Free Republic

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — The author of “Little Women” may have been even more productive and sensational than previously thought. Max Chapnick, a postdoctoral teaching associate at Northeastern University, believes he found about 20 stories and poems written by Louisa May Alcott under her own name as well as pseudonyms for local newspapers in Massachusetts in the late 1850s and early 1860s. One of the pseudonyms is believed to be E. H. Gould, including a story about her house in Concord, Massachusetts, and a ghost story along the lines of the Charles Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol.” He also found...

Greta Gerwig has made the successful transition from actor to screenwriter and director. Her early career is marked by her performances in Joe Swanberg’s ‘mumblecore’ films such as Hannah Takes the Stairs and Nights and Weekends. Since the beginning of the 2010s, Gerwig has collaborated with her partner, Noah Baumbach, on several highly-acclaimed pictures. Interestingly, Gerwig is seemingly obsessed with the great actor John Wayne. Back in 2012, she said, “For me now, I think my fascination is with not a film, but an actor: John Wayne. For the last year, he’s really occupied my thoughts. I love John Wayne;...

There are those who think Hallmark is "fascist propaganda," and there are others who think director Greta Gerwig's latest take on "Little Women" is "too white." "It’s time that classics that are constantly remade to better incorporate diversity,” Teen Vogue contributor Natalie de Vera Obedos writes in her new piece, "'Little Women,' Laurie, and the Argument for Racebent Casting." [snip] Obedos takes issue with the casting of four white actresses as the well-known sisters, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy, played by Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Eliza Scanlen, and Florence Pugh. But Obedos's main quarrel is with the male lead, Theodore...

Natalie Portman got in a not-so-subtle jab at the lack of female representation in the Best Director category last night at the Golden Globes, and social media was quick to react. While presenting the nominees alongside filmmaker Ron Howard, Portman noted, quite pointedly, that all of the nominees were men. “Here are the all-male nominees,” she said as the names of Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk), Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Steven Spielberg (The Post), Ridley Scott (All the Money in the World) and the eventual winner Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water). She did not mention it but...