Elaine Madsen - Press
Interviewing Women Like That - Ability Magazine:
Virginia Madsen is a Golden Globe- and Academy Award-nominated actress known for her work in Sideways, The Astronaut Farmer, and The Number 23. Her mother, writer-director Elaine Madsen, has a wide range of creative projects on her list of achievements, including a new book of poetry and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary. In their new collaboration, I Know a Woman Like That, the mother-daughter duo join forces to take a close look at grace, age, vitality, and what it means to be a woman. ABILITY Magazine's Chet Cooper and Nancy Villere caught up with the Madsens to discuss this ambitious and personal project. Click photo for full story
ABC7 Closeup: 'I Know a Woman Like That'
Ebert's take on "I Know A Woman Like That" documentary:
"I Know a Woman Like That" (USA, 103 minutes). Its description may sound innocuous, but Elaine Madsen's documentary is transformative in the way it regards life from the perspective of age. She talks intimately with 16 women in their 70s or above, who didn't put life on Pause but kept right on living. Barbara Hillary skied to the North Pole, and says women her age are expected to feel "mindless, useless and sexless." Lauren Hutton smiles, "I'm better in bed." Elaine Kaufman presides nightly over the most famous saloon in New York. Lorraine Morton was elected mayor of Evanston at 74, and is still mayor 14 years later. After a famous career in prose, Maxine Hong Kingston has returned to poetry, her childhood love. Gloria Steinem thinks maybe at 70 you find out who you really were at 14. Madsen doesn't ask celeb-trash questions, but is an adult talking to adults--even when she and Suzanne Adams (her daughter Virginia's drama teacher) are lying on a rug on their tummies, talking face to face like two seven-year olds. Extraordinary."
Madsen launches Title IX Prods.
Projects include doc 'I Know A Woman'
By TATIANA SIEGEL
Virginia Madsen and producing partner Karly Meola have launched production shingle Title IX Prods.
Slate of projects includes the documentary "I Know a Woman Like That," which focuses on the lives of extraordinary women between the ages of 64 and 94. Madsen's mother, Emmy-winning filmmaker Elaine Madsen, is directing the project, which is in post-production.
Other projects in development include "Gothika" scribe Sebastian Gutierrez's adaptation of Martha O'Connor's debut novel "The Bitch Posse" and a remake of the 1984 Virginia Madsen starrer "Electric Dreams."
Shingle is named after the 1972 law giving women equal opportunity to participate in activities that receive federal funding."In a way, we're saying let the girls play," Madsen said. "I started acting at 18. After all these years, I know a lot about the business. I know how movies are made. Now is the time that I can help newcomers in a way that I've been helped in the industry."
Added Meola: "(We) have the intention to be both dynamic and inventive in the way we choose to tell stories. We sincerely hope to generate strong messages and perspective on people and relationships."
Madsen will next be seen in the IFC comedy "Diminished Capacity." She also stars in Gold Circle Films and Lionsgate's forthcoming supernatural thriller "The Haunting in Connecticut."
"variety.com" Original Article
Entertainment Weekly article excerpt:
Adam B. Vary, with additional reporting by Gregory Kirschling and Whitney Pastorek, Entertainment Weekly
Virginia Madsen did dozens of interviews for I Know a Woman Like That, a look at "women living vibrantly when the world says 'You should be old now.'" These include her mother Elaine, 74, an Emmy-winning documentarian who was almost too busy to direct it. "She said, 'Well, I have to finish my book, I'm going to Europe...,' and I was like, 'See? You are this woman!'"
Book Review - Midwest Book Review:
There are some colors that simply aren't visual. Crayola Can't Make These Colors: ...From the Palette of a Life in Verse is a collection of poetry from Elaine Madsen, a multi-talented woman with a strong love for poetry. Her verse is simple and moving, and does well to fit with its title of painting vivid images unique to the English language. Crayola Can't Make These Colors is a strong choice all around for poetry fans.