While you wait for the Star Wars Rebels finale, Fangirls Going Rogue has an interview with the show’s Executive Producer Dave Filoni that helps answers questions about the previous episodes. …
She made the movie she wanted, about a multiracial world and the loss of a beloved parent. “I know it’s $100 million” for Disney, she says. “They’ll be fine.”
Nice piece from New York Times about Ava DuVernay (one of my sheros) about her directorial work on A Wrinkle in Time (2018). I don’t think some people understand what a huge deal that a woman (especially a black woman) is directing a multi-million dollar big-budget studio movie. Women filmmakers are still scarce in Hollywood, so reading this makes my heart swell with hope.
Excerpted:
LOS ANGELES — “This is the house that ‘Wrinkle’ built,” the filmmaker Ava DuVernay said, giving a tour of a three-building complex — a large office around a bright courtyard, a two-story production facility and a light-filled event space, in a former paint factory here. It had been hers for about 24 hours, and already she had big plans for the décor. “We’re going to black woman-ify it,” she said.
Ms. DuVernay had just put the finishing touches on the Disney movie that paid for it, “A Wrinkle in Time,” her adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 young adult sci-fi classic. It, too, had been black woman-ified.
Her choices — in casting, tone and vision — have been as groundbreaking as the fact that she was directing it in the first place, the first woman of color at the helm of a $100 million studio tentpole. To hear her tell it, though, that milestone meant less to her than the opportunity to plant seeds, as she called it: cultivating, as she always has, a new way of looking at the world. She set out to “feminize” the movie, about a headstrong middle schooler — in this case, a biracial girl — who searches for her missing scientist father and saves the universe from encroaching evil.
“When you say ‘feminizing,’ people think of softness in certain places, but I think of strength in other places,” where it’s normally overlooked, Ms. DuVernay, 45, said.
and
“I’ve never seen that,” Ms. DuVernay continued. “I mean, I have a crew of thousands of people, and it’s not lost on me that I have white men coming up to me all day long like, ‘What do I do?’ And in my early career, there’s some white men that have a problem with that, a problem with even asking me what to do, and taking my direction and believing that I know what I’m saying, because they have no context for even seeing it.”
As the instigator of multiple diversity initiatives in Hollywood, Ms. DuVernay keeps giving them examples. Her ability to shape messages (she started out as a film publicist), her ease and clarion honesty in sharing complicated, personal truths, is rare.
and lastly:
The entertainment press made much of the fact that Ms. DuVernay had never worked with special effects (which is rarely belabored when male directors make the same leap). But neither had Ms. Winfrey. “My first time being hung from the ceiling!” she said. She found getting up and getting down so nerve-racking that she asked the crew to just keep her rigged up. “The crew’s going to lunch, and they’re like, well we can’t leave you hanging! I go, ‘Oh yeah, you can!’” she said. (She stayed up there. Just picture it.)
Ms. DuVernay, though, “was in her element,” Ms. Winfrey said, recalling that when she observed the huge cranes with the camera, “and there’s Ava, in her dreads and her sneakers and her vest and her jeans, surrounded by lots of big guys and lots of big machinery, saying, ‘Cut, stop, let’s take that again,’ it just would make my heart swell, that she had taken on something that was this enormous, and was managing it so well.”
Hand-stitched this little convor plush for moral support (Morai support???) for the Rebels finale tonight. Modified a pattern for an owl plush (from TeacupLion on etsy) which was supposed to be for stretchy fabric, but I used quilting calico like a dummy. Still, she turned out pretty cute (if a bit lumpy in spots)!
(and I totally think this is much like something Satine would’ve made for Bo-Katan when they were kids during the Mandalorian civil war - scrap fabric, imperfect seams, etc.)
On March 2nd, 2018 Fangirls Going Rogue had the chance to join in on a roundtable discussion with Star Wars Rebels Executive Producer Dave Filoni. We got to discuss topics from Kanan to the force a…
Not only does Black Panther have fantastic fashion in the film, but its continued to present beautiful apparel options for fans over the past month. There are also some treats for Mulan fans as wel…
After the release of The Force Awakens, Rey immediately took her place as one of the top-tier fan-favorite characters in the Star Wars franchise. Fans young and old, newfound and longstanding, foun…
After the release of The Force Awakens, Rey immediately took her place as one of the top-tier fan-favorite characters in the Star Wars franchise. Fans young and old, newfound and longstanding, found a heroine they could believe in and root for. Two years later, her popularity with the fans remains strong.
Rey’s prospects within the story, on the other hand, are more clouded. In February 2016, our post Rey At Risk: Keeping Lucasfilm Accountable to Her Potential explained our primary areas of concern for how the franchise – which has a less-than-stellar track record, spanning four decades, in concluding the tales of its prominent female characters – might let down Rey and her fans. We focused on three topics: the story told in The Force Awakens, the marketing of Rey and the movie, and the possibility that Rey’s hidden heritage could result in her role becoming subservient to the culmination of Kylo Ren’s arc in the Skywalker family saga. We concluded by emphasizing the importance of fans speaking up – for themselves and for Rey – to keep Lucasfilm accountable for how Rey’s story finishes.
Unfortunately, the release of The Last Jedi did not diminish these concerns. In some regards, in fact, the risks for Rey in Episode IX are even greater in light of The Last Jedi than they were after The Force Awakens alone.
The good news is that Episode IX is still being written, and will not enter principal photography until the summer of 2018. Moreover, with Lucasfilm’s proven willingness to undertake reshoots – sometimes very extensive and very expensive reshoots – on three of its last four Star Wars films, plenty of time remains to ensure Episode IX does right by Rey. For that reason, it is important to revisit the reasons Rey’s story is at risk now, while fans still have enough time to speak up before Episode IX seals her fate.
This charming picture book will introduce everyone’s favorite vampire slayer to a new generation of fans!
What’s that strange sound coming from inside the closet? Buffy, Xander, and Willow are determined to find out! The campy, cult-classic ‘90s TV show is now a charming picture book for fans who are still a little too young for slaying. Join little Buffy and her friends as they investigate the mysterious noise, consult Giles, the school librarian, and encounter all your favorite Buffyverse monsters. This sweet, silly, and not-so-scary book makes a perfect bedtime story, and is ideal for parents introducing the next generation to Buffy and fans looking to experience it in a whole new way. With eye-catching illustrations by Kim Smith, this newest addition to the POP Classics series is a must-have for the shelves of Buffy fans everywhere.
The Solo: A Star Wars Story teaser is finally here! Listener reactions lead a lively discussion about the trailer, plus related material released over at Entertainment Weekly. Sarah Woloski shares …
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