Angelina Jolie

"Maleficent" Succeeds in (Finally!) Creating a Complex Witch

Whether they’re keeping busy as mistresses of all that is evil or simply threatening to get you and your little dog, too, bad witches in film have it rough. Hollywood’s villainous witches are often driven to cruelty by the sheer power they wield. More than that, they’re often portrayed as figures of irrational hysteria next to their cool male counterparts. But tired portyals of witches on-screen get a refreshing shock this summer: Disney’s new dark fantasy, Maleficent, succeeds in complicating the image of the bad witch.

Maleficent, the Isolated and Powerful Fairy Queen

Disney’s much-hyped new adaptation of the classic Sleeping Beauty fairytale steers the story away from the familiar dashing prince protagonist, focusing instead on the story’s supposed villain: Angelina Jolie takes wing... Read more »

On Our Radar: Today's Feminist News Roundup

Happy hump-day! Here’s some of the feminist news we’ve been reading at Bitch HQ.   For those who can’t get enough of Angelina’s mastectomy,... Read more »

Stop Telling Angelina Jolie to Eat a Cheeseburger

Look, I get that Angelina Jolie is thin, and that she also burns the brightest of all of our Bright Hollywood Stars and is therefore subject to more scrutiny than your average woman. However, body snarking of the “eat a sammich, skinny” variety is hardly different from body snarking of the “stop... Read more »

No Kidding: Jennifer Aniston, We Hardly Know You

Is there any famous childless woman whose fertility is as scrutinized as Jennifer Aniston's? In the past five years, since she and Brad Pitt split up so he could go build a global village with Angelina Jolie (a topic worth an entire blog series of its own if you ask me!), how many times do you... Read more »

Snarky's Cinemachine: Evelyn Salt should smile more!

Cinematic depictions of spies devoid of engaging personalities are no novelty. In fact, with the exception of James Bond, more often than not, cinematic spies tend to provide more authenticity when they are not weighed down with personality traits at levels best left to proverbial used car... Read more »

Snarky's Cinemachine: The Salt Supremacy

Hollywood has a well established history of ineptitude as it relates to balancing the wishes of fans with the desire for strong box office numbers. Producers would be wise to create entertainment, which privileges preservation of source material or genre conventions over profit concerns, as many... Read more »

Snarky's Cinemachine: Why I Watch What I Watch

The action thriller flick Salt starring Angelina Jolie opens today and I plan to be there for the earliest showing possible (to avoid the crowds and I have tons of grant writing to do this weekend!) in order to vote with my dollars for the kind of movie... Read more »

Douchebag Decree: Special tabloid gender-panic edition!

  Let me just say right up front that I don't expect any of the following from Life&Style, Us Weekly, or any of the other mags barfing their neon coverlines all over the Safeway checkout line: Accuracy, subtlety, reason, nuance, intelligence, imagination, responsibility, or feminism. They're... Read more »

The Box's Crushes of the Week: Saturday Night New Girls

Maybe I over-post about Saturday Night Live, but I just can't help myself. This season is one of the best ever! Plus, I'm thrilled with the screen time that female cast members are getting. The newest lady cast members, Michaela Watkins and Abby Elliott, are especially crushable. They were... Read more »

In Sorta Good News, Tomb Raider is Returning to the Big Screen

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. is developing a new film adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider video game.  In line with approach J.J. Abrams has taken for... Read more »