WOMEN WHO RUN THE SHOW

Featuring more than 125 interviews with women in the entertainment business — from Barbra Streisand to producer Laura Ziskin (Pretty Woman) to Paramount Pictures chairman Sherry Lansing — Gregory’s history offers encyclopedic coverage of the female experience in the TV and film industries. Some of the anecdotes are lively — like director Martha Coolidge being coerced into promising to show bare breasts four times in Valley Girl just to get the gig. Too often, though, the observations are a tad tired: Men in power weren’t used to dealing with women; women had to work harder than men to get ahead. This we know. But how are films directed, written, produced, or sound-edited by women different? How have women changed the industry? What does this all mean in the big picture? Show doesn’t really tell.