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Two new films, "North Country" and "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio," have women giving Oscar-worthy performances and tackling compelling issues. But would these movies draw people to rush to the theaters?

In "North Country," which opened Friday, Charlize Theron plays a mine worker who summons the courage to file America's first class-action sexual harassment suit in the late 1980s. "Prize Winner," which is scheduled to open in the midstate this week, stars Julianne Moore as a 1950s housewife who keeps her family afloat winning money from jingo contests.

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Originally posted by steffie:
Do they mean "jingle contests"?

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Yes: http://wwww.gofishpictures.com/prizewinner/synopsis.html

[ 23 October 2005: Message edited by: Paul Gross ]

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Originally posted by kurichina:
I just read a review of North Country that labelled it as "Oprah feminism" but was fairly positive nonetheless.

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Judging by the trailer, I'm guessing this is accurate.

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I thought Theron was excellent in Monster.

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I'm not crazy about Charlize Theron, especially when there's this gimmick on to take her ultra-glamourous face and dirty it up to make it look 'ugly' or 'ordinary'.

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I didn't see the movie, but I was amused when one critic asked "are we out of ugly people now??"

I think it must be frustrating in the extreme for Theron to constantly receive accolades for successfully supressing her beauty. The beautiful and the ugly share the same curse: their superficial visual aspects are so distracting they're hard to see beyond--beauty especially in N. American culture (is ugly noticed here any more or less than elsewhere?). I think Theron's career is interesting to watch--it's its own little drama. For example, I'm curious why she's in "Aeonflux", a truly moronic movie where she looks like a 14 year-old boy's fantasy a la Catwoman, but maybe it's a contract thing.

Other things interesting to me: we do not hear (at least as much) statements like "Jude Law managed to supress his beauty and really made us believe him in this role." And although beautiful and talented actresses (that phrase!) in other countries, like Deneuve, Binoche, and my fave, Irene Jacob (I like French actresses so my sample's skewed), are admired for their looks, I don't think there's the same hoopla about them supressing their beauty when they pull off great performances.

Edited to add: the trailer for "Prize Winner" is so nauseatingly treacly! But it's hard to trust trailers. I can't see Julianne Moore in treacle, but who knows.

[ 24 October 2005: Message edited by: bittersweet ]

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Originally posted by audra trower williams:
A movie critic friend of mine said that he thought they maybe cast Theron in the role, because if it was more of a "plain" actor, everyone would have been just like "Oh as IF anyone would sexually harass HER."

Gah.

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I'm betting your movie critic friend is probably right. That is, that the producers of the movie would think that way, and that a lot of people in the audience would as well.

By the way, I'm trying to figure out how this is "ugly":

[ 26 October 2005: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:

By the way, I'm trying to figure out how this is "ugly":

[ 26 October 2005: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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And I really felt the music was poorly chosen. The songs rarely related to the scenes of the movie. It was really as if the producers thought, "Well, it's set in Minnesota and Bob Dylan's from Minnesota, so let's just put a bunch of random Bob Dylan songs throughout without any reference to the mood of the scenes."

The circumstances of the characters, humble homes, some frankly shabby, older model cars and trucks, a social life revolving around taverns and hockey rinks looked awfully like a very large stretch of Canada, from Newfoundland to Northern BC.

The pincipal character played by Theron faces not only sex discrimination and harassment but an equal oppression based on class, a point highlighted by the fact that the company is represented by a woman lawyer.

It's a puzzle to me, maybe someone else has answers, but over the past thirty or so years women have made a lot of progress entering such professions as law, medicine, and dentistry. Yet into such trades as electricity, plumbing, mechanics, and carpentry they have made barely a dent. So for working class women, it's still clerical or service work, or possibly teaching and nursing. Oh, and the police force.

Overall I thought it was a good movie, and most of all I enjoyed the gritty realism.

[ 15 November 2005: Message edited by: MasterDebator ]

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Originally posted by MasterDebator:
the company is represented by a woman lawyer.

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