Real Women Walking And Talking

I came across Allison Bechdel's  "Bechdel test" while reading one of Ted Hope's blogs.  First popping up in 1985 in her comic Dykes to Watch Out For, the Bechdel test has since become somewhat of a cultural touchstone among females in the business (and those sensitive to the portrayal of women on film), representing the sad truth about the female role in American cinema: that very few films on the marquee are able to pass 3 very simple rules:

1-The film has to have at least two women in it
2- Who talk to each other
3-About something besides a man

Now I'm not a feminist, but I was shocked to see that of the 1145 movies in the database, only about 50% passed all 3 parts of the test.  And these were movies that were self-reported!  

Studios still don't believe that their audiences want to see anything but white, straight, male leads.  And if women are involved, they sure don't want them talking to each other about anything other than love, men and babies.  It's hard to say if this widely held opinion has actually been proven right or not because so few movies have been given the marketing and P&A budget to test it.  Sure, there may be a greater variety of fare outside of Hollywood, but its a shame that the mainstream has so little faith in the interests of their audience that they continue to perpetuate stereotypes on screen that for the most part have been done away with in real life.


Check out what films pass The Bechdel Test.

Fake Imax is Wack.

I'm sure this has been circulating for a while, but I just stumbled across Aziz Ansari's awesome rant about the weak shit IMAX has been pulling on us.  In AMC theaters around the country, the IMAX brand has been slapped onto theaters that have large screen digital projections, but not that true awe-inspiring mammoth projection we know from watching shark, train and planet movies at museums and other institutions. This wouldn't be such a big deal if AMC wasn't charging upwards of $5 more for this label.  It costs five extra dollars (and sometimes more) to see a film in NYC's AMC Empire 25 IMAX digital theater, with its 28x58-foot (8.5x18 meter) screen. Audiences see the IMAX name on the theater and have no idea until after their ticket has been torn and they walk into the auditorium that that screen is about the same size as the one in the adjacent 35mm auditorium, and less than a quarter the size of the one in the AMC Lincoln Square IMAX 15/70 theater, 26 blocks away. 

Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes!  Read Aziz's rant for his highly entertaining take on things:

Aziz gets mad at Imax and blogs about it