Where's This Generation's Thelma and Louise?
By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (31)
There still aren’t a huge amount of movies geared toward women these days, and sadly, women-oriented films are usually movies like Twilight or lame traditional romantic comedies. When’s the last time a major studio produced a movie that focused on a real kick-ass lady? Where’s this generation’s Thelma and Louise? When the Pajibettes ran their post last month on the Best Chick Flicks of All Time, only two were from this decade, and those were Bring it On and Happy Go Lucky, which only highlights the dearth of good female friendly films. Truly strong females are a rarity, and when they do appear, they’re usually bitches (The Devil Wears Prada) or killers (Kill Bill).
This news doesn’t change the landscape, unfortunately. Cameron Diaz has signed on to Bad Teacher, about a “foulmouthed, gold-digging middle-school teacher who, after getting dumped by her boyfriend, competes with a colleague for the affections of the school’s model teacher.” Great, another bitch. And probably a simpering one, at that.
The good news here is that Jake Kasdan will direct, which is actually something of a mixed bag — he’s directed one phenomenal film (Zero Effect), a good one (The TV Set), and a couple of mediocre ones (Walk Hard and Orange County). I will forever give Kasdan the benefit of the doubt after Zero Effect, but the deck is stacked against him, here: “The Office” writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky penned the script, which sounds great until you remember that they also wrote the script for one of the year’s worst films, Year One (and also the Ghostbusters III script). They also wrote last week’s episode of “The Office,” which was one of the most brutal episodes of television I’ve ever suffered through — it wasn’t a bad episode, mind you, but it took all the strength I could muster not to fast forward through the awkwardness. (Also, why are they turning Krasinski into a buffoon?)
In related, female-movie news, here’s the next poster for Sex and the City II. I hate the tagline, if only because it gets a Kansas song stuck in my noggin.
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Comments
Posted by: Carrie at December 10, 2009 11:37 AM
See, I kind of hate myself, because I own the first film, and it's not even that good, and I will go and see this one, even though they shouldn't be making them because there's really not all that much left to say about these women.