The thing about "bad" movies

Okay, okay, I'll admit, I like a lot of them. The Replacements, a football film that is so badly edited even eight-year-old me thought "I could do better." Plan 9 from Outer Space, the quintessential bad 50s B-movie, Ed Wood at his best, Bela Lugosi at his worst. Ice Princess, the cheesiest - and least-factually accurate - movie about figure skating that was ever or will ever be made. Reefer Madness, the best thing to come out of the production code era and the only time that a film's portrayal of drug addiction was actually funny. Make the Yuletide Gay, a coming-out story set at Christmastime and featuring the most idiotic parents since the Griswolds. Pixel Perfect - yes, God help me, I'll actually admit to loving this movie, and all the other idiotic DCOMs from that era. The Cheetah Girls. Cow Belles. High School Musical.

Yep, guilty pleasures are called that for a reason. You feel guilty loving something so bad so much. After all, what self-respecting filmmaker will proudly admit that Pixel Perfect is one of the films that most influenced their early attempts at scriptwriting? Only someone who obviously and intentionally does not want to be taken seriously. I take enough crap from some of my fellow film nerds for loving Tim Burton, especially when that little tidbit is discovered after I've calmly explained my reasons for thinking that Lars Von Trier, James Cameron, and Francis Ford Coppola are thoroughly overrated. Can you imagine if, when asked what my favorite film of all-time is, I reply, "Well, it's this movie that came out in the early 2000s, starring Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman. It's called The Replacements and I think the editors were going for the broken record of how many times they could totally fuck up the 180 and 30-degree rules?" I'd never live it down.

But here's the thing about "bad" movies. They're actually really, really good.

No, really. Hear me out.

I get it, I really do. Titanic deserved all the awards it won back in the 90s. Groundbreaking, exciting, tearjerking, historical, blah blah blah. Okay, Titanic had its day in the sun, and well-deserved. Much as I can't stand that movie, I can still admit that it is a technical wonder. I hate the love story, I think it's thoroughly overwrought and about as cliche as it can possibly get. But I'll concede that objectively, Titanic is a well-done movie that took years of effort and the input and talent of thousands of people, most of whom will never get an ounce of recognition (except maybe from potential employers - can you imagine having that on your resume?).

But what people don't seem to realize is that all those "bad" movies - all those cult movies that were slammed by critics, all those independent movies that are so obviously low-budget it hurts to even look at them, all those generically obvious grabs for tweenage allowance money, all of those bad scripts and terrible editing jobs, all that awful cinematography, all the popular movies that intellectuals denounce as "trash for the masses," all those Labyrinths and Ice Princesses and Troll 2s and Replacements and Plan 9 From Outer Spaces - all of those movies, they took time and hard work and talent, too.

I know the knee-jerk reaction to this is either "Yeah, right!" or "so what, that doesn't make them GOOD." But it does, though. It does, and I'll tell you why.

I can tell you from experience what a bitch it is, trying to shoot a low-budget film. I've improvised dollies out of rolling plastic filing cabinets, shot hand-held with a Sony camcorder that made a noise like a broken washing machine every time you pressed "record," tried to make the basement of a boarding-school cafeteria look like an emergency room entrance, enlisted my roommate to do make-up for a late-night shoot, shot a documentary about Detroit on a Samsung Galaxy SII, bribed actors with Cheez-Its, thrown my dad into a film at the last minute, used a flashlight and a handful of gravel to imply a car crash, and--at a particularly low point--used a plastic, baby-toy steering wheel for a camera rig and a broken clap-n-laugh microphone as a boom pole. I have thrown together equipment from trash bags, SAD lamps, toy telephones, skateboards, LEGO pieces, rubber ducks, shower curtains. I have used crepe paper as a lens filter. I have used Playmobil characters to make stop-motion. I've shot in rain, in snow, in scorching sun, and under assault from some very persistent caterpillars. And, Jesus Christ, I'm not even out of college. I have yet to even attempt a feature. And if you think the above list is in any way extreme, just ask me what some of my classmates have done. Yes, technology has made it so that just about anybody can make a movie, but that sure as hell doesn't mean that anyone can make a movie easily or well.

But one of the reasons I love independent films is because they don't meet the typically agreed-upon standards for "talent." They don't hit all of the How To Make A Good Film marks, or check off all the boxes. And whether it's a micro-budget mumblecore like Funny Ha Ha or a better-known one with higher-profile actors, like Thumbsucker or Only Lovers left Alive - or something in-between, like Life After Beth or Elephant - you can bet that whoever made that film wasn't in it for the money. They were in it because they damn well wanted to be.

Now I'll grant you, some low-budget films are just plain bad. I loved it, but I'll be first to admit that Funny Ha Ha was about as pointless a film as was ever made. Same goes for cult films; it's hilarious in all the wrong ways and it has a hell of a following, but even fans of Troll 2 can see why that one didn't get the attention of the Academy. And God knows that even professionals can miss the mark with the best of them. Tim Burton, you are my hero, but I don't know if I can ever forgive you for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or - shoot me now - Dark Shadows.

But even in all of those bad movies there are stories. There are "remember when we had to shoot at two AM" stories, "I broke the boom pole and had to use a broomstick instead" stories, "the animatronic puppet we spent half our budget on didn't work and we had to MacGyver that shit at the last minute" stories. If you ever have any doubt that bad movies take every bit as much effort as good movies, go and look at the behind-the-scenes material. I hate Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but after reading the chapter dedicated to the movie in Burton on Burton I can at least understand the artistic choices that Burton made while he was directing it.

I guess what annoys me so much about all the criticism of "bad" movies is that so much of it, in my circle at least, comes from people who have actually made films before and should know better. Furthermore, every time I hear a discussion about a "bad" movie I can't help but think that people don't understand the difference between a film not being to your taste and being "bad." I've heard many a Jim Henson fan trash Labyrinth because they disliked Jennifer Connelly's performance or disapproved of the casting of David Bowie, somehow managing to completely forget that the film was made before CGI was a fully-developed thing and disregarding the incredible amount of effort that went into the special effects and the puppets. Can we really call Labyrinth a bad movie when Henson, whom most would call a genius, put so much work into it? Or can we agree that maybe David Bowie's acting is not to your standard but the rest of the movie was brilliant - or even can we just agree that Jim Henson and his team put a metric shit-ton of work into that movie and for that reason alone it deserves some damn respect - and just move on?

No, not every movie deserves a turn at the Oscars. Yes, art is and always has been subjective. And that's precisely why bad movies deserve respect too. As the old saying goes, one person's trash is another's treasure. I don't care if your favorite movie is Titanic, that's your opinion. Just don't give me the sideways, call-the-men-in-white-coats look when I try to explain to you why The Replacements is mine.

2014 Top 10

It's that time of year. Film and media-related websites are buzzing about the Oscars, and I for one am holding my breath to see who gets nominated. I'm sure that, as usual, my ideas of who should get recognition are very different from the Academy's, but here's who I'd see get their names up in lights if I could:

10. The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies
I'd give it: Best VFX, no contest.
Why: As a Tolkien fan, Battle of the Five Armies makes me cringe. Not only did Pete Jackson add stuff from the Silmarillon, but he also added crap that never freaking happened in anything that Tolkien ever wrote (*cough*TAURIEL/KILI/LEGOLASLOVETRIANGLE*cough cough*). And I sincerely wish that they'd kept the adaptation down to two movies, or better yet just one, because there's just not enough plot, even with all the crap they added, to make the book fill three movies. But with all that said, the casting is fantastic, Martin Freeman is hilarious, and the visual effects? Stunning. What Five Armies lacks in plot, it makes up in brilliant CGI, and while I'm generally not a fan of CGI I think that it's incredibly well-done here. I'll admit Five Armies might have some competition from Interstellar, but I'm about 99.9% sure that when all is said and done, the Academy will agree with me on this one.

9. Interstellar
I'd give it: Best Sound Editing
Why: I'll admit, this wasn't my favorite Nolan film ever, mainly because it was so damn long. But holy crap was there a lot to love here. Again I say if Best Casting were a thing, that's for sure what Interstellar would win. The choices they made, from Michael Caine to Mackenzie Foy, were spot-on, and I loved the cameos they managed to sneak in. But there isn't a Best Casting award, so if I were in the Academy, I'd recognize my second-favorite element of the film: the sound. Oh, dear lord, the sound. The score, the diegetic sound, the periods of silence at just the right time--all I can say is that if Inception won Best Sound and Best VFX in 2010, Interstellar should definitely do the same.

8. Lego Movie
I'd give it: Best Animated Feature
Why: Okay, yeah, when I first saw the trailer all I could think was "Dear God, will they stop at nothing to wring money out of people?" But then I went and saw it, and holy dear mother of God it was fantastic. I wasn't expecting it to be so funny; I went in there predicting juvenile humor and idiotic action sequences. For the first fifteen minutes or so I was greatly annoyed at the unsubtle message of non-conformity coming at me from an entertainment conglomerate partnered with a toy company (ironic much?), but as the film continued I realized, hey, they actually have a point here. I won't spoil the ending for anyone who still hasn't seen it (GO RENT THIS MOVIE I'M BEGGING YOU), but it was tear-jerking and hilarious at the same time--not something I can say for most kids' films, animated or otherwise.

7. Captain America: Winter Soldier
I'd give it: Anthony Mackie or Sebastian Stan for Best Supporting Actor
Why: I know, I know. It's a superhero movie. I'm not stupid, I know that the chance of either of these two men winning Best Supporting Actor is about the same as Kirk Cameron supporting same-sex marriage, because superhero movies just don't win Academy Awards--not often, and not any of the "major" ones. (I still can't get over the fact that Gary Oldman never got a single damn nomination for Dark Knight or Dark Knight Rises--Academy, what is wrong with you?!) But both Mackie and Stan turned in fantastic performances in a film already chock-full of insanely good actors (Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson...and, oh yeah, Robert Redford), and if I were in charge, they'd get some serious recognition.

6. Big Hero 6
I'd give it: Best Editing, Best Sound Editing
Why: Okay, maybe I only have a giant soft spot for this movie because I'm a huge Marvel nerd. I admit it. BUT. With that being said, the pacing of the story and the use of sound in Big Hero 6 is damn near flawless. I can honestly say I didn't see the majority of the "plot twists" coming, and even the longest action sequences never seem to drag, which is the problem I have with oh, maybe 90% of the action/fantasy/superhero films that I watch--yes, Five Armies, I'm looking at you. And call me crazy, but the sound was right up there with Interstellar. I could not only hear every line of dialogue, but I never got blasted out of my seat with the music or explosion effects, both of which are common issues with action-packed superhero films.

5. Guardians of the Galaxy
I'd give it: Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design
Why: Again I say, I know that both of these are long shots. My boyfriend told me he's rooting for Birdman to win Best Cinematography and, okay, I understand why--it wasn't my favorite, but I can still see the appeal. As for production design, I feel like movies like Five Armies and Mockingjay 2 will have a better shot. Like I said, superhero films are frequently overlooked by the Academy, which I'll probably rant about in greater detail later. But the sets in this film are absolutely fantastic, because they're the perfect blend of ancient, futuristic, vintage and modern--no small feat, considering the amount of world-building that has to happen in a short amount of time. The sets and costumes go hand-in-hand, and nothing we see ever feels "jarring" or anachronistic. As for the cinematography, I can only imagine how hard it is to shoot fight scenes, and Guardians has some pretty insane ones. The prison escape? Come on!

4. Gone Girl
I'd give it: Best Adapted Screenplay (even though it CREEPED ME THE HELL OUT)
Why: This is another one that my boyfriend recommended and I...well, I didn't hate it, but oh dear God if I never see this film again it'll be too soon. Let's just say that if this were a list of the best feel-good films of 2014, Gone Girl would not have been included in this blog post. The self-indulgent Marvel fan in me would love to see Big Hero 6 or Guardians win Adapted Screenplay, but deep down I know this film deserves it more. I won't spoil the ending. Suffice it to say that Gone Girl packs a crap-ton of story into a standard-length movie, and it does so without cheap exposition or excessive use of montage. Bottom line: Casual Moviegoer Avery never wants to see this movie again, but Aspiring Screenwriter Avery wants to watch it another 500 times for research. So, yes, I'd have to say all in all, I'd give Gone Girl Best Adapted Screenplay.

3. Only Lovers Left Alive
I'd give it: Not sure if this one counts--technically it premiered in 2013, so does that qualify for 2014 Oscars? If so, I'd put Hiddleston in the running for Best Leading Actor against Christoph Waltz, and put the script against Life After Beth for Best Original Screenplay (more on those two in a minute).
Why: I'm not a huge fan of vampire movies. My favorite kind of monsters were always...well, monsters. Actual movie monsters. Like, the kind you'd find in 1950s B-movies. Up to now, my favorite "vampire movie" has been Nosferatu, and I'm not even sure that counts. But this movie is incredible. This is another one that I'd nominate for "best casting," if such an Oscar existed. The chemistry between Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston crackles with an intensity that makes the cliched pairings of human-vampire in pop films like Twilight seem pathetic. The writing is amazing. And forget Loki (sorry, Loki)--this is Hiddleston's best performance yet. Sympathetic and, quite bluntly, sometimes fucking terrifying. If we're talking awards, he's a worthy opponent for Christoph Waltz. Which leads me to...

2. Big Eyes
I'd give it: Best Score, Amy Adams for Best Leading Actress, Christoph Waltz for Best Leading Actor, Tim Burton for Best Director
Why: As a longtime Burton fan I'll be first to admit he's put out some real stinkers in the last decade or so. I'm a fan of 90s Burton--Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow. And I'm not kidding when I say that Big Eyes is better than any of them. Not only do Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz deliver fantastic performances, but the supporting cast does as well: Jason Schwartzman, Krysten Ritter, Danny Huston--amazing performances from all, and not one single sighting of Johnny Depp, Christopher Lee, or any of Burton's other "usuals." The score is beautiful, the decision to shoot on-location was a wise one indeed, and the single hint of Burton's whimsy--the "big eyes" that Margaret Keane sees on everyday people when the guilt of her lies catches up to her--is well-placed and doesn't feel at all overwrought. If Burton ever has a shot at winning Best Director or (even I don't have any optimism for this one) Best Picture, this is it.

1. Life after Beth
I'd give it: What WOULDN'T I give it. Aubrey Plaza for Best Supporting Actress, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Screenplay...dare I say, maybe even Best Picture?
Why: This is one of those beautiful, hilarious, heartbreaking independent films that will never, ever get one-sixteenth of the credit it deserves. It is hands-down the funniest, most heartfelt, most realistic zombie film I have ever seen. It makes Walking Dead feel overwrought and the films of Romero seem gaudy and cheap. While other zombie films are choked with jump-scares and cliches, Life after Beth relies on just the right mixture of humor and heartache to raise the tension. From the opening scenes, you'd never know it was a horror film. While the movie makes use of the comedic talents of much of the supporting cast (namely John C. Reilly, Cheryl Hines and Matthew Gray Gubler), there are some gut-punch moments that help ground a film that could otherwise be seen as a farce. There's some zombie-related satire, but it's subtle and pointed and doesn't seem to carry much of a political message, which quite frankly suits me just fine. The makeup is great, doesn't look low-budget at all. As for Aubrey Plaza--oh, how I wish I could burst into the Academy voting sessions and play them this film before they make their choices. Like Hiddleston in Only Lovers Left Alive, Plaza is handed a story wrought with genre expectations and, for all intents and purposes, blows those expectations out of the water with a performance that makes those movie monsters so human that you almost forget why they're considered monsters in the first place. I would be so thrilled to see this film get some love--any love--at the Oscars, because it was hands-down the best one I saw all year, and it's definitely the best zombie picture I've ever seen period. Sadly, I know that's just a fantasy.



I'm pretty sure that my film-school friends will see this list and go "That's it?!? What about Birdman? Boyhood? Noah? Selma? Avery, come on...what about Mockingjay?" All fine films, and I'm not saying they shouldn't be recognized as such. But I also believe that there are so many amazing movies out there that will never get formal recognition, and I wanted to acknowledge those even if the Academy wouldn't.

Besides...this is my personal top ten list. These might not be the movies that are universally recognized as the best that 2014 had to offer, but they're the films that impacted me the most.

Let's Talk About Girls in Film

I never planned on being a filmmaker.

When I was little, the world was my stage. My parents took me to see every musical, ballet, concert, and child-friendly play that came through town. I wanted to be Judy Garland. I wanted to be Cathy Rigby. I wanted to be in Cats. I took ballet lessons, sang in a choir, played piano, figure-skated, went through drama workshops and performing arts camps. I made home videos of myself and called it the Avery TV Show, made videos with my Playmobil characters and used different voices for the characters, wrote my own scripts on the computer (using MS paint because I didn't know MS word was a thing) and recorded my performances. I'd go through old clothes, do photo shoots, choreograph my own figure-skating routines. Everything I did was a chance to perform. Every day was a new act of a show.

Around the time I started middle school, I began to seriously study performances by professional actors and actresses. My parents introduced me to Johnny Depp, who was at the time one of their favorites, and eventually decided I was old enough, at twelve, to see my first horror movie: Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. Initially I was watching for the performances. It was the first time I'd seen Christina Ricci and I immediately decided I loved her. But as the film progressed I began to notice other things. The smoky atmosphere of the town. The twisted, otherworldly trees. The color palette, all grays and whites and blacks with the occasional pop of bright blood-red. The cast as a whole and the way they interacted with each other, the greats like Michael Gambon and Richard Griffiths playing off the relative newbies like Ricci. I noticed the costumes. The effects. I wondered how they made the horseman look headless. I wondered how they'd decided on having Johnny Depp play Ichabod Crane instead of someone like Tom Cruise.

I wondered who was responsible for the whole thing, because whoever they were, I wanted to be that person.

That was the spark. That was the moment that I realized I didn't want to be the actor. I didn't want to be the person who came in after the story was already written. I wanted to write the story. I didn't want to just be in the show, I wanted to create the show.

I started reading everything I could get my hands on about Tim Burton. I searched his name on the internet. I demanded to see his other movies. My favorite was Edward Scissorhands, for reasons that I could not, at the time, fully articulate. I looked at colleges--yes, when I was twelve--and decided I had to go to Columbia College in Chicago for their film program. Throughout all of this no one told me that prominent female directors were hard to come by, that filmmaking was a male-dominated field. No one told me that I would be outnumbered by men on just about every film set I would ever work on. Even after I read Girl Director, a book I recommend for all amateur female filmmakers, I still wasn't fully aware of the feminist aspect of my chosen career, and even after I got the "girl director talk" from another girl at Interlochen, I still didn't really care.

And even now, when I'm aware of all of the little things, the obstacles I'll face, the wage gaps and internalized misogyny and slut-shaming and institutional sexism, you know what? I still don't give a damn.

Because here's the thing. What's between my legs--or, for the more politically correct of you out there, the way I choose to express my gender identity--in the end, that doesn't matter. I once wrote a rant on my high-school blog about how unfair it was that women-oriented film festivals would not take my film because, while it was written, directed, and edited by a woman, it featured a male protagonist. At the time I thought that was the most ridiculous thing. Now, well, I honestly don't care. That film wasn't the best work I've ever done anyway, and really, the reason I got into filmmaking wasn't because I wanted national acclaim. I got into it because I saw a movie that spoke to me emotionally, and I became drawn into the idea of someday touching someone else the same way.

It's very unfeminist, the way I got into filmmaking. I should have fallen in love with the work of Kathryn Bigelow, Amy Heckerling, Nora Ephron, Sophia Coppola--all women whose work I love now, but who I didn't know much about when I first entered the world of filmmaking. I should have found my identity in a movie about women, made by a woman. Should have, but didn't.

For what it's worth, it was the girls in Tim Burton's movies that I loved above all. Catwoman's courage in Batman Returns, Kim and Peg's tenderness in Edward Scissorhands, Lydia's unfailing individuality in Beetle Juice, Sally's quiet rebellion in Nightmare Before Christmas, Katrina's unwavering loyalty in Sleepy Hollow,  I saw something of myself in each of these women, something that I didn't see in movies aimed at girls my age. But it wasn't just the characters. It was the beauty of the films themselves. The innocent pastel houses contrasted with Edward's dark, lonely mansion. The monochromatic colors punctuated with the bright red blood of the Horseman's victims. The dark landscape of Gotham City. The contrast between bright, candy-colored Christmastown and the corpse-inhabited gothic landscape of Halloweentown. It was this intoxicating combination that drew me in, and it wasn't until years later that someone pointed out, "You know, your idol for filmmaking really should be a female director, haven't you ever heard of Sophia Coppola?" that I realized people actually believed things like that.

Years ago I was on the set of a student film, directed by a female classmate who was generally liked and considered popular among the rest of the student filmmakers. Said young lady had chosen mostly male classmates to crew for her film. I happened to have worked with that particular group of students before and, while they are all fine young men and exceptionally talented filmmakers, they all had the tendency to get "in the zone" while working and ignore the opinions and input of others. Moreover, three of these guys were close friends who frequently worked together inside and outside of class and had an intimate rapport with one another that few could break into with any degree of ease. So it came as no surprise to me that they essentially drew together and shut out the rest of the crew--a common mistake that friends can make when working together.

Having worked with these guys before, I knew that protesting and saying, "hey, listen, LISTEN!" wouldn't do much good. But this girl, the director of the film? She didn't know that. She complained, loudly, about being left out. She grew increasingly frustrated. I felt her pain, but kept my mouth shut. She didn't want my advice; I was there as a stand-in, not as a mentor. But that didn't stop her from turning around at one point and hissing in my ear, "I forgot how hard it is to be a girl in this department."

Wait, what?

Let me back up here and explain that the very same year this young lady complained to me, the highest award the filmmaking department had to offer was snagged by a girl whom everyone agreed was an exceptionally gifted cinematographer. I feel like I should also add here that while I had many problems in high school, my gender was not one of them. I felt left out by my peers, but the fact that I was a girl had nothing to do with that. At Interlochen, girl filmmakers were not shunted to the side, or confined to gender-stereotyped roles like makeup artists or costume designers. We were directors, editors, and screenwriters. Up until that moment, when that girl whispered in my ear that it was so hard to be a female filmmaker, I hadn't even realized there was any kind of issue linked between gender and my "role" in our department.

I bought into this idea of femininity as a detriment for a few months in college. I too complained that being a girl was just too hard. I blamed my inability to get into a film festival on the fact that I was a girl who made a movie about a boy, and complained endlessly about the unfairness of it all. I told my friends I was going to be a trailblazer. I wrote an awful screenplay, dripping with misandry, about how awful it was to be a female artist in a male-driven world, only thinly veiling that the story was about myself by changing the lead character from a filmmaker to a photographer. It was stupid. It was petty.

It was a mistake I vowed to never make again.

I'm aware that feminism is important. I'm aware that there is a wage gap, I'm aware that there are so many female directors who deserve acclaim and so few who get it. But I'm also aware of the fact that my all-time favorite director--yes, he happens to be a man--has also not gotten a well-deserved Oscar, and the day he gets it I'll be just as happy as I was when Kathryn Bigelow broke ground by becoming the first woman to win Best Director. I'm aware that Hollywood treats women in particular like dirt. I'm aware that it will take a lot to change that. I'm sick of hearing the same-old, same-old about the women in the celebrity inner circle. "Kristen Stewart is a talentless slut with a bad attitude." "Taylor Swift is boy-crazy and stuck-up." "Lady Gaga has a screw loose." "Miley should be ashamed of herself for getting naked." "Katy Perry needs to grow up." I'm sick of that. I'm sick of hearing how stupid we are, how naive we are, how we need men to take care of us.

But I'm also sick of politicizing something I love. And maybe for some women it has to be that way--maybe the way they cope with media insanity is by writing movies like Thelma and Louise, or buying into the ideal of "strong female characters" who don't need no men--but for me, this is the truth: the more I make being a girl into a big deal, the bigger deal it becomes. The more I let being a girl in a male-dominated field get to me, the more power I give others to use it against me. I'm not going to hand anyone an excuse to hurt me. They already have enough of those; I don't need to give them any more.

In a few months I'll graduate with a degree in Cinema Studies. Someday I plan to get my master's in screenwriting. Ultimately, I want to write for TV, and someday I hope to create my own TV show. I want to cross between film and TV, and to anyone who says I can't, well, I guess it's up to me to prove you wrong. I don't know what I'll do immediately after I graduate. I really don't. I know where I want to be and I know I'll do what I have to do to get there.

But I will never ever feel sorry for myself because of who I am, or let someone tell me "You can't do that because you're a girl."

And to anyone who actually believes that? The time machine is over there, buddy. Go back to the 1900s.

(But, hey. Just so you know? There were female filmmakers back then too.)