'The Women' Starring A Bunch of Women...

I am about to lay down a heap o' hate on this movie...

We saw the trailer for this last weekend before we saw 'Hamlet 2' and dear gawd in heaven, it looked like a pure celluloid travesty of the highest order.   (Not Hamlet 2, that movie was AWESOME)

Where to begin... first, the website.  Jebus.  The producers of this film actually try to make this pathetic trifle of an attempt at a movie sound semi-intellectual.

From the site:

They actually claim a story point that is 'faustian'??  Them's some big words for what looks like every other crap 'rom-com' rolling out of H-wood.

Watch the trailer, I don't think anyone would disagree with me here. The entire thing is just a series of cuts between Meg Ryan's friends frowning and furrowing their brows while watching Eva Mendes saunter around a perfume counter with her boobs hanging out. 

And of course, all of the dialogue is snippets of stupid shit like:

Can you believe that he's cheating?
With her?
Did you tell her yet?
I can't believe you didn't tell her.
You have to tell her.

Gag me. 

Usually I wouldn't stoop so low, but Eva Mendes?  She looks like a transgendered version of Cindy Crawford... if she smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day and her daily routine included rolling out of bed and huffing glue out of a paper bag. 

Hollywood, just effing stop it with Evan Mendes!!  Oops, Eva.  She is not sexy. She is not HOT.  She can't act.  Is she cast here in the hopes of luring men into the theater? Are you serious? That is straight stupid. What man would be caught dead seeing this garbage?

I loved the SERIES of 'Sex in the City' but didn't make any attempt to see it in the movie theater, especially when the reviews started coming in.  Basically Carrie is like Cinderella in the whole thing, there were jokes about big closets in the trailer...??  I didn't see it, nor have I seen this shitfest 'The Women', so I really should contain my bile here, but who are these movies talking to?

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that SITC made so much money considering it starred four women in their 40's.  I am delighted that a movie entirely based around the lives of women is considered relevant. 

But why are our collective lives depicted as being made or broken by MEN?  There is this subtle recurring theme of victimhood:

Why won't this man love ME?
Why would this man I love do this to ME?
I can't be happy on my own without this man. Or A man. Or that man over there??

Call me O-F-F, but I dig the weirder fare like 'Heathers'.  Yeah, Veronica fell for JD and was grotesquely influenced by him, to the point of temporarily sacrificing her sense of self at the altar of teen love,  but when push came to shove she put a cap in his ass and she wasn't wimpering at the end about being alone.  

I'm not saying we need to go to that extreme either, but can one movie be made with a female protagonist that actually speaks to me or anyone remotely like me?  PLEASE??

The movie poster alone makes me want to run into traffic.  This just makes all women look like utter simpletons.  Take a look :

Can you figure out the subtext here?

Meg Ryan: Who is this perfume tramp that is screwing my husband?  Oh who cares, what do you think of my lips? They don't look nearly as fucked up as they did a few months ago, right?

Evan Mendes: I love these boobs.  Thank God for you, my ample bosom, you are the only reason I book jobs.

Debra Messing: I am the indignant friend!! I can't believe this is happening! What a tramp! Let's kick her ass.  No, we can't.  We don't behave like that, but I'm going to sit here and stew in my own juices about it and be really really mad that this is happening.  Did you buy that?

Jada Pinkett Smith: Hey, did I mention that I'm totally phoning this in? Will and I are just picking up extra projects to fund our new Scientology school.

Annette Bening: Hi, (insert name of agent here).  Did you forget that I've been nominated for several Oscars?  Yeah, I'm wondering when you became a total shit-for-brains and advised me to do this movie.  When did that happen?

On a random aside, does anyone else thing that Annette Bening looks like Vanessa Williams here?  This isn't a bad thing, it's just kind of weird.

A few other things to note:
1) This is based on a movie made in 1939
2) This took years to make and I read that it was produced by a film company owned by the mag Vanity Fair...? 
3) Also produced by Mick Jagger's production company.

Ok.  I am completely ranting about a TRAILER.  But please, someone tell me if this turns out to be a really thoughtful look at the trials and tribulations of modern women. 

Right now it just looks like a bunch of mindless dimbats with money kavetching about how awful men can be.

Grotesque.

Comments

[Emily]

Perhaps you should see this movie before judging it on the basis a website or trailer? It's not about men or being desperate to get a men or get married. In fact, there isn't a single man in this movie. It's about the friendship between these women. The main story is about the broken friendship between Annette's and Meg's characters.

[Kerry]

Hee. I have been reading about a possible remake for as long as I've been getting Entertainment Weekly, which is an embarassingly long time. Thought you'd like this:

http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/go_fug_yourself/2008/08/the_fugen.html

[Melissa]

Emily, like I said:

"Ok. I am completely ranting about a TRAILER. But please, someone tell me if this turns out to be a really thoughtful look at the trials and tribulations of modern women."

You haven't said whether or not you've seen the movie or not. Have you??? I might be way off on the content of the movie (see disclaimer above, one more time) but the trailer is completely pandering to women with sub-level IQ's.

It's all well and good to claim to be intellectual, faustian, what-have-you...but the trailer still makes the movie out to center around women angry with/hurt by/plotting revenge on a MAN.

[Thedailypeter]

How does this look bad to you. All those amazingly talented actresses on the poster, PLUS Murphy Brown AND Bette Midler! You must be a psycho to 'lay down a heap 'o hate' on this one.

[Thedailypeter]

How dare you talk about these amazingly talented actresses like that. I will never read the Daily Beery ever again! Never!!