January 31, 2010

First Wives Club

Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman ever to win the Director's Guild of America's highest honor for her gripping Iraq war film The Hurt Locker. With her victory, she spared us from having to endure another speech delivered in a made up language from James Cameron, who happens to be her ex-husband.

Bigelow impressed me early in her career with her vampire flick Near Dark, but then kind of went off the rails with the shitty Blue Steel and the over-the-top camp and bad acting of Point Break have made it a semi-classic, but I've always maintained it was a pretty lousy action flick. But she's matured as a filmmaker (after a few other missteps; K19 The Widowmaker I'm looking at you!) and has now smashed down the gender barrier to become the first female to capture this award; and you gotta think it's extra sweet to bag this honor going up against her ex-husband and his massively hyped flick. Bigelow, who despite my oh-so-clever title was actually wife #3 (of five!) was only married to Cameron for two years. Strangely, when he left to direct Terminator 2: Judgement Day, things fell apart. Even stranger, his next wife became that films star, Linda Hamilton (who became an ex-wife when he directed Titanic, and soon ended up marrying an actress from that flick too.) From reports from his sets, and a few books on Cameron I've read (I highly recommend Paula Parisi's 'Titanic and the Making of James Cameron') I suspect he wouldn't be a very easy man to live with, and judging by his acceptance speeches for his Oscar and recent Golden Globe, he seems to really really dig winning, so I'm sure his ex-wife snatching away an honor didn't sit well with him.

Congratulations, Kathryn!

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