diane english Tagged Articles at Cinematical

400 Screens, 400 Blows is a weekly column that takes an in-depth look at the films playing below the radar, beneath the top ten, and on 400 screens or less.

Not long ago, newspapers began showing signs of trouble, which included the laying off of film critics. At around the same time, and probably not connected in any way, studios began increasingly to open movies in theaters without screening for the press, realizing that stupid Tyler Perry movies, or horror remakes, or what have you, would probably make money regardless of what the reviews said. These combined factors led to a series of editorials asking about the necessity of film critics. Thankfully, that discussion has died down, and we're still here. And I can add that I don't think The Dark Knight (375 screens) would have done such monster business without the enthusiastic approval of nearly every critic on the planet.

But what needs to be discussed now is the necessity of directors. If film criticism was viewed yesterday as a job that anyone could do (no knowledge of film or film history necessary!) then film directing today is viewed in much the same way. Take a look at the colossal mess that is Mamma Mia! (279 screens). Here's a film that cost $50 million, and it was entrusted to Phyllida Lloyd, who had no experience. From the looks of things, Lloyd probably decided that, as long as it looks like everyone is having fun, then it doesn't matter if things like tone, moods and pacing ever matches up. You can have self-conscious musical numbers one moment, then moody, emotional ones the next. You can have a knockout performance by Meryl Streep and a mixed one by Pierce Brosnan.

The gimmick of The Women is that no men appear anywhere in it -- not as background extras, not as voices on the phone, nowhere. It's all women, all the time. Which might sound empowering and feminist, except that the women are all shallow, vain, and petty, and their primary topic of conversation is, you guessed it, men. (Also: shoes, manicures, shopping, facelifts, etc.) If this were any other film, I suspect women would be complaining about Hollywood's sexism and misogyny. But hey, we men had nothing to do with this one. This one is all you.

Written and directed by Murphy Brown creator Diane English as an update of the 1939 George Cukor comedy (itself based on a Clare Boothe Luce play), the film establishes its tone in its first scene, with two women walking their dogs in New York City. The dogs fight, and the women, their faces invisible to us, respond cattily to one another. One remarks that the other's shoes are "last season," then confides to her dog that the other woman is "a word not usually heard outside a kennel." I think that's supposed to be a joke, but if the word she's referring to is "bitch," then I've got news for her about how its usage has spread.

And that's the movie: women harping on and mistreating one another, and cracking jokes that aren't funny.

I guess we won't be seeing the first female President of the United States in 2009, but we could at least see the first female cinematographer nominated for an Academy Award (in the cinematography category, that is). In the 80 years of the Oscars there hasn't been one female nominee for Best Cinematography. Shocking, isn't it? But fortunately there's a chance for next year's ceremony: Mandy Walker, who shot Baz Luhrman's war epic Australia, could be a shoo-in for one of the five nomination slots if the film is Oscar-worthy in general.

The Oscar blog In Contention points out the possibility in a recent post celebrating Walker's reception Tuesday evening of the Kodak Vision Award at the Women in Film's Crystal + Lucy Awards (other honorees included Salma Hayek, Sherry Lansing, Ginnifer Goodwin, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Diane English and the ensemble of The Women). Clearly we only need to look at the trailer to see that Walker's work on the film is gorgeous and might have a shot. In Contention also notes Walker's previous achievements, such as her Independent Spirit Award nomination for Shattered Glass.

It might have taken ten years for this to come together (go here for the run-down), but The Women has finally been shot, and now we have the above trailer (you can also catch it on Yahoo). Based on the 1939 film by George Cukor, the film focuses on some gossipy high-society women who find out that the husband of one of them is cheating with a sexy shopgirl (Eva Mendes).

With more modern snark than the original, this one has all the requirements that have been super-glued to women-centric movies: marriage, gossiping, babies, shopping ... shall we keep going? What makes it really disappointing is that this incarnation was written by the woman who penned 37 episodes of Murphy Brown -- Diane English. I can only hope that there's more to it than the commercial shares. (Although it does offer gimlet goodness, which is always a plus.) But there's one thing we definitely won't see -- any emotive and subtle facial expressions from Meg Ryan. I miss the pre-face-freeze Meg days.

Starring Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett Smith, Carrie Fisher, Debra Messing, Candice Bergen and Bette Midler, The Women arrives in theaters on September 12.

The women have been really hard to come by -- at least when The Women in question is a remake of the 1939 classic. (What is it with the year 1939 lately?) MGM was first focused on the project, but no real headway was made and the title was sold to Ted Turner as part of MGM's library. He, in turn, bought New Line and made the film a starring vehicle for Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan, with James L. Brooks signed on to direct (1994). It was at this point that Diane English was brought on to the production, a writer known for her work on Murphy Brown. It took a handful of years and then she was named director of the project in 2001. It took another 5 years to get further, when Matt Bradshaw posted about the cast of the film, which consisted of Meg Ryan, Lisa Kudrow, Anne Hathaway and Candice Bergen. It was supposed to start shooting in March, but nothing happened when Spring rolled around.

Now Variety has the scoop on The Women, which almost has a finalized cast, and has gotten an actual start date -- August 6 -- over ten years after the adaptation was put in the works. Some of the cast has stayed the same, and some have changed. Along with Ryan and Bergen, actresses in final talks are Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett Smith and Debra Messing. That's really one hell of a cast considering that the film has got a budget under $20 million. One of the backers is Dove, you know, the soap? When the film begins to be marketed, I imagine there will be lots and lots of soap-centric commercials with these leading ladies. As for how the title is translated over 60 years later, word has it that English's "script maintains the arch spirit of the original, and the all-female cast, but the gals aren't as relentlessly catty this time around." It is, however, still about the group of female friends and how one's husband is cheating on her.

As reported over at Production Weekly, Diane English, who won an Emmy for her writing on Murphy Brown, is about to direct her first feature film, and with talent like Meg Ryan, Lisa Kudrow, Anne Hathaway and Candice Bergen in tow, she's off to a good start. Kudrow's always good for a quirky character, and I look forward to seeing Hathaway in more adult roles like the one she played in Brokeback Mountain (though I didn't quite find her believable as the age she was playing by the end of that movie). The film is question is The Women based on a 1939 movie of the same name that had an impressive cast of its own including Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and Joan Fontaine. The original film was directed by George Cukor, the man behind the unfinished 1962 Marilyn Monroe film Something's Got to Give, as well as My Fair Lady and the 1954 version of A Star is Born.

English's film will be about a tight-knit group of high society women and how they deal with friendship, divorce and betrayal. The women spend their days at the beauty salon and haunting fashion shows. The sweet, happily-wedded Mary Haines finds her marriage in trouble when shopgirl Crystal Allen gets her hooks into Mary's man; sounds a bit like an upscale Sex and the City to me. No word yet on which actor will be playing which character. I'm not familiar with Cukor's original film, but I have to imagine an American film from 1939 had to deal with the topic of divorce quite delicately, thanks to the Hayes Code. Obviously English won't have that problem, and since she has a proven track record for writing strong female characters, this should be a film to watch out for. The Women begins shooting in March.