Women and Hollywood

Abi Morgan to Adapt 'Taming of the Shrew,' Anne Hathaway to Star

News

Brit Abi Morgan is taking on the master and adapting Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Morgan, who created the BBC series The Hour and has written Shame and The Iron Lady, is supremely talented and brilliant. If you haven’t watched The Hour, please do so immediately, it is one of the best shows airing on television. Both season one and two are available on DVD and instant video.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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January 18, 2013 11:30 AM
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This Woman Is Too Fat for Hollywood?

News

I love Romola Garai. First, she's a good actress. She's just so excellent in The Hour which is written by Abi Morgan. Second, she knows that she needs to be in magazines and make appearances in order to have a successful acting career. But being the feminist that she is she doesn't let any of that take away from her knowing that this shit is all messed up.

By Melissa Silverstein
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November 8, 2012 9:43 AM
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46 Comments

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Approaching Peak Vagina: Lena Dunham and Amy Poehler Score Rare Female Double Emmy Writing Nominations

Television

The Emmy nominations were released yesterday. There is a lot of good news to recognize most especially the fact that two women -- Lean Dunham and Amy Poehler -- were nominated for their comedy writing. According to Nellie at Deadline having two women nominated for comedy writing is a big and not very frequent deal. The last time it happened was a decade ago.

By Melissa Silverstein
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July 20, 2012 11:43 AM
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Happy International Women's Day: Women in Film and TV (UK) Releases 2012 Power List

Blogs

By Melissa Silverstein
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March 8, 2012 12:22 PM
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Lynne Ramsay Scores BAFTA Directing Nomination

Awards

In a year when we will probably not see a female director nominated for any major awards here in the US, the Brits have been smart enough to recognize the Lynne Ramsay did do one of the best directing jobs of the year and nominated her for best director and We Need to Talk About Kevin for Best British Film.

By Melissa Silverstein
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January 17, 2012 11:07 AM
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The Year That Was

Happy new year everyone. Thanks so much for the great support over the last year.

As we start the new year, I thought it would be interesting to look at the narratives that dominated the conversation over the past year. Would love to hear if you have any thoughts on other topics that dominated the conversations.

Here is what I came up with:

The success of Bridesmaids and the realization that women can be funny. (duh)

Winter's Bone and The Kids are All Right get best picture nominations for 2011.

Women directors not being in the conversation for the 2012 Oscar.

The breakout success of Jessica Chastain

The Help polarizes yet still succeeds at the box office.

Patty Jenkins gets hired and fired from Marvel's Thor 2.

Women make up only 33% of speaking parts in films and less than 10% of writers and directors.

Jennifer Yuh Nelson becomes the highest grossing women director with King Fu Panda 2.

By Melissa Silverstein
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January 3, 2012 9:27 AM
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The Iron Lady

As a person who cares about women's leadership, The Iron Lady should be a no-brainer. A film with an AMAZING tour-de-force performance by Meryl Streep playing a woman who was the longest serving Prime Minister in the western world. She gives one of those performances (even better than her recent amazing performances) that leaves your mouth agape at her talent. It was so awesome to see such a strong and powerful woman onscreen.

But I must admit that I am conflicted about this film. There is no doubt that Margaret Thatcher made great strides for women in politics because she broke down gender boundaries and proved a woman could be as tough or tougher than the guys, but at the same time we can't forget that Margaret Thatcher was not known for being a part of the sisterhood - far from it.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 30, 2011 11:45 AM
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Interview with Abi Morgan - writer of The Iron Lady

Blogs

I was lucky enough to meet the multi-talented Abi Morgan who has had an amazingly successful year with The Hour, Shame and The Iron Lady on the day after the premiere of The Iron Lady in NYC. Women and Hollywood: How does a person have two major movies (Shame and The Iron Lady) in one year? How did that happen and are there any similarities between the projects? Abi Morgan: It's interesting because both have got stellar performances that's the strongest similarity. I was very lucky. It was an odd timing issue. I did write them virtually at the same time but I met Steve McQueen while I was working on The Iron Lady and it was a period where I had done most of the work on the script but I was still tweaking it and then I met him and we just hit it off. It was just the counterpoint of meeting a great director and deciding that I wanted to work with him. That project actually came together incredibly quickly. It was incredibly fortuitous and it was a lucky thing so both films are about great collaborations with great directors.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 29, 2011 10:45 AM
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New Trailer for The Iron Lady

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 8, 2011 9:09 AM
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Meryl Streep: Political Biopic of an "Old Lady" Will be a Hard Sell at the Box Office

Evening Standard writer Liz Hoggard reports about a dinner she was invited to at the home of The Iron Lady director Phyllida Lloyd to talk about film with several other female writers along with Meryl Streep and screenwriter, Abi Morgan.

Clearly the powers that be know they have to get women (many who don't agree with Thatcher) to want to see the movie so they are doing everything they can to build buzz. There's no one who can sell the film as well as Streep who is so respected and cares deepply about women's issues. It's smart to begin the conversation in England where people have a very different relationship to Thatcher. It will be an even bigger challenge here in the US to get people to see the film since we don't have as deep of a connection (like or hate) to her. Still, I can't wait for her to get to the US to start talking about the film.

By Melissa Silverstein
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November 16, 2011 10:45 AM
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