The MacGuffin

Michelle Williams seems to be quickly establishing herself as one of the most talented actresses working today. Despite her multiple Academy Award nominations and loads of acclaim, she has refused to take the easy road to success and star in big budget movies. She continues this trend of picking more challenging roles with her latest project Take This Waltz, the new film from indie darling Sarah Polley.

Being the film festival that bills itself as the largest in the country, it is only right and just that many interesting films by women are showing this year at the Seattle International Film Festival. The most high-profile of these was the film shown last night at the Opening Night Gala, Lynn Shelton’s Your Sister’s Sister. But if you, like me, sadly could not attend, there are plenty of other opportunities to support female filmmakers during the fest. By my count, 50 of the 273 features showing were directed or co-directed by a woman. While I’d still love to live in a world with a better ratio than that, 50 films is a lot of work to check out, and that’s great. I’ve been able to see a few I can recommend already.

Another Top 5 segment from The MacGuffin. This time Allen and Brandi share their top 5 tearjerkers.

This segment is also available on Stitcher, iTunes, and YouTube. The audio version can be downloaded directly from here. After you’ve watched the video please vote in our poll and share which one you think is the best.

If there’s one thing I hope I’ve done with this column so far, it’s show that though the overall percentages may be very skewed toward male filmmakers, there are many, many interesting projects out there being made by women. The numbers are getting better all the time, too—for this list of my five anticipated projects, I really had a hard time narrowing things down. Creating excitement and buzz for these films before they’re released is almost as important as seeing them when they are, so if I can contribute to that just a little bit, I’ll be a happier person.

If you’ve seen either of the podcasts I’ve guest hosted with Spencer over the last few weeks, you know I was excited for Splice. I was really hoping for a solid, entertaining sci-fi horror film. At the least, I hoped it would be schlocky fun.

Spencer is joined to by guest host Brandi Sperry for a discussion about Judd Apatow’s work in advance of the release of Get Him to the Greek, they reflect on the careers of Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, and give their DVD picks of the week.