A public service announcement.
Thanks to Ampersand, I now know the Mo Movie Measure isn’t really the Mo Movie Measure. If anything, it’s the Liz Wallace Movie Measure.
The measure? Works like this: think of a movie that meets the following criteria—
- It has to have at least two women in it.
- Who talk to each other during the course of the movie.
- About something besides a man.
I’ll let you cogitate for a bit. —Comes from a Dykes to Watch Out For strip that’s so old skool Mo wasn’t even in the cast yet, which is why it isn’t the Mo Movie Measure. When Bechdel did the strip back in 1985, the last movie she could think of that passed was Alien.
(Only I don’t remember calling it the Mo Movie Measure myself. I always remember it being referred to as Bechdel’s Rule, or the Dykes to Watch Out For Rule, which is more correct, though it doesn’t address Liz Wallace’s displacement. But what can I say? Alliteration is against her. The Mo Movie Measure is just so darned catchy!)
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Cold Comfort Farm. Which also has the virtue of being one of the funniest movies of the last couple of decades.
It’s always good to remind oneself that Kate Beckinsale is good for more than pleather-wrapped vampirics.
a few off the top of me head
Ingmar Bergman, "Persona"
James Cameron, "Aliens"
Jean-Pierre Jeunet, "Alien: Resurrection"
McG, "Charlie's Angels," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle"
John Carpenter, "Ghosts of Mars," "The Fog," "Halloween"
Karyn Kusama, "Aeon Flux"
Stephen Daldry, "The Hours"
John Sayles, "Lianna," "Casa de los Babys"
Walt Disney, "Snow White," "Cinderella"
David Lynch, "Mulholland Drive"
Sam Raimi, "The Gift"
Jon Avnet, "Fried Green Tomatoes"
Jim Jarmusch, "Coffee and Cigarettes"
Max Färberböck, "Aimee & Jaguar"
Gillian Armstrong, "Little Women"
Michael Tolkin, "The Rapture"
Robert Altman, "Three Women," "The Company,"