My All-Time Favorite Female Performances

When I was younger, one of my wildest dreams is to become an actress. That's right. And that dream wouldn't be if there weren't no inspiration. Most of the performances that inspired me are by women; I think it's because I can connect more with women than with men. So here they are, the female performances that made me want to be on screen, inhabiting a character and reciting my lines.

Isabelle Huppert, LA PIANISTE

Quentin Tarantino: A Feminist?

L-R: Pam Grier as Jackie Brown. Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.

What comes to your mind whenever you hear the name "Quentin Tarantino?" Tongue-in-cheek violence? Badass men? A shot from a car's trunk? Or maybe John Travolta's revitalized acting career?

Sam Peckinpah: A Latent Misogynist?

Around '60-'70s, second-wave feminism was at its pinnacle. Forthright feminists like Gloria Steinem, Angela Davis, and Susan Sontag would become the voices of the silenced gender. 'Twas also a time when Marlena Shaw recorded Woman of the Ghetto. It was clearly a time when women just won't put up with men's bullsh*t anymore. (No, sir. They'll make you eat yo sh*t.)

It was also around that time when acclaimed filmmaker Sam Peckinpah would make three of his well-known films: The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, and The Getaway. Like Sergio Leone, Peckinpah was/is a hero to the testosterone audience, with men being the lead characters in most of his films.

In 1969, he made The Wild Bunch, which is a tribute to the then-fading Western genre. It starred William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, et al. as a group of aging cowboys/outlaws on to their one last hit — this would later become allegorical since The Wild Bunch is one of the last cowboy films who hit it big at the box office (along with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). During the film's sanguinary finale, there's a scene that seemed somewhat women-unfriendly: Pike Bishop (Holden) shoots back at a woman who shot him. He shouts, "Bitch!" as he fires a bullet at the woman. (Prior to this scene, Borgnine's character used a woman as his "shield" — she is eventually sprayed.)

Borgnine in The Wild Bunch

Pasolini Immortalized

Fellow film enthusiasts at Criterion has just released a still from Pasolini — a biopic detailing the last days of Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was murdered before the release of his anti-fascist Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. Pasolini's filmography also includes the mesmerizing Teorema and the decadent Il Decameron.

Willem Dafoe as Pier Paolo Pasolini

DISCLAIMER: No copyright infringement intended. I don't own or claim to own any of the photos used.

He Loves Her, So Does She

All right. So I almost forgot to write this. Been busy. Anyway, here are my favorite heterosexual love stories. Heterosexual. Straight. As if those words are real.

(In alphabetical order.)


CITY LIGHTS