Jane Fonda on female directors in Hollywood.

Excerpted from Jane Fonda's blog; the post is about the recent Sundance Film Festival:
We talked about the reasons there aren’t more women directors (major studios are run by men who feel safer betting on what’s familiar…what looks like them…and with few exceptions, the very few women who have run studios have not been staunch supporters of women directors. So why is this an important issue? Women see things differently. The subjects, the stories that appeal to us are very often different from those appealing to men. Not always but in general, women tend towards relationship-based films rather than violent, special effects-laden movies or what have come to be known as ‘tent pole’ movies with humungous budgets. And it’s not just a question of women not having experience making big budget films. Men who lack that experience have been hired to direct movies with budgets over $100 million. If there were more staunch women heads of studios there’d likely be more films directed by women and more women in the lead roles. When this is missing, the issues, concerns and sensibilities of half the world’s population is missing in action and, since most people don’t even think about it, they view the situation as simply the way things are. Fortunately, women directors have been gaining ground in the independent film and documentary fields and the problem is being discussed more and more so that, eventually, the situation will hopefully change. I hope I’m still around to see it!

http://www.janefonda.com/lily-jane2-do-sundance/

Sins forever considered unforgivable: Jane Fonda, Artie Lange and me.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jane-fonda-criticizes-qvc-far-212264
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/07/16/jane-fonda-blames-canceled-qvc-appearance-on-the-right-wing/
http://www.danpatrick.com/2011/07/15/artie-lange-talks-about-returning-to-radio-to-do-sports/
http://www.tmz.com/2011/07/14/artie-lang-radio-howard-stern-directv-nick-dipaolo-hopfully-supportive-support/
http://poetry-arts-confidential.blogspot.com/2011/04/annual-plea-for-forgiveness-re-ugly-mug.html
http://poetry-arts-confidential.blogspot.com/2011/05/re-ugly-mug-its-all-over-for-me.html

Ethan Hawke's 20 favorite Kris Kristofferson songs.

Actor/filmmaker/novelist Ethan Hawke has a lengthy profile of country music legend/veteran actor Kris Kristofferson in the current issue of ROLLING STONE: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/27113898/the_last_outlaw_poet (worth reading for the opening passage regarding Kris arguing with a self-righteous Toby Keith--not named in the article--backstage at a Willie Nelson And Friends concert in 2003).

Some minor criticism on my part: Hawke omits a seminal early-70s Kristofferson film, Bill Norton's CISCO PIKE (with Kris as a fallen-on-hard-times musician dealing drugs and Gene Hackman as a corrupt cop) and solely attributes the slowdown in Kristofferson's film career circa-early-80s to the artistic and commercial depth charge of HEAVEN'S GATE (without mentioning the flop of the more mainstream ROLLOVER--intended as a sort of CHINA SYNDROME of the financial sector--with Jane Fonda).

Here's Ethan's 20 favorite Kristofferson songs: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/27207147/the_essential_kris_kristofferson