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Oh, Scarlett Johansson, where have you gone? Was it really just five years ago you were the wisecracking, kindling-dry foil in Ghost World? The kind of wry, witty, deadpan girl with hooded eyes that sets every indie boy's heart a-flutter?
Granted, you were just a teen back then, and now you've grown into a woman. And that's good. But what bothers us is that you've grown into the kind of woman who stars in The Island. (Opening this weekend!) This is because you're being Groomed To Be A Star.
Sure, you're mixing in a prestige project now and again, like the Woody Allen films and the upcoming A View from the Bridge, because That's What You Do when you're being Groomed To Be A Star. But still: The Island? What part of "Michael Bay" attracts one to a project, anyway? Oh, yes. The part with all the zeroes behind it.
It's probably too much to ask that someone who can steal Ghost World and carry Lost in Translation should continue to do only interesting little films and not end up in the inevitable action trailer with dyed-blonde hair and pouting lips, falling from a building with a sign toppling toward her. Just as it's probably too much to ask that a Scottish actor with oodles of charisma should spend his career in films like Trainspotting, rather than taking a decade's worth of LucasMoney to stroke his beard. And then end up in the inevitable action trailer, falling from a building with a sign toppling toward him.
Because who among us could turn down that amount of cheese? Motorcycle trips around the world don't pay for themselves, you know.
The only problem is that, while you might place your lips to the money teat while thinking, "I can always do indies on the side," you can't, in fact, always do indies on the side. Scarlett, don't you think Ben Affleck, while being hoisted in a harness into a model of a fighter plane against a green screen on the set of Pearl Harbor, was thinking to himself, "I can always do indies on the side"? And now where is he? His career's in mortal danger. And what's the consistent prognosis? He should go back and do more indie films. Remind us why we liked him in the first place. But that harness is hard to get out of.
So here's a radical idea: qhy not skip the green-screen harness part of the career and just continue to do the things that made us like you? Anyone?
Here's why. For one thing, we -- i.e. the mopey groaners who grouse about how Michael Bay movies all "suck" and most Hollywood films are "crap" and "made by idiots" who "couldn't find their asses with a flashlight, a homing beacon, and an electronic ass-detector" -- we don't matter for much. We don't go out to The Island on its first weekend and assure it of a $50 million opening.
No, we go out to see it in the fourth weekend because, against our better judgment, we kind of think maybe it will be good, or at least have a few good explosions. And besides, after four weeks the theater's not going to be as crowded and so you're not as likely to have some idiot talking behind you. And, besides, we really liked Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation.
But then the movie does suck as much as you should have known it would. And even though the theater's only half-full, an idiot who talks still sits right behind you. And in that moment, life is bad. And seeing Scarlett Johansson again isn't fun, but melancholy. Because you realize that this is the kind of movie she does now, and this is how she earns, and spends, her fame. At least until her career gets Afflecked, and then she'll be taking Sofia Coppola out for lunch to cook up a comeback project.
"Still Lost In Translation, Sofia -- this time we're in Thailand. What do you say?"
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