The Current Crop Has Become Tiresome
BY HOLDEN CAUFIELD
It’s true that we see movie stars in Livingston (no one knows why) and even occasionally get a kick out of it, though we act like we don’t care, but if the truth be told this particular observer of the public scene does’t care if he ever sees another movie star again. Maybe that’s not fair, because Jeff Bridges is a good guy, he doesn’t even seem like a movie star, and so is Michael Keaton, but the problem is that in the movies we’ve seen Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and George Clooney far too many times for their own good, or ours (only Brad Pitt’s visited the area, for the making of a River Runs Through It).
They’re simply over exposed, and if I see any of these people again, I might have to use my popcorn bag for something other than popcorn—same goes for Tom Hanks. I mean, these people are just downright tiresome. They make the same little facial expressions all the time, don’t really act very well (especially Brad Pitt, who might be described, generously, as a whole lot of nothin’) and of course they make tens of millions each time they star in a movie that you forget the moment you leave the theater, even those that win Academy Awards. Maybe they’re okay, I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I’m fed up with them ruining every movie they star in.
Brad Pitt, after all, has never played anybody but Brad Pitt, whether it was Seven Years in Tibet or Money Ball. He’s just a tiresome personality, because he doesn’t have any personality, and the same goes for Julia Roberts, although she’s a little better. You wouldn’t know it though after watching Eat, Pray, Love, or whatever it was called. They should have called it Eat, Pray, Gag Me with a Spoon, but they didn’t, yet it would have been a much more successful movie if they had (are you listening Hollywood?).
You do have to hand it to Julia Roberts, because she is ultra successful and not really beautiful or even especially pretty like Catherine Zeta-Jones (until Michael Douglas got a hold of her) and a lot of other actresses. You’re not supposed to call them actresses anymore, by the way, you’re supposed to call them actors, but they are actresses because actors are men and actresses are women—next they’ll have us all wearing unisex clothing that looks like smocks or those giant snuggly things they sell on Cable TV that probably produce way too much static electricity (does anybody buy those things?), and in an age of computers and smart phones yet, that can get wiped out by a spark arcing from your finger tip. Julia Roberts though wouldn’t know a thing about that, because she’s got way too much money to be bothered by a spark arcing from her fingertip and wrecking her smart phone. She would just pick up one of the other 12 smart phones she has laying around in one of her 12 mansions in scenic locations around the world, with views that no one person could ever fully or even partially appreciate because there are so many of them and they are so beautiful, unlike Julia, who is not really beautiful, just ordinary looking, although you gotta hand it to her for being so successful with such ordinary looks. Okay, she can act, that’s why she’s successful, but I’m still tired of seeing her face in all those ho hum movies she makes—and please, not another one with Tom Hanks, George Clooney or Brad Pitt. These people, shall I say it again, are tiresome. Can’t we please order up some new movie stars, a little variety maybe—a Gary Oldman, an Edward Norton.
It’s like when John Wayne played Genghis Khan and then Davey Crocket. Nobody believed he was Genghis Khan or Davey Crocket, they knew he was John Wayne, because he couldn’t be anybody but John Wayne, unlike actors who can really act like Sean Penn, who is a goofy guy in real life, but he can act. He can become someone else on screen and convince you he’s someone else, whereas Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Tom Hanks will never be anybody but Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Tom Hanks, in that order, unless it’s Tom Hanks pretending he’s Forest Gump, a really stupid guy, but that doesn’t actually count as acting, it’s just pretending you’re stupid, which is easy.
So the next time you decide to watch a movie, don’t watch it if it stars Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, George Clooney or Tom Hanks. They are simply—what are they now? All together—tiresome. And not to beat a dead horse, but Julia Roberts, okay, I said she isn’t all that pretty (so I won’t say it again), although that’s probably a good thing because some actresses are just too damn pretty. It’s all you can think about, like Charlize Theron and Halle Berry—they’re just melt in your mouth pretty, but Halle Berry’s not very smart. Ouch, how could someone say that? Well, I can say that because I saw her on a talk show once, and she had just been to North Africa, she said, Morocco or somewhere like that, and she exclaimed that she never knew Africa was like that, the way it is in North Africa. She obviously had not known the difference between North Africa and the Africa of Tarzan movies, or the Africa where Charlize Theron comes from (South Africa), like she had never studied geography in school, and to be fair it’s not that Halle Berry is not so smart, it’s that public schools haven’t taught geography for several decades, no history either, which is why beautiful people like Halle Berry and not so beautiful people like Julia Roberts, and supposedly beautiful people like Brad Pitt, should not really be listened to when they open their mouths and voice their opinions because they’re not very bright. Public education in America, you see, is really not doing so well, although it varies from place to place, because the schools are not allowed to make serious changes and they don’t teach history and geography anymore, except when those things cross paths with social studies, and so how can you know anything when you don’t know where anything is? It’s kind of pitiful, so let’s not blame Halle Berry too much, let’s give her a break (and an old geography book). But Brad Pitt, we’re not giving him any break at all because he was pitiful as Achilles, the great mythical Greek warrior, in Troy, and that was the only movie where he wasn’t eating all the time (if you didn’t know, that’s his trademark, he eats in his movies, and that’s in place of acting). He didn’t even seem like he could have been Achilles (because he can’t act, except when Robert Redford is the director and forces him to act, as he did in A River Runs Through It, the only acting Pitt’s ever done). Instead, when he played Achilles, he acted like Brad Pitt, except that he wore a tunic. They should have called that movie Brad Pitt in a Tunic, because it sure didn’t seem like the Trojan War, or even anything real, because it was just Brad Pitt in a tunic.
Money Ball, though, was a fairly interesting movie, a true story about baseball, and Brad Pitt was the producer, so he deserves some credit, but he didn’t do any acting, just eating, four different times in the movie—that’s what he does in place of acting. And so he’s actually not an actor—he’s an eater.
Anyway, you should stop watching these lame movies. And if you think I’m wrong, when was the last time you saw a movie that wasn’t lame or that you even remember? You can’t even remember a movie you saw a few days ago, that’s how lame they are, but because you keep paying money to see them, they keep making them. So, wise up, and stop paying to see Brad Pitt in a Tunic.
Now, Daniel Day Lewis or Gary Oldman, those guys could wear a tunic, or even Russel Crowe if properly groomed. Let’s see more movies with Daniel Day Lewis, Gary Oldman, and Russel Crowe when he’s properly groomed. They can act, and wear tunics. Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Tom Hanks—no thanks, they should retire, or go into politics, that would be good for a laugh. If you think they can act, put them to the test, put them in a tunic, draw that mental image. George Clooney or Tom Hanks wearing a tunic, I don’t think so. That means they can’t act. Maybe they should just eat, like Brad Pitt.