Why the hell is Sigourney Weaver not in movie after movie any more??? John Travolta is, and most of his movies the past decade quite frankly suck! In the 70's, 80's and 90's, Weaver was in some of Hollywood's greatest movies, Alien and it's sequels, Gorilla's In The Mist, Working Girl, The Ice Storm (and the not so great, but I still love Copycat) just to name a few.
Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, The Natural, Reversal Of Fortune, The World According to Garp.
Even Demi Moore, until her mid thirties, had hit after hit with G.I Jane, Disclosure, Ghost, Indecent Proposal and A Few Good Men. Then...pretty much nothing.
Kyra Sedgwick
Glenn Close, smartly joined Mary Louise Parker, Kyra Sedgwick and Holly Hunter on cable tv, starring in wonderful, character driven shows with writers who know how to write for strong women.
Demi and Sigourney sort of dropped off the face of the earth, with only small parts, small movies and tv guest shots the last decade or so. Sigourney looks to be launching a comeback with her role in Avatar, but really this woman should be working more!
Holly Hunter
This past year, the top 10 grossing movies were:
1 Transformers 2
2 Harry Potter: Half-Blood Prince
3 Up
4 The Hangover
5 Star Trek
6 Twilight: New Moon
7 Monsters vs. Aliens
8 Ice Age 3
9 Wolverine
10 Night at the Museum 2
Although The Ryan Reynolds, Sandra Bullock flick 'The Proposal' was 11, not one (except maybe...Twilight) of the top 10 movies features a woman in a lead. Kevin James, Paul Blart: Mall Cop even made more money than Meryl Streep's Julie and Julia.
What exactly does all this mean? Not really sure, it certainly is not about peoples entertainment preferences, women still dominate many of the best roles on television. There are many reasons, from international distribution to the fact that with the exception of The Hangover, 9 of the top 10 flicks listed above are 'special effects' driven flicks that appeal as much to teenagers as to adults.
Meryl Streep, Bullock and Jodie Foster seem to be a few of the female US stars able to continue to be cast in leading roles. I keep coming back to the wonderful Sigourney Weaver. No real point to this post except to once again say, Weaver, and all of the actress's mentioned in this post can act the pants off Travolta, Tom Cruise and Will Smith. It is just shameful they are not gracing our movie screens more often.
So glad Katherine Hepburn and Bette Davis were born when they were or they would be playing Shia LeBeof's mother in some summer blockbuster...
So kudos to televison. From; That Girl, Julia, Sue Ellen Ewing, Cagney and Lacy, Dr. Kerry Weaver, Carrie Bradshaw,Olivia Bensen, Wilhelmina Slater,Nora Walker and many others, tv continues to give us wonderful female characters who viewers love and invest in. Sad that the motion picture business cannot seem to do the same.
Glenn Close.
