ENTERTAINMENT

Top Actors in Hollywood World

2012-02-10T20:55:00.000-08:00

Nicolas Cage

Morgan Freeman

Sean Connery at an early age

Sean Connery at present

Will Smith

Bruce Willis

Denzel Washington

Samuel Jackson

Al Pacino at an early age

Al Pacino at present

Matt Damon

Leonardo Dicaprio in Titanic

Leonardo Dicaprio at present

Brad Pitt

Jim Carrey

Tom Hanks

Kevin Spacey

Anthony Hopkins

John Cusack

Christian Bale

Johnny Depp

John Travolta

Pierce Brosnan

Top Actresses in Hollywood World

2012-02-10T20:53:00.000-08:00

1. Sandra Bullock

2. Angelina Jolie

3. Jennifer Aniston

4. Cameron Diaz

5. Sarah Jessica Parker

6. Reese Witherspoon

7. Julia Roberts

8. Meryl Streep

9. Drew Barrymore

10. Kate Hudson

LATEST NEWS HOLLYWOOD

2012-02-07T19:52:00.000-08:00

Why Oscar Snubbed Pixar, 'Tintin,' 'Arthur Christmas' for Best Cartoon

Surprise noms "Chico & Rita" and "A Cat in Paris" reveal a rift over technology as voters attempt to save hand-drawn animation.

This story originally appeared in the Feb. 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter.

When the Academy Award nominations were announced Jan. 24, most of Hollywood was waiting to see which films would emerge as best picture contenders. But within the smaller, intensely competitive animation community, the focus was on its own feature nominees, and in that category the results were shocking.

Sure, both of DreamWorks Animation's 2011 entries, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots, made the cut, as did Gore Verbinski's Rango. But where were Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin and Pixar's Cars 2, not to mention Sony/Aardman Animations' Arthur Christmas or Fox's Rio? Instead, two obscure, foreign-language, hand-drawn animated movies, Chico & Rita and A Cat in Paris, rounded out the list of nominees.

PHOTOS: 10 Inappropriately Sexy Cartoon Characters

Insiders at the various companies snubbed were stunned, though none wanted to go on record with their displeasure. By way of explanation, one Academy member says of the voters: "They were sending a message. They are against motion capture and kids' movies, and they want to save hand-drawn animation."

Well, yes and no. Many traditional animators are suspicious of motion capture or, as it's also known, performance capture, in which actors' performances are fed into a computer. In 2010, they succeeded in adding a line to the Oscar rule book that says, "Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique." That doesn't rule out mo-cap movies; it just means that they must prove they include frame-by-frame animation as well.

In addition to Tintin, two other motion-capture movies, Happy Feet 2 and Mars Needs Moms, were entered; all three were judged sufficiently animated to proceed. (The only movie that ran afoul of Academy rules was The Smurfs, a live-action/animation hybrid that was found not to contain enough actual animation.)

But the fact that Tintin didn't receive a nom in the animation or visual effects categories and that Andy Serkis wasn't nominated as a supporting actor for his work in Rise of the Planet of the Apes suggest, as Visual Effects Society chair Jeffrey Okun puts it: "The industry is confused. It comes down to, 'What is animation?' That is something everyone has been struggling with."

PHOTOS: It's a Zoo This Season: 23 Awards Contenders Featuring Animals

The Academy's ani noms aren't just about kinds of animation, though. They are made by a committee of slightly fewer than 100 members -- half of them animators from the Academy's short films and feature animation branch and half from throughout the Academy. Each member rates each movie on a scale of six to 10. Says Jon Bloom, chair of the branch's executive committee, "Part of the instructions the committee is given is to consider the entire achievement as a whole, not just its animation." That means story, characters, music and vocal performances all come into play. He says no larger lesson can be drawn from this year's choices beyond the fact that it was a highly competitive year. "My own ballot had many highly rated films, far more than five," he says.

But the final list does appear to favor films with elements that appeal to adults -- such as Antonio Banderas' comic take on a Latin lover in Puss or the Clint Eastwood allusions of Rango. That put Cars 2, which some critics had complained was driven by merchandising, at a disadvantage -- even though it was a pet project of Pixar's John Lasseter, who sits on the Academy's board of governors. So, too, Tintin: The character may be beloved in Europe, but here the movie may have seemed too much of a boys' adventure tale.

Chico & Rita, on the other hand, is a genuinely adult movie -- it even features female nudity -- charting a tempestuous love affair between a Cuban songwriter and a sexy singer, set against a musical backdrop that includes everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Tito Puente. "It's a great, beautiful, adult animated film," says Eric Beckman, who heads the New York-based micro-distributor GKids Films, which will release Chico through its adult Luma Films label. He also is handling A Cat in Paris, which follows a cat burglar across the rooftops of Paris. Of the upset, he says, "In all honesty, I expected we'd get one nomination, but I never thought we'd get two."

Clint Eastwood Super Bowl Ad Parodied By Rush Limbaugh (Video)

Clint Eastwood

Christopher Polk/Getty Images

The talk-radio host and some Internet filmmakers are having a field day with the legendary actor's "It's Halftime in America" commercial.

The right and left are having their fun goofing on Clint Eastwood’s controversial Super Bowl ad, with probably the most significant parody being broadcast multiple times Tuesday on Rush Limbaugh’s nationally syndicated radio show.

“When somebody tells me Clint Eastwood did a halftime commercial for Chrysler, I expect it to be something like this,” Limbaugh told his 20 million listeners before audio of an Eastwood impersonator began:

“It’s halftime. Both teams are in their locker rooms, getting ready to win the first four years or a second term.

“It’s halftime in America, too. People are out of work and they’re hurting. And they’re all wondering what Obama’s gonna do to them next.”

VIDEO: The Best (and Worst) Super Bowl Commercials of 2012

“All’s that matters now is that we come together as one great nation and kick his skinny butt back to Chicago,” says the Eastwood character in Limbaugh’s parody. “This country can’t be knocked out by one punk. We’ll get right back up again and, when we do, Obama’s gonna hear the roar our engines.”

Limbaugh's is audio only, but video parodies from other sources were created for the Internet, including one from the Second City Network that appears to be a subtle attack on GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

“That’s what we do,” says an Eastwood impersonator, “we find a way to say, ‘This industry didn’t work out. Let’s kick back, eat some Coney dog and wait for another one.’”

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The video (below) ends with a reference to Romney’s 2008 New York Times opinion piece headlined: “Let Detroit go bankrupt.”

Eastwood’s Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler, dubbed “It’s Halftime in America,” has become controversial because it appears to support auto-industry bailouts and, some say, the reelection of President Obama.

Video of the commercial is below.

Eastwood, though, said Monday that he is “certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama” and that he is donating the salary he earned for starring in the ad to charity.

Jon Gosselin calls Kate an ‘absentee mom’

Jon Gosselin claimed to be supportive of his ex-wife Kate’s stint on “Dancing With the Stars,” but filing a petition for full custody of the kids seem to suggest otherwise.

Jon has lawyered up with attorney Anthony F. List, who has filed a petition with the courts asking that Jon be granted full custody of their eight children.

According to List, Kate is an absentee mom, and he is expected to use “DWTS” as evidence that she does not spend quality time with her kids. Furthermore, List has asked the Berks County Court to review his child support payments.

According to the Associated Press, Jon says in court papers that Kate “abuses” her authority when it comes to his visitation rights, and that an arbitrator didn’t require her to provide proof of the children’s expenses.

Slideshow: Celebrity Sightings Kate’s attorney Mark Momjian takes issue with claims regarding Kate’s parenting. “There was an offensive comment made about our client’s parenting. To the extent that that comment was made, we think it was completely reckless and it is patently untrue.”

Kate’s reaction was similar. “I am not willing to comment in public on the custody discussions regarding my children,” she said via her publicist. “What I will say is this: I am and always will be a mother first, but as a single working mom I will do everything necessary to provide for my kids despite the opinions of others.”

A source close to Kate points out that Jon’s timing seems suspect. “His girlfriend, who he was living with across the country — just kicked him out.”

Barry Bonds Free to Swing 'Dangerous' Bats ... Again

Barry Bonds has federal approval to pickup a "dangerous weapon" -- namely, a baseball bat -- thanks to a new court order.

Bonds is appealing his sentence for felony obstruction of justice -- but for now he's free on a few conditions ... one of which is he cannot possess any "firearm, ammunition, destructive device, or other dangerous weapon."

Barry must want to take some batting practice -- because according to docs filed yesterday ... a federal judge has approved his request to make an exception for baseball bats.

Anyone who saw Bonds slug one of his 762 home runs knows ... a bat (with or without a syringe) should be considered a dangerous weapon in his hands.

Kobe Bryant Absolved in Church Assault Case

Kobe Bryant is no sinner ... so says the San Diego City Attorney's Office ... which decided it will NOT pursue charges against the NBA star over an altercation at a local church last year.

Bryant had been accused of flipping out on Thomas Hagos at St. Therese of Carmel Church back in August -- because Bryant believed Hagos snapped his pic on a cell phone during services.

Hagos claimed Bryant wrestled the phone out of his hand, injuring his wrist ... but ultimately found NO pictures in the phone.

Cops investigated the situation ... and now the City Attorney has decided there is not enough evidence to prove Kobe did anything wrong.

The C.A. tells TMZ, "Based upon our extensive investigation and interview of independent witnesses, we’ve concluded that charges cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt."

Case closed.

TRAILERS LOLLYWOOD

2012-02-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

TRAILERS BOLLYWOOD

2012-01-30T04:24:00.000-08:00

HOLLYWOOD NEWS

2012-01-30T04:10:00.000-08:00

Actor Nicol Williamson, hailed as greatest since Brando, dies

Nicol Williamson, a Scottish-born theater star heralded as one of the finest actors of his generation but whose menacing unpredictability onstage and off diminished his career, died Dec. 16 in Amsterdam of esophageal cancer. He was 75.
His son, Luke Williamson, confirmed the death to the Associated Press. Williamson had lived in the Netherlands for more than two decades. The news of his death was reportedly delayed at the actor’s wish to die anonymously — an understated ending to a stormy life.
Williamson was a galvanic presence in dozens of stage and film roles and drew favorable comparisons with Laurence Olivier and Charles Laughton.
Author Samuel Beckett pronounced him ”touched by genius.” The British playwright John Osborne, who made Williamson a marquee name in the 1964 drama ”Inadmissible Evidence,” considered him ”the greatest actor since Marlon Brando.”
With his nasally twang, receding ginger hair, despairing eyes and hangdog face, Williamson had little of the young Brando’s beauty and raw physical power. He compensated with a demeanor that conveyed cunning, an explosive temperament and a general aura of sweaty self-loathing.
These traits were on display in Mike Nichols’ 1974 staging of Anton Chekhov’s ”Uncle Vanya,” for which Williamson in the title role won the Tony Award for best actor.
Onscreen, Williamson excelled as a cocaine-addicted Sherlock Holmes in ”The Seven-Per-Cent Solution” (1976), a ruthless Afrikaaner policeman in apartheid South Africa in ”The Wilby Conspiracy” (1975) and the wizard Merlin in director John Boorman’s violent retelling of the King Arthur legend in ”Excalibur” (1981).
Willfully or not, Williamson seemed determined to torpedo his reputation through heavy drinking and erratic, often abusive behavior.
Coming to the defense of a stage director, Williamson threw beer on the notoriously cruel theater impresario David Merrick and then punched him. Other stories, perhaps embellishing the incident, have Williamson tossing Merrick in the trash. Williamson later quipped, ”The funny thing was that nobody in his entourage tried to attack me or help him.”
Williamson’s notoriety for turbulent antics resurfaced while he starred as King Henry VIII of England in the 1976 Broadway musical ”Rex.” It ran 48 performances and was best remembered for Williamson slapping another actor for talking when Williamson was taking his bow during a curtain call.
The two incidents might have been written off had Williamson not whacked the actor Evan Handler with a sword when they were starring on Broadway in Paul Rudnick’s 1991 comedy ”I Hate Hamlet.” Williamson played the ghost of John Barrymore, the highly gifted, randy and alcoholic actor of the early 20th century.
During a sword fight with Handler, Williamson appeared to improvise lines: ”Put some life into it! Use your head! Give it more life!” Handler walked offstage, and Williamson broke the awkward silence by turning to the audience and asking, ”Well, should I sing?”
In the remaining few months of the show, which received mixed reviews, Williamson continued ab-libbing to the audience. One night, he told them, according to Rudnick, ”Head home and enjoy a nice juicy slice of sexual intercourse.” Other nights he denigrated the critics, the same group of writers who had once propelled him to the top of his profession.
The son of a foundry worker, Nicol Williamson was born Sept. 14, 1936, in the Scottish mining town of Hamilton and raised in Birmingham, England. He appeared in repertory theater before joining London’s Royal Shakespeare Company in 1962.
He dazzled audiences with his versatility and his ability to play much older characters convincingly. He was frequently mentioned as a leader among a crop of promising young talent that included Albert Finney, Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen.
The performance that sealed Williamson’s prominence was the alcoholic, morally disintegrating lawyer Bill Maitland in Osborne’s ”Inadmissible Evidence” (1964).
Critic Ronald Bryden wrote in the New Statesman that Williamson, not yet 30, ”fills every cranny of Maitland’s portrait with knowledge: the nervous sweating, the lurching jocularity, the sick waves, tangible as nausea, of self-disgust.”
The show reached Broadway in 1965 and earned Williamson a Tony nomination. (A bowdlerized 1968 film version of ”Inadmissible Evidence” that also starred Williamson tanked commercially and critically.)
After the first jolt of fame with ”Inadmissible Evidence,” Williamson mystified his peers and his friends by turning down offers to work with directors of the caliber of Olivier and Ingmar Bergman.
Williamson said he preferred short-run jobs, like reading poems by T.S. Eliot set to jazz. Explaining his motivations, he later told The New York Times, ”Too much acting can make you a worse actor. Actors who do play after play tend to rely on bad habits or technique and do shoddy work.”
Yet he repeatedly bobbed back into the public eye with startling performances, including a portrayal of Hamlet as a scruffy peasant in a 1969 stage and film version directed by Tony Richardson.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, Williamson alternated among film, television and stage roles. He portrayed Little John to Sean Connery’s Robin Hood and Audrey Hepburn’s Lady Marian in ”Robin and Marian” (1976), and had the title role in the public television miniseries ”Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy” (1986). Increasingly, he accepted mediocre assignments in movies, including ”The Exorcist III” (1990) and ”Spawn” (1997).
His marriage to actress Jill Townsend ended in divorce. Survivors include their son.
In a career of peaks and valleys, one of Williamson’s most captivating moments in show business was his command performance at the Nixon White House in 1970. He had been recommended to the president by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who admired Williamson’s interpretation of Hamlet.
Before hundreds of dignitaries at the White House, Williamson recited soliloquies and songs from Shakespeare, passages from Arthur Miller’s ”Death of a Salesman,” doggerel from Robert Benchley and poetry from e.e. cummings and William Butler Yeats.
When the formal part of the evening was over, the first couple retreated to bed. Williamson stayed, belting out Tin Pan Alley tunes backed by a jazz band.
”This should be an evening that swung!” Williamson told the remaining crowd. ”We should all have fun and everybody get boozed. And I hope we don’t wake the people upstairs.”

RFK's wife stars in daughter's 'Ethel'

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) -- Ethel Kennedy prefers coming to the Sundance Film Festival when she's not the star of a movie.
She has been to Sundance in the past to see films by her daughter, documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy. This time, the widow of U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy is the focus of her daughter's film, "Ethel."
Ethel Kennedy said she likes it better coming to Sundance "just to see Rory's films."
Though initially reluctant when her daughter proposed the documentary, Ethel Kennedy opens up on screen with candid recollections about the family, including falling in love at first sight with her future husband on a ski trip to Canada.
"He was standing in front of an open fireplace," she said in an interview alongside her daughter. "I walked in the door and turned and saw him, and I thought, `whoa.'"
In the film, Ethel Kennedy discusses campaigning for her husband and his brother, President John F. Kennedy, the similarities and differences between her family and the Kennedy clan, and raising 11 children after her husband's assassination in 1968.
At the time, she was pregnant with Rory Kennedy, her youngest child, who was born six months after her father's death.
As a widow with such a big family, Ethel Kennedy said she coped simply by going about what she needed to do in tending her children.
"After Rory was born, it was - life just happened to take care of daily living, which almost had practically nothing to do with me," she said. "I just started taking carpools in the morning, and by the time I was finished dropping the last child off, I'd pick up the first one. And then, you know, I'm putting on all the galoshes. Well, you get the idea."
In "Ethel," airing later this year on HBO, Rory Kennedy coaxes sweet, sad and funny anecdotes out of her mother and her siblings. The Kennedys recollect their mother's devotion to steeping the children in world affairs, her mischievous sense of humor and her rebellious streak that led to run-ins with the law, such as the time she was charged with rustling horses after freeing some mistreated animals.
Through photos and home movies, the film offers an intimate look at the life of the Kennedys, the family relating how Robert Kennedy and his children slid down a bannister in the White House after his brother was elected and how the president once cautioned his fun-loving sister-in-law not to push his Cabinet members into the swimming pool anymore.
In front of her daughter's camera, Ethel Kennedy is unable to discuss the grief over her husband's death.
"When we lost Daddy ..." she begins, then tears up and tells her daughter, "Talk about something else."
Rory Kennedy, whose past Sundance documentaries include the Emmy-winning "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib," said "Ethel" probably was her most challenging film because it was so personal.
"I know my mother and she is just terrific, and I have such admiration and respect for her. She's such a character, too. I really think she's one of the great untold stories, not just because of all of the events she's lived through," Rory Kennedy said. "But also because she's just such a wonderful person, and I hope that comes across in the film. She's so funny, and she is such an inspiration to me. Our family knows my mother, our close friends know her, but to be able to share her with so many other people I think was important."

‘The Help’ cleans up at SAG awards

LOS ANGELES — Finally, an awards show with some surprises and spontaneity.
The Screen Actors Guild Awards featured some unexpected winners, including The Help for best overall cast performance and Jean Dujardin for best actor in The Artist alongside some of the longtime favorites in movies and television.
But there was a looseness and a playfulness that permeated the Shrine Exposition Center Sunday night — maybe because it was a room full of people who love to perform, without the rigidity of one single host to lead them.
Unlike the great expectations that came with the sharp-tongued Ricky Gervais’ reprisal at the Golden Globes a couple weeks ago or the much-anticipated return of Billy Crystal to the Academy Awards next month, there was no master of ceremonies at the SAG Awards. The presenters and winners seemed to have more room to improvise and put their own spin on the evening — but mercifully, the show itself still managed to wrap up on time after just two hours.
And so we had three of the stars of best-cast nominee Bridesmaids — Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Melissa McCarthy — introducing their comedy with a joke about turning the name “Scorsese” into a drinking game, which became a running gag throughout the night. When HBO’s Boardwalk Empire won the award for best drama series cast, among the first words star Steve Buscemi uttered in accepting the prize were “Martin Scorsese” — he just happens to be one of the show’s executive producers.
One of the more exciting moments of the night was the announcement of Dujardin’s name in the best-actor category for his performance in the silent, black-and-white homage The Artist. In winning the award for his portrayal of a silent-film star who finds his career in decline with the arrival of talkies, Dujardin definitely boosts his chances at the Oscars on Feb. 26. Little-known in the United States before this, the French comic bested bigger names like George Clooney (The Descendants), Brad Pitt (Moneyball) and Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar).
If he follows this up with an Academy Award, Dujardin would become the first French actor ever to take the prize. Asked backstage how it would feel, Dujardin launched into a jaunty rendition of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem.
“Pressure, big pressure,” Dujardin then added in his halting English. “It’s unbelievable. It’s amazing already. Too early to tell.”
Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer continued to cement their front-runner status in the actress and supporting actress categories, respectively, for their formidable work in The Help. Both women play black maids in 1960s Mississippi who dare to go public about the bigotry they’ve endured.
“I just have to say that the stain of racism and sexism is not just for people of color or women. It’s all of our burden, all of us,” Davis said, accepting the ensemble prize on behalf of her The Help co-stars.
Backstage, Davis said of her own victory: “A few more people checked my name in the box for whatever reason. This time I kind of fooled them.”
Meanwhile, Christopher Plummer picked up yet another supporting-actor prize for his lovely turn as an elderly widower who finally comes out as gay in Beginners. Plummer won at the Golden Globes and is nominated for an Oscar. He would become the oldest actor ever to win an Academy Award at age 82, two years older than Jessica Tandy was when she won best actress for Driving Miss Daisy.
Backstage, Plummer joked when asked if he would like to win an Oscar, an honor so elusive during his esteemed 60-year career that he did not even receive his first Academy Award nomination until two years ago, for The Last Station.
“No, I think it’s frightfully boring,” Plummer said. “That’s an awful question. Listen, we don’t go into this business preoccupied by awards. If we did, we wouldn’t last five minutes.”
The win for overall cast for The Help, when The Artist and The Descendants have been the favorites all along, makes the conversation more interesting but it isn’t necessarily an indicator of how the film will do come Oscar time.
The guild’s ensemble prize, considered its equivalent of a best-picture honor, has a spotty record at predicting what will win the top award at the Oscars. While The King’s Speech won both honors a year ago, the SAG ensemble recipient has gone on to claim the top Oscar only eight times in the 16 years since the guild added the category.
The winners at the SAG ceremony often do go on to earn Oscars, however. All four acting recipients at SAG last year later took home Oscars — Colin Firth for The King’s Speech, Natalie Portman for Black Swan and Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for The Fighter.
On the television side, comedy series awards went to Modern Family for best ensemble; Alec Baldwin as best actor for 30 Rock; and Betty White as best actress for Hot in Cleveland.
“You can’t name me, without naming those other wonderful women on Hot in Cleveland,” the 90-year-old White said. “This nomination belongs to four of us. Please, please know that I’m dealing them right in with this. I’m not going to let them keep this, but I’ll let them see it.”
The TV drama show winners were: Jessica Lange as best actress for American Horror Story; and Buscemi as best actor for Boardwalk Empire.
For TV movie or miniseries, Kate Winslet won as best actress for Mildred Pierce, while Paul Giamatti was named best actor for Too Big to Fail.
The guild gave its lifetime achievement award to Mary Tyler Moore, presented by Dick Van Dyke, her co-star on the 1960s sit-com The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Moore recalled that when she entered show business at age 18 in 1955, there were already six others Mary Moores in the Screen Actors Guild. Told to change her name, she quickly added Tyler, the middle name she shares with her father, George.
“I was Mary Tyler Moore. I spoke it out loud. Mary Tyler Moore. It sounded right so I wrote it down on the form, and it looked right,” she said. “It was right. SAG was happy, my father was happy, and tonight, after having the privilege of working in this business among the most creative and talented people imaginable, I too am happy, after all.”

HOLLYWOOD NEWS

2012-01-30T03:54:00.000-08:00

Hollywood women unite to break through the celluloid ceiling

Ellen Page and Michael Cera in Juno, the indie film hit that won an Oscar for screenwriter Diablo Cody. Cody is seen as one of a group of Hollywood women dubbed the "Fempire".

Next week the Athena Film Festival will open at Barnard College in New York. The showcase, which commences on 9 February and is in its second year, is aimed at celebrating women film-makers and rewarding their art and successes. It will consist of screenings, awards and the usual parties, but with a feminist slant. Among those getting accolades will be a group of women in Hollywood known as "the Fempire".
The Fempire consists of screenwriters Diablo Cody, Dana Fox, Liz Meriwether and Lorene Scafaria, who between them have worked on films that range from the quirky indie smash hit Juno to the big mainstream Hollywood comedy Couples Retreat. According to Melissa Silverstein, co-founder of the Athena festival, and the woman behind the acclaimed Women and Hollywood blog, the four women's award will include the words: "For their creativity and their sisterhood."
It is the word "sisterhood" that is key. The talent possessed by the women is not in doubt. It is their self-conscious decision openly to promote themselves in solidarity with other women that is different in a movie world dominated by men. It also goes against an enduring Hollywood myth: that women let into the Tinseltown boys' club won't help each other out. "There is a mythology that women can't be friends with each other because they have to compete for jobs. We have to get beyond that," said Silverstein.
There has never been a greater need. Much media attention focuses on the big-name women directors behind major films or whose projects have walked off with top awards. After all, Kathryn Bigelow's best director Oscar in 2009 for The Hurt Locker was meant to have put female directors on the map. Just look at Catherine Hardwicke, who directed major Hollywood movies such as Twilight, full of the sort of action and adventure meant to be the preserve of male directors. Starring Kristen Stewart, Twilight was such a smash that it was the biggest ever opening weekend for a female director. Meanwhile, Angelina Jolie has just directed her first film, the Bosnia war story In The Land of Blood and Honey, which garnered a Golden Globe nomination.
But, like a surprise twist in the third reel, that is not the whole picture. Far from it. "It is really easy to be misled by a few high-profile cases. We can all name a few very successful female directors," said Professor Martha Lauzen, an expert on women in film at San Diego State University in California. Nor is that just Lauzen's personal opinion: since the late 1990s she has collected annual data on what jobs women are doing in Hollywood, both behind the scenes and on camera. Her statistics are shocking for the almost total lack of progress they show over more than a decade. In a dig at the notion that everything is equal in Hollywood, Lauzen's report each year is called simply The Celluloid Ceiling.
The latest Celluloid Ceiling figures for the top 250 US films produced in 2011 have just been released. They make grim reading. Women made up only 5% of Hollywood directors last year, a drop from 7% in 2010. Even as far back as 1998 the figure was 7%. "That is a kick in the gut," said Silverstein. But elsewhere progress is hardly fast-track. In total, women made up 18% of behind-the-scenes roles in Hollywood in 2011 – against 16% in 2010. But that, again, is only an increase of one percentage point over 1998. About 38% of films employed one or no women in the senior jobs that the survey studied.
Overwhelmingly, the pattern in Hollywood is not of progress towards greater female empowerment, but of stagnation or even retreat. In this context the huge amounts of publicity given to the work of women like Bigelow and Hardwicke seem like tokenism at best. "People tend to see them as evidence of creeping progress, that things get a little better each year, and so then we don't need to think of it as a problem," said Lauzen. "But in reality the numbers are stable. Surprisingly so. And the number of women directors is actually going down."
But other groups with agendas like the Fempire are springing up. They seek not to enter the Hollywood boys' club but to replicate it. Step forward Trudie Styler, actress and the wife of pop star Sting. Styler has set up a production company called Maven Films with producer Celine Rattray, who recently won a Golden Globe for The Kids Are All Right. The company is aimed at taking on female talent and promoting women-led projects. It's first film is set to be Imogene, a project from rising comedy star Kristen Wiig. It will also star Annette Bening and be written and directed by women. Other deals have been struck with big names such as Julia Roberts, Cate Blanchett and Sarah Jessica Parker.
"We're not making some angry stand," Styler told Grazia magazine in a recent interview. "But we are two female film-makers in what is a male industry, and so we're very supportive of female-driven projects... there's a plethora of actresses out there who are looking for meatier roles and we're reaping the benefits of that."
But the decision of women in Hollywood to start forming their own networks raises the question of why Hollywood remains so gender-divided. Of course, it is not alone. Numerous commentators in Davos last week at the World Economic Forum have noted the lack of women present as the planet's major woes are discussed. In fact, at Davos only 17% of delegates are women. Meanwhile, it has been pointed out that about 84% of guests and reporters on BBC Radio 4's flagship Today programme are men. But at least in some of these areas progress is being made. In Davos the number of women attending, despite being so small, was at its highest yet – up from 9% in 2002.
Meanwhile Hollywood still stands out in its intransigence and – at the high-profile level of director – for going backwards. There is likely to be no easy solution. "I don't think there is a magic bullet," said Lauzen, citing Hollywood studio's testosterone-fuelled corporate culture and it's "clubbable" atmosphere.
Silverstein agrees: "It is a very small club and there are very few woman decision makers at the top level."
Both Lauzen and Silverstein believe that true change in the film industry – which lags notably behind television – will mean getting women into more behind-the-scenes roles, especially powerful positions. Of course, that is precisely where the groups like the Fempire and Maven Films will come in. Women have to start projects and help other women along, gradually transforming the world behind the camera so their choices and tastes can eventually affect the world in front of it.
They also have to defeat the idea that women are only good at movies that women are believed likely to watch. After all, Bigelow's Oscar-winner was a war film and the biggest female-directed hit last year was Kung Fu Panda 2, a family animation feature not aimed at a specific gender market.
There are also a few signs of optimism elsewhere in the ecology of Hollywood. While the giant studios that produce and market most of the main Hollywood films are bastions of male dominance, especially the higher up you go, the media that reports on those behemoths is increasingly woman-led. In fact, many of the highest profile Hollywood journalists are women. Queen of the pile is the legendary Nikki Finke, founder and editor of the website Deadline Hollywood. Then there is Sharon Waxman, editor in chief of its rival website The Wrap. Meanwhile, Bonnie Fuller has started the gossip website Hollywood Life. But it's not just online that women rule the roost. At the Hollywood Reporter – often considered the trade bible of the movie industry — the editorial director is Janice Min. This mini power-shift has itself led to the occasional sexist backlash.
A report by the New York Observer on the recent rise of women journalists in the movie industry could not resist a sexist cliché of a "cat fight" in its headline: "Hollywood hellcats throw down over traffic, influence."
But it is a potentially important development. With more women reporting on the world of movie-making, it is more likely that the issue of women's roles in and behind those movies will get greater coverage. Problems often get solved only when attention is focused on them. So for long-time observers, there is at least a sense that in the next 10 years some form of progress will be made.
But for now a lack of women in power in Hollywood is still hiding behind the success of a few big names. "You don't see a lot of overt sexism. But you do see a lot of denial," said Lauzen.

Films find solid footing with footage called found

LOS ANGELES — The Devil Inside became a surprise hit at the box office during the first weekend of the year.
A horror film with a micro-budget, no stars and plenty of bad reviews, the film came out of nowhere to gross $33.7 million — the third-highest January opening in Hollywood history.
Far from a novelty, though, The Devil Inside marks the first in a new wave of movies based on the premise of “found footage” — offerings that blend fantastic plots with supposedly real video.
A found-footage high-school comedy is on the way. So is a superhero tale — along with more horror films.
At a time when expensive effects-driven movies rule the roost, the inexpensive form of pseudo- verite appeals to Hollywood and, potentially, audiences.
The Drexel Theatre in Bexley has hosted four “found-footage” festivals since 2009 — including two last year.
“There’s a freshness to it: The camerawork gives you an intimacy because you feel like you’re inside something that is real,” said Lorenzo di Bonaventura, executive producer of The Devil Inside.
“These films are so wildly profitable — and even when they’re not, the cost of them is so little that it’s an easier shot to take.”
The found-footage trend began in 1999 with the creepy walk-in-the-woods story The Blair Witch Project and evolved with the 2008 monster movie Cloverfield . The success of that film helped pave the way for Paranormal Activity the next year. A haunted-house movie that cost just $15,000 to make, the 2009 film turned into a cultural phenomenon, taking in $108 million and spawning two sequels to date. A fourth Paranormal film is due at Halloween.
Those movies helped create a genre characterized by grainy video, a sense of voyeurism and the tantalizing (though incorrect) possibility that the events on-screen might actually have taken place.
“There’s always a side of us that wants to believe we really are in that bedroom or in that situation with the characters,” said Amir Malin, former CEO of Artisan Entertainment, which released Blair Witch.
On Friday, 20th Century Fox will continue the Devil mojo with Chronicle, about a group of 20-somethings who use their newly discovered superpowers to dangerous ends. A month later will come Project X, a Warner Bros. picture about teens throwing a wild party — interspersed with one character’s video diary.
And, in August, filmgoers will get a double dose of low-budget verite with Sinister, a haunted-house story about a true-crime novelist. Also coming is 7500, a supernatural thriller set aboard an airplane. Although neither film is strictly found footage, they both employ certain conventions from the genre to create a sense of realism.
Such films tap into the same aspect of entertainment that draws viewers to reality television.
The found-footage conceit suits a generation that has grown up holding cameras, making video diaries and other forms of amateur entertainment.
According to Jason Blum, who produces the Paranormal Activity franchise: “I believe we’re at the dawn of the low-budget wide-release movie.”

TRAILERS HOLLYWOOD

2012-01-30T03:32:00.000-08:00