Flick Chicks: A guide to women in the movies (Mindy Kaling)
This article no sooner hit yesterday than I was besieged by emails and Tweets recommending it. Mindy Kaling is an actress (Kelly Kapoor in “The Office”) and TV writer. The article is from the most recent New Yorker. An excerpt:
A few years ago, I sat down for a meeting with some executives at a movie studio that I will call Thinkscope Visioncloud. Thinkscope Visioncloud had put out several of my favorite movies, and they wanted to see if I had any feature ideas. I was very excited. I have a great job writing for “The Office,” but, really, all television writers do is dream of one day writing movies. I’ll put it this way: At the Oscars the most famous person in the room is, like, Angelina Jolie. At the Emmys the huge exciting celebrity is Bethenny Frankel. You get what I mean. It’s snobby and grossly aspirational, but it’s true.
The junior executives’ office at Thinkscope Visioncloud was nicer than any room within a fifty-mile radius of the “Office” studio. After I finished pitching one of my ideas for a low-budget romantic comedy, I was met with silence. One of the execs sheepishly looked at the other execs. He finally said, “Yeah, but we’re really trying to focus on movies about board games. People really seem to respond to those.”
For the rest of the meeting, we talked about whether there was any potential in a movie called “Yahtzee!” I made some polite suggestions and left.
I am always surprised at what movie studios think people will want to see. I’m even more surprised at how often they are correct. Based on what I’ve learned from my time in Hollywood, the following titles are my best guess as to what may soon be coming to a theatre near you:
“Bananagrams 3D”
“Apples to Apples 4D” (The audience is pummelled with apples at the end of the movie.)
“Crest Whitestrips”
“Sharks vs. Volcanoes”
“King Tut vs. King Kong”
“Streptococcus vs. Candidiasis” (Strep Throat vs. Yeast Infection)
“The Do-Over”
“The Switcheroo”
“Street Smart”
“Street Stupid” (“Street Smart” sequel)
“Fat Astronaut”
“The Untitled Liam Neeson Vendetta Project”
“Human Quilt” (horror movie)
“The Cute Bear from Those Toilet-Paper Ads Movie”
So I guess “Slinky: The Movie” can’t be far behind after all!
The Kaling article is actually about romantic comedies. To read the rest of it, go here.
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