I recall that in the first drafts of Star Wars, Luke Skywalker was a woman. One has to wonder if the blockbuster era of movies would have been any different if he had been. Perhaps not.

I'm not going to defend Banks specifically, I've never even seen any of her films. (Sure, I'm just as much a hypocrite here.) And I'm not calling for 'box-ticking' as such. Just for influential directors to cast their imaginations a little wider when considering what projects appeal to them.

Is she? Did she say that?

I didn't find that scene horrendously misogynist or anything, but it was a bit odd, because it highlighted the way Jurassic World failed to make you care about its characters. Personally, I did care a bit about Eddie's death in The Lost World because the filmmakers had given you enough to sympathise with him. Whereas…

"Maybe Scorsese and Spielberg don't direct female leads because they feel they would do them a disservice."
This is, frankly, the lamest excuse ever. 'Sorry ladies, I know you'd like more films with female leads, but I worry I'd fail to meet your high standards and injure your precious little feelings. I hope another…

I'd say Spielberg is an entirely logical target, because he's so widely loved and (rightly) respected as one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation. Which makes it all the more striking to highlight this unfortunate tendency in his career.

Approximately the same number as Spielberg has. I'm not sure why that should undermine her point.

"Male directors tell stories about men, female directors tell stories about women…"
This isn't necessarily true though, e.g. I'm not sure Kathryn Bigelow has directed a film with a female lead. If she can find it in her imagination to present stories from a male perspective, I'm sure Spielberg could do the opposite if…

Sometimes I think I'm the only person who likes Willie in Temple of Doom. She's a completely different character to Marion in Raiders, but still a load of fun, and many of her scenes with Indy are hilarious. Much better than that boring Nazi lady in Last Crusade.

That's kind of the issue. I'm sure he's not 'opposed to female protagonists', and the many people who've worked on his movies would say the same. But it just so happens that, as a result of Spielberg (and other influential directors) making the films they want to make, we end up with few films with female protagonists.

Lol.
Grand Jewish conspiracy plans:
- Make R-rated movies with so much profanity they get censored by Sony
- ???
- Profit!

I sense there is not going to be much point in continuing this. So I'll just say that you don't seem to understand what 'identity politics' or 'racism' mean.

There does seem to be a tendency these days for commentators to consider teen girls particularly impressionable, and worry disproportionately about media's effect on them. Though I guess it makes a change from the 90s, when they worried about the effect on teen boys of rap music and violent video games.

Someone rolls out the old MLK quote to argue that we should all pretend racism doesn't exist. Take a drink.

I don't agree that the likes of The Mary Sue are 'picking a battle' with the New York Times, though. To use your terminology, they're clearly targeted at 'group B-2', not 'group A' or 'group B' readers. I visit TMS sometimes, but when I do it's not for general recommendations or the quality of the writing, but for the…

Psst - if you're having trouble typing 'Wachowski', you may want to turn off autocorrect.

It's actually based on a novel by Neal Stephenson, but they misspelled the title.

Pfft. Like a game inspired by the works of Ayn Rand could be successful…

Although in this case it would seem that the movie actually is political, or at least that politics are one theme. Hopefully T'Challa spends more time punching people than making speeches to the Wakandan parliament.

This movie was made in that strange time in the 80s-90s when every blockbuster movie had to have a hit power ballad theme tune. I kind of miss those days. (But I don't Wanna Miss A Thing…)