Comments on: All Old Movies Still Suck

By: artdyke

artdyke — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:55:55 +0000

@Annie/julia: I do live in a house full of *extremely* talented recent film school grads willing to work for free on a project they believe in!

By: ew_nc

ew_nc — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:34:31 +0000

As awful as the mid-century sex farce movies are, there is a current one that is just as bad. It could be a primer for patriarchal behavior. I’ve only seen the trailers, but those were enough to tear the ligaments of my obstrepal lobe. It’s called, fittingly enough, “The Ugly Truth”. It’s the classic “men and women are SO different” premise. In one charming scene, the guy schools the woman by telling her that a man’s maturation ends with potty-training. Well duh, we knew that. In another scene, he tells her that a woman should always be a combination of stripper and librarian. It’s quite unashamed in it’s misogyny, which in a way I guess is rather refreshing. At least they aren’t trying to pretend to regard women as anything but sex objects. However, the trailers still make me throw up in my mouth a bit.

By: Jezebella

Jezebella — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:23:40 +0000

Julia, here are two orgs already dedicated to helping women make films:

Women In Film at http://www.wif.org
Black Women Film Preservation Project at http://www.blackwomenfilm.org

No, they are not devoted to radfem filmmaking, but it’s a start.

By: Jezebella

Jezebella — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:20:11 +0000

The making of a 501(c)(3) foundation, allowing all contributions to be tax deductible, is an enormous task. They don’t just spring fully formed from the brow of the indolent blamer, alas.

By: julia

julia — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:57:09 +0000

I like this Blamatariat Production Co-operative idea. Yeah, we don’t have millions of dollars each, but a lot of us have a couple hundred, or a tenner, or a cool grand, and others of us have various skill sets, and yet more have word-of-mouth and friends who both blame and love films.
Seriously, I am but a poor biologist, but I would totally kick into the pot. (Would this be a non-profit, tax deductible donation?)
I mean this. Annie, this would be so awesome.

By: Redhead

Redhead — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:01:15 +0000

Veganrampage, Robert Osborne may well be a total MCP,but you might want to read a bit of W Somerset Maugham, who was a gay man whom I consider to be a real feminist, especially for his time.

Check out “The Colonel’s Lady”, a short story about a woman in a loveless marriage who falls for a younger man, they have a torrid affair and are madly in love, but he dies unexpectedly. She writes a long poem praising her younger lover’s looks and their love, commenting on her anguish but feeling that he was lucky to die in the full flush of passion, never having to undergo the sadness of having it fade with time, as so often happens. The book becomes a sensation (she publishes it privately in her maiden name-with her own money) and her husband lies when he tells her he’s read it, only to be embarrassed by one of his “fancy ladies” who describes the story to him…he later complains about the situation to a male lawyer acquaintance that men need a bit of action, but that women don’t care about sex-the lawyer’s response, “We only have men’s word for that” is one of the greatest lines in fiction, IMV.

Most of Maugham’s work is in exactly that vein-few authors are more fair or supportive of women than he is. Most of the movies made from his books have sadly been infected with Hollywood and are sometimes disappointing, but not really representative of his work or personal attitudes, again IMV.

Give him a try! IBTP

By: Angry Annie

Angry Annie — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:17:09 +0000

Lets make them.. Problem is I don’t know to many blamers with a million clams sitting around.. Do you? Not so many of us getting those Christmas wall street bonuses. The trouble is most of the smart people I know are also ethical which generally means they aren’t so rich. We need blamers with inherated cash!!! Someone else did the crime and they just had the benefit of being born female and enlightened. All for women as rich producers financing cool projects….

By: copykatparis

copykatparis — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:22:21 +0000

Angry Annie (and the others like her), please please please make those movies! Any way, any how, independently! We needs ‘em bad!

Hmmm, there’s an idea: an independent Blamers Film/Production Co. Then maybe there’d be more films/TV that don’t induce nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and the usual symptoms brought on by the P.

By: yttik

yttik — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:53:46 +0000

As to the remake of the Stepford wives, it was atrocious. At least in the old version it was chilling, a science fiction type of horror. In the remake it’s hard to tell the difference between a pornified, objectified, breathing woman and a robot and the men are flip about it. At least in the original they had the decency to portray it as a disturbing concept.

One of my favorite old movies is Gaslight. At least she wins in the end. It’s pretty funny when she has her husband tied to a chair and a knife in her hand and he tries to appeal to her sanity. She reminds him he just spent the past year convincing her and everyone else that she was crazy which now makes her free to take no responsibility for her actions.

By: Antoinette Niebieszczanski

Antoinette Niebieszczanski — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:13:58 +0000

“Can anyone look at the intelligent, open face of Matthew Broderick, who plays Kidman’s husband, and believe, even for a second, that he’d prefer a placid zombie to a complicated woman?”

It’s my contention that almost every man on the planet would prefer a placid zombie.

In the original, Katharine Ross’s robot features the transformation of her small breasts into what doods call “hooters” when they don’t think we’re listening. But that wasn’t the part that terrified me. It was her empty eye sockets. (The robot had come to murder Ms. Ross and steal her eyes, shit-oh-dear.)

I read this book at the rather impressionable age of 15, and I believe it was at least part of why I never, ever wanted to get married. It was way too close to the reality of what men really want women to be for my comfort.