Across outrageous, often scatological comedies like “Bridesmaids,” “Spy” and “A Simple Favor,” the director Paul Feig, 62, has cemented his unlikely cinematic reputation as a girl’s guy.
“I hate to say ‘strong female characters,’ because I don’t like that term,” he said in a video call from Los Angeles. “I just love seeing men and women as equals on the screen, so that’s what I’m always trying to do.”
Feig, a Royal Oak, Mich., native whose latest film, “Another Simple Favor,” is streaming on Amazon Prime Video, reflected on some of his favorite moments in movie parity.
‘Bringing Up Baby’ (1938)
In Howard Hawks’s classic screwball comedy, Cary Grant plays a fussy paleontologist and Katharine Hepburn a madcap heiress with a pet leopard (the titular “Baby”) and a penchant for trouble. (Rent or buy it on major platforms.)
“Honestly, I didn’t really discover these movies until I went to film school at USC. But over the years of watching comedy I had seen it become completely male-dominated, where women were just sort of props around the men to make fun of or to get in their way.
“If you research it, this almost ruined Katharine Hepburn’s career because she was playing so crazy, but I think it’s one of the funniest performances ever. I mean, Cary Grant is hilarious as her straight man, but she just drives the movie.”
‘His Girl Friday’ (1940)
Another rat-a-tat Howard Hawks comedy, once again featuring Grant — this time alongside Rosalind Russell, who plays his quick-witted ex-wife and soon-to-be-former star reporter at a daily newspaper. (Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.)
“Rosalind Russell is such a cool foe and a tennis partner to Cary Grant. She’s surrounded by all these guys, these Damon Runyon-type characters who work in the newsroom, and the dialogue’s going a million miles an hour but she’s such a presence in the middle of it, just taking them on.”
‘Alien’ (1979)
As a starship officer tracking down a mystery transmission from a nearby planet, Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley confronts extraterrestrial terror in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror touchstone. (Stream “Alien” on Hulu.)
“I never dated in high school because I was so awkward, but I had invited a girl to a dance. And then my next-door neighbor goes, ‘There’s this new movie opening on Friday night called “Alien,” it’s supposed to be amazing.’
“I was already nervous and afraid I’d have to kiss this girl, so I canceled on her. I thought, ‘Oh, this will be fun sci-fi with spaceships and stuff,’ and it’s one of the most terrifying movies of all time. The minute it started, I was like, ‘I think I’m going to have a heart attack.’ And that girl ended up going to the dance with some other guy and they became boyfriend and girlfriend and they looked so happy! But Ripley — I’d never seen something like that in an action movie before. It was just a mind blower and so cool.”
‘The Devil Wears Prada’ (2006)
An earnest aspiring journalist (Anne Hathaway) takes the assistant job from hell at an iconic fashion magazine; the very chic devil is played by a terrifying, ice-blonde Meryl Streep. (Rent or buy it on major platforms.)
“You hear the word ‘Prada,’ and … I hate the term ‘chick flick,’ but I thought it was going to be more in that world. Instead, it’s a workplace comedy that all men and women can relate to — just having a tough boss and trying to make it. I was really taken with the dynamics of those characters and how three-dimensional and relatable the story was.”
In this Oscar-nominated drama, five spirited sisters in a small Turkish village struggle with the limits placed on them by family and cultural expectations. (Rent or buy it on major platforms.)
“I came to this one because I’m in the Academy, and it was on the list of foreign-language movies to vote on. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I was so touched by it. You’re feeling for these women so much and wanting them to get through this injustice. Even though it’s tragic in so many ways, I find it uplifting to see a story like that put on the screen and done so well. Sometimes my joy in a movie is just the fact that it exists and that it’s good and that it works.”
‘Revenge’ (2018)
When a young woman on romantic getaway is raped and left for dead in the desert, she turns the tables in the brutal feature debut by Coralie Fargeat, whose most recent film, “The Substance,” was nominated for best picture. (Stream “Revenge” on Mubi and Shudder.)
“I try to seek out what I know is going to super engage me in an outrageous way, and I’d seen ‘The Substance’ and thought it was really interesting. It’s not that I want violence. I want the almost Kabuki theater of just, How extreme can you go?
“There’s a movie called ‘Abigail’ that came out last year that by the end gets so crazy. There’s truckloads of blood, but it’s funny. It’s not like they’re killing a bunch of innocent people — you’re watching this retribution, and it’s so operatic. And ‘Revenge’ gave me that in bucketfuls.”
‘Polite Society’ (2023)
An Anglo-Indian teen who dreams of becoming a stuntwoman does her best to disrupt her older sister’s upcoming wedding in this raucous action comedy helmed by Nida Manzoor (“We Are Lady Parts”). (Rent or buy it on major platforms.)
“One of the lead actors, Ritu Arya, was in my film ‘Last Christmas,’ so I came upon this and just fell in love with it. I am a maximalist. What’s the fun in playing it safe? I tip my hat because it’s a crazy story with all this action, but the acting’s really great and it’s just fun. It makes no excuses for being what it is.
“I feel like in movies it gets so, ‘Oh, we’re trying to win awards and keep the critics happy.’ ‘Bridesmaids’ got nominated for two Oscars, and we had Melissa McCarthy [pooping] in a sink. If the kudos come, they do. But the best kudos is an audience having a great time.”
‘Joy Ride’ (2023)
Adele Lim’s hard-R buddy comedy follows the quest of an Asian American adoptee (Ashley Park) to find her birth parents, with three wildly different friends in tow. (Rent or buy it on major platforms.)
“It’s an unusual group, sadly, that you normally don’t see getting to do a Hollywood comedy. So I just loved that they came up with this story and this device to showcase these four disparate characters, and then put them on an adventure.
“I guess the thing that unites all the movies I like is that they’re not timid. It’s not, ‘Oh, everybody has to be likable.’ You want people to show up, but at the same time, you don’t want to neuter these characters. And ‘Joy Ride’ really went for it. It is not holding back.”
Two queer teens (Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri) form a high school fight club in the writer-director Emma Seligman’s scrappy satire. (Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.)
“There are comedies sometimes where you go, ‘OK, that actor doesn’t actually like the character.’ They’re just pretending to be nuts and kind of winking, ‘Look at how crazy this person is!’ versus someone who really commits to it. Rachel Sennott, the lead in this, is just a tour de force. But even the side characters are so funny and I love how violent it gets. Again, it’s a maximalist dream.”
