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Rory Kennedy's documentary about longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas, Thank You, Mr. President, premiered last night on HBO, and Thomas glowed as the thoughtful, intelligent woman she's widely known to be. Here, she's discussing an interaction with President Richard Nixon during a press conference in the thick of the Watergate controversy. At the beginning of the conference, Nixon congratulates Thomas on becoming the first woman to head UPI's Washington bureau. Thomas was planning on asking Nixon a hardball question, but briefly reconsidered since Nixon had so publicly complimented her. "What would America think?" Helen asked herself. But then she asked herself a more important question: "What are my peers going to think? That flattery will get you everywhere!" Clip above. (Full schedule of other showings here.) More »
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At a time when female directors are scarce and really teeny yet smart movies are, according to Maggie Gyllenhaal, "not financeable right now," Bend It Like Beckham's Gurinder Chadha has managed to make a really darling-looking film about the vagaries of being a 14-year-old-girl. Chadha's new movie, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is based on a best-selling YA book, and Chadha used Molly Ringwald's character in Sixteen Candles as a template for her heroine, the fictional Georgia Nicolson. Through this film, Chadha tells the Telegraph, she hopes to "instill confidence in [her young female fans], a sense of self-appreciation — to make them feel they can be spirited and say what they feel." The wholly endearing trailer, full of girls who look like normal teens and not over-rouged Bratz, is after the jump. More »
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For the more cynical among us, it's difficult to believe that someone could be as truly and purely charitable as Dr. Lois Lee. But after reading this profile of Lee in Good Magazine and the organization she singlehandedly founded called Children of the Night, which provides a halfway house for teen prostitutes, Lee's altruism is unassailable. Lee's first experience with underage prostitutes was as a sociology grad student at UCLA in the '70s. Lee attended a conference of the National Hookers’ Union, and there "she met Margot St. James, a former sex worker and a leader in the campaign for legalizing prostitution. James told her about a recent lawsuit won by the American Civil Liberties Union against Alameda County for prosecuting prostitutes and letting customers go free. A light bulb went on in Lee’s head. She returned to Los Angeles, where she filed a lawsuit against the LAPD for the same thing. And won. She was 27." More »
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Despite the "Tina Feytigue" experienced by some media mavens sick of the writer/actress/producer's PhotoShopped face coming at them from the cover of every magazine, I am still deeply psyched for Baby Mama, the Fey/Amy Poehler vehicle coming out on Friday. The Los Angeles Times points out that Universal, the studio that produced Forgetting Sarah Marshall as well as Baby Mama, was much more aggressive in marketing the former because it was a more typical romantic comedy. Lorne Michaels, SNL and BM producer, tells the paper, "Normally [comedies are] about a guy who gets dumped by a pretty girl and ends up with a prettier girl. This is not that." More »
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The much-beloved Tina Fey returns to prime time tonight with a brand new episode of 30 Rock, the first since the writers' strike ended. Not only that, but her new movie, Baby Mama hits theaters on April 25, and she's Entertainment Weekly's cover girl on the issue hitting stands tomorrow (she also graces the cover of the May issue of Marie Claire). The accompanying article, by Kristen Baldwin, is five pages long, so we picked out all the juicy quotes and placed them after the jump for your perusal. More »
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