ERIN BROCKOVICH (2000) 



Julia Roberts’ breakthrough film, Pretty Woman (about the magical romantic possibilities of being a whore) was a monster hit, if not exactly a high water mark in the history of feminism (be sure to look for it on our upcoming Girl Dis-Empowering Top Ten). Erin Brockovich, meanwhile, was the flipside of the equation: a realistically desperate woman who succeeds in spite of, rather than because of her prominent cleavage...and in this quasi-true story, the prize at the end of the fairy tale isn’t a rich millionaire, but a million dollars the single-mother-turned-investigative-paralegal earns for herself (as a bonus from Albert Finney's lawyer/mentor Ed Masry) through brains and tenacity during the course a battle royale with an evil...uh, utility company. And talk about empowering: Roberts went on to win an Oscar for Best Actress, she and director Steven Soderbergh got to hang out with George Clooney and screenwriter Susannah Grant went on to write and direct...Catch and Release with Jennifer Garner and Kevin Smith. Which must have been nice for her.

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When a small, perhaps technically ragged movie strikes gold, the way films as different as Chasing Amy and My Big Fat Greek Wedding did, it may be because there are a lot of people who think that it connects with their lives in a way that glossy Hollywood product never does. Sometimes, this can be confusing, and even disconcerting, to critics and studio people who aren't a part of that target audience, and who don't know what to make of the news that we're not yet all part of one, big totally homogeneous culture. But it's been clear for a long time now that black women don't see their fantasies or their real-life concerns reflected in most Hollywood movies, and that they feel that as a loss. Waiting to Exhale shocked critics by how thoroughly it cashed in with that audience; Dreamgirls got a toehold with them. But for the last couple of years, it's Tyler Perry who's really picked that ball up and run with it. And his audience, with many black women, has responded gratefully and loudly to having a one-man entertainment industry they can call their own. Perry's movies — he's written, directed, and co-produced two features this year, Daddy's Little Girls and the new Why Did I Get Married?, and co-stars in the latter — combine broad comedy with church-based moral lessons and sociological observations, in a way that his fans find uplifting. His studio, Lions Gate, has basically stopped screening them for critics, partly because they know that mainstream critics don't get it, but also because his real audience is so aware of who he is and what to expect from him that his movies are pre-sold without reviews.

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