Saturday, March 01, 2008

Women's History Month

March is Women's History Month.

What better way to celebrate than to head over to Nick's Flick Picks for his new and, frankly, awesome Best Actress Section which will one day serve as a complete and super valuable opinionated history of Oscar's best category. Nick has me turning this color. I knew this was cooking since I had the pleasure of seeing the rough draft (and oh yes, it made me late for work the day he sent it my way...) and I've often wanted to go some place similar myself, but when to find the time?

If you have any suggestions for how The Film Experience should celebrate Women's History Month, do share in the comments.

33 comments:

Peter Nellhaus said...

I guess it's incentive for me to write about more films directed by women.

gabrieloak said...

Thanks for pointing out Nick's Best Actress list.

I don't agree with his assessment of Christie's performance this year, however. Accusing her of underacting?
Can't this woman ever get a break.

Please, please, don't rename this month Marion Cotillard Month. Thank goodness the Oscars are over.

Anonymous said...

Nick loves Marion Cotillard as much as I do! <3 Preach it, brother! Offer some kind of counterpart to this one-sided site.

gabrieloak said...

I do give credit to Nick for loving Laura Linney!!!

Didn't Marion's Oscar win give her fans ENOUGH satisfaction?

ryan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
NATHANIEL R said...

davey don't be silly. Marion's fans will only be satiated once she is proclaimed queen empress of the cinema, usurps Deneuve's position as the face of France, and wins two more Oscars.

one oscar for her work wasn't enough. They should make an exception and give her TWO oscars for that performance ;)

no amount of congratulating her (which i've done) saying nice things (which i've done) and linking to counter arguments like those of my good friend Nick's (which i've done) will convince her fans that I am open to hearing other opinions besides my own

question: if i only ever wanted to hear my own thoughts or people who agreed with me, why the hell would i have a comments section? You can shut them off you know. they're not automatic.

but then.. i do freely admit that the absolute fever of the Marion junkies has been deeply disturbing to me all year and may have possibly clouded my ability to take a second look at her work. I fear it's turned me off for good from exploring her other performances. I hope not since maybe she's done other fine work. but it's all been way too creepy.

i haven't seen anything like it since i dissed Naomi Watts in 21 Grams and got weirdly personal hate mail for months afterwards.

s-p-o-o-k-y

John T said...

Nick's Best Actress site is, to quote his favorite Best Actress performance (break out your Southern accents), "awe-inspiring."

As for ways to celebrate women's history month here-why not do a Tuesday Top 10 of the women who have been most deserving in the Best Director category in the last 80 years? You know that the likes of Wertmuller, Streisand, and such are due for some love.

NATHANIEL R said...

i just realized that the Cotillard bit i shouldnt have posted. errr...

really trying to move on.

WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH!
NICKS FLICK PICKS "BEST ACTRESS SPECIAL"

these are worthy enough topics without the rehashing. My apologies...

Anonymous said...

Didn't Marion's Oscar win give her fans ENOUGH satisfaction?

No, it didn't, and all of her fans love to throw it into your pompous face every chance we get for all the shit that you talked about Marion Cotillard all season long, and all of your proclamations that you KNEW that she'd lose to Julie Christie.

no amount of congratulating her (which i've done) saying nice things (which i've done) and linking to counter arguments like those of my good friend Nick's (which i've done) will convince her fans that I am open to hearing other opinions besides my own.

You're not open to hearing anything other than your one-sided view on biopics and deglamming, and claiming otherwise is extremely disingenous on your part, again.

NATHANIEL R said...

ok anonymous...

i'll try to take the high road here against my better judgment for engaging you.

you write:

"no, it didn't"

my question to you then:

why would the Oscar win NOT appease you? Isn't that the highest film honor? What do you want Marion Cotillard to still have that she doesn't?

i'm genuinely curious as to what you would need to feel she has been appropriately honored for her magnificence?

NATHANIEL R said...

oh and also. I think you just aren't a careful reader because I actually predicted Marion to win... and you're accusing me of claiming that i KNEW she would lose.

say what?

I was one of the first to predict Marion and I always referred to it as a tight race when other sites were saying that Julie had it sewn up. I also predicted Marion to actually win BEFORE that huge waves of last minute prediction changes went in Marion's favor before sunday's announcement.

so what are you smoking exactly?

so in addition to being unsatisfied with her Oscar win (bizarre) you're ill informed on top of that.

why do i even bother addressing your concerns.

they do't even make sense.

Anonymous said...

Whoa, anonymous...take a serious pill.

Go ahead and get your own blog and you can rave until you're blue in the face about how magnificent Marion is...meanwhile, there are plenty of people who enjoy reading Nathaniel's highly thought-out assessments and opinions, even if we happen to disagree with them.

You and all these other posters are giving Marion's supporters a bad reputation for...how should I put this...being"not open to hearing anything other than your one-sided view" that Marion put in the performance of the century and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot.

gabrieloak said...

I've read more of Nick's site on actresses and I'm fascinated. Many intelligent insights.

But I'm surprised he liked Juila Roberts' performance so much. That one I don't get. The real Erin Brockovich came to speak at the university where I work and she wasn't thrilled with her performance--and didn't want Roberts to play her.

NATHANIEL R said...

i actually love Julia in that movie too. Such a full performance --all her charisma and a really detailed characterization. but i still would have voted for Ellen Burstyn.

gabrieloak said...

I wouldn't mind seeing something on Best Women Screenwriters with the recent win for Cody and the recognition of other women scribes by the Academy this year.

gabrieloak said...

I think I was too much in love with Linney that year to love Julia.

The Jaded Armchair Reviewer said...

Nathaniel, you should feel in turn honored that anonymous finds a Film Bitch Gold Medal for Marion to be a higher reward than an Academy Award.

But you did not give her her Film Bitch Gold Medal thus the hounds of Cotillard will forever be after you.

But never fear, I have a continuously evolving theory that people who beat out Cate Blanchett at the Oscars don't seem to prosper.

Oh and for my suggestion, do a weekly "Versus" series of the real life persona versus the actress who portrayed her in the cinema.

Anonymous said...

js

Lol. Well, Paltrow and (to a lesser but more obvious extent) Hudson certainly fit that equation. I doubt Swinton will, though. Following an oscar with Jarmusch, the Coens, Fincher, and a big budget Disney blockbuster? Pretty damn secure. I think Swinton will benefit from the oscar (in that she'll get more screenplays to read), but I think the oscar won't really affect her trajectory. This is a women who followed the first Narnia film with a Bela Tarr epic, for chrissakes. Her entire career has been about the avoidance of cliche, and the hiccup that is the oscar won't change that.

NATHANIEL R said...

JS you so crazy. you actually think i should tempt fate with a whole biopic series ...

;)

gabrieloak said...

Hmm...besides women screenwriters, how about something on great foreign actresses? Problem is there are so many.

NATHANIEL R said...

i've come up with an idea! now i'll see if its' workable...

Anonymous said...

oh and also. I think you just aren't a careful reader because I actually predicted Marion to win... and you're accusing me of claiming that i KNEW she would lose.

say what?

I was one of the first to predict Marion and I always referred to it as a tight race when other sites were saying that Julie had it sewn up. I also predicted Marion to actually win BEFORE that huge waves of last minute prediction changes went in Marion's favor before sunday's announcement.

so what are you smoking exactly?

so in addition to being unsatisfied with her Oscar win (bizarre) you're ill informed on top of that.

why do i even bother addressing your concerns.

they do't even make sense.


Those comments were made in response to daveylow's comments, not yours. Stop being so daft. I knew exactly what you predicted.

Anonymous said...

Are you going to tell your readers when Asian American History month, Hispanic Heritage Month or Black History Month is or are you only interested in Women's History Month?

NicksFlickPicks said...

Thanks for the support, Nathaniel! It's been less than 24 hours, and I'm already learning through the polls that (among other things) there are more Lynn Fontanne fans out there than I possibly could have guessed.

NATHANIEL R said...

i'm interested in all things ;) but if readers want to know when each national holiday or history month or religious holiday or anything else is they can look it up.

in case you haven't noticed i'm kinda obsessed with actresses. so "women's history month" fits right in to the normal actress related festivities... i'm just trying to decide how.

i use to do a post on all events coming each month about a year ago but those posts never got any comments so i abandoned them.

Glenn Dunks said...

Nat, we all know you're a sexist racist xenophobe so stop pretending. These anonymous people (is it one or one hundred?) are clearly all correct. It's not right to have favourites on your own blog.

More than "not right", it's damn insulting. How dare you use your own blog (written in your own free time) to express your opinions. Who do you think you are? Jesus? I DON'T THINK SO!

NATHANIEL R said...

you forgot "ageist" . I also kick puppies

Glenn Dunks said...

You're agist against young attractive women winning oscars, that is true!

NATHANIEL R said...

only at the expense of older attractive actresses who are more deserving

hee. so it's a conditional ageism.

Anonymous said...

i am surprised at how much nick doesn't like the perfs most people think are some of the best ever a la blachett in 98 and burstyn in 2000,i personally think julia's win was deserved,can't wait for the early 90's and late 80's apraisals,some say 05 is worse for best actress check out 94 and get back to me.

NATHANIEL R said...

while i'll agree that 94 was a bad oscar / best actress year i actually thought it was a pretty good year for actresses. They just ignored all the interesting stuff on account of very NOT oscary.

imho Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers is better than any of the nominees... and that's just for starters. but no way in hell was that performance ever going to be honored ;)

Anonymous said...

some 94 performances that were overlooked jodie foster and miranda richardson i'd keep plus those with *inc

crissy rock ladybird ladybird*
kate winslet heavenly creatures
meg ryan when a man loves a woman*
sigourney weaver death and the maiden*
jennifer jason leigh mrs parker & the vicious circle
jamie lee curtis true lies
meryl streep the river wild

Glenn Dunks said...

That's interesting because I was just corresponding with someone over Facebook about 1994. He had just seen Big Sky and wondered what my top five actresses were for that year. I haven't actually seen any of that year's best actress nominees. How sad.

On the Julia thing, while I'd still have voted for Burstyn, I have no qualms with her winning. She was fantastic.