An official crew camisole from the set of Gwyneth Paltrow's "Dealbreakers"

So you knew it had to happen sooner or later: Gwyneth Paltrow found her way behind a movie camera--in Brooklyn, no less, where she recently shot the short film "Dealbreakers" as part of a Glamour Magazine campaign to raise awareness of women in film. According to the Times, an advisory board including Miramax and IFC execs, a CAA agent and even Katie Holmes selected four "fact-based" reader entries out of 4,000 to be adapted and filmed as shorts.

Taking great, unironic care to note Paltrow's pink "Mrs. Martin" camisole (she is married to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin) and charming maternity, reporter Felicia R. Lee probes the deep philosophical recesses where no journalist had gone before:

Despite her own star power, [Paltrow] believes the industry has a ways to go when it comes to women.

"I think a lot of women writers in Hollywood write from their own experience," she said. "But normally in Hollywood those experiences get so kind of homogenized and put through the studio system that what started as a core idea from somebody's life often gets turned in a movie that you've seen a number of times.

"The men in Hollywood make it hard for women. I really believe that. What it means is that it's kind of like the old-boy industries. It's mostly run by men."

Whoa there, Gwyneth. Let us think about this for a second: You come from an industry family and rose to fame dating Brad Pitt. You won an Oscar by age 26. By your own account, you have been in 30 movies. You are married to one of the biggest rock stars in the world. You are one of the few respectable A-listers left in New York. And of all the women who could have run this show, an elite all-woman board chose you?

I mean, you tell me: Is this not kind of a clubby variation on the "old-boy industries"? This board could have phoned up Lisa Cholodenko or Kimberly Peirce or Brooklyn's own Jennie Livingston, all exceedingly good and bankable indie filmmakers. It could have recruited Nicole Holofcener or Nicole Kassell. If it really wanted to fuck shit up, it could have brought in Catherine Breillat. In keeping with the troublesome issue at hand, I admit the list is probably not endless; still, I am fairly certain Glamour could have administered a little more ambition for such a lofty purpose.

Ah, but who knows? Maybe Paltrow's "Dealbreakers"--about all the things men do to ruin dates--will be a minor masterpiece. After all, Paltrow acknowledges having learned directing through "osmosis," which can only be a good thing. Maybe now she can throw some girl power Katie Holmes' way--God knows there is a man or two out there making it kind of hard for her right about now.