walsh.  They are in the money, honey. 

There is one big hairy boy movie next summer that is being co-written by a woman.  I, Robot has Hilary Seitz listed as a co-writer.  She wrote the boy movie Insomnia last year.

Every other movie that is coming next year that I found a woman’s name attached to was a girlie flick, which seems to be in vogue and in Vogue after this year’s spring flings.  That is okay.  But we really need a woman to go out and prove that we can make big, dumb, angry, violent, bloody, grimy, messy, loud, idiotic crap! 

Maybe not.

P.S.  I was going to write a column about being like Dory, the fish voiced by Ellen DeGeneres in Finding Nemo.  But I forgot.  Sorry.  I missed y’all too!

Ciao for niao!

Email Patricia Vidal