Donna Freitas: April 2007 Archives

I should have listened to New York Times film critic Stephen Holden, who called "In the Land of Women" meek and mopey, "the film equivalent of a sensitive emo band with one foot in alternative rock and the other in the squishy pop mainstream." The film stars Meg Ryan in a relatively new role--down and out mom-figure rather than romantic lead--and Adam Brody (formerly of "The O.C.") as the all-purpose confidante for quite literally every woman in the film: ex-girlfriend, grandmother, and next door neighbors (Ryan as the mother and her daughter).

Despite the reviews, I figured--how bad could a movie be that stars Meg Ryan and Olympia Dukakis (who I love)? As it turns out, really bad. It's the worst movie I've seen in years. And I see a lot of movies.

Adam Brody--playing Carter Webb--is utterly unappealing in what I guess is the romantic lead--though there is nothing romantic about him or the part he plays. Nor is there anything comedic about Carter's character. Why so many beautiful, talented women are drawn to baring their souls to him is inexplicable. He doesn't do anything in the film aside from stumbling in and out of these women's lives. It's painfully clear is that Adam Brody can not carry a film. And since Brody is the epicenter of this "land of women," the movie falls on this fatal flaw.

Then there is the fact that though the movie is billed as a romantic comedy, it is an incredibly depressing film. The dominant themes are despair, death, cancer, and infidelity. I know--what fun on a warm spring afternoon!

I confess: I never watched "The O.C.," so perhaps I didn't enter the theater with the right sympathetic-to-Brody attitude like the rest of the "O.C." fans who made up the bulk of the audience around me. But even they shared my dismay. As the credits rolled and I got up to leave, one of the girls behind me quipped loudly and in appropriately high school melodramatic fashion: "That. Was the worst. Movie. Ever."

Yes, I silently agreed. Enough said. Brody gets a failing grade as confessor. I actually left the theater feeling angry. Save your money. There's nothing redeemable about this one.

OK, I am a shamelessly huge "Smallville" fan and after a tough season five, I feel like season six has bounced back and then some. This, of course, also makes me a huge Superman fan in general.

So I was very intrigued to come across the following fun headline on the MSN homepage yesterday: "Scientists unearth Superman's 'kryptonite': Substance is white, powdery, contains no fluorine and isn't radioactive." I'm not usually one to click on the teasers posted on MSN--but this time I couldn't resist. Here is what I found out:

"Kryptonite, which robbed Superman of his powers, is no longer the stuff of comic books and films. A mineral found by geologists in Serbia shares virtually the same chemical composition as the fictional kryptonite from outer space, used by the superhero's nemesis Lex Luthor to weaken him in the film "Superman Returns."...[Chris] Stanley, who revealed the identity of the mysterious new mineral, discovered the match after searching the Internet for its chemical formula — sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide. "I was amazed to discover that same scientific name written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luthor from a museum in the film 'Superman Returns,'" he said."

Apparently, the rocks go on display at the London's Natural History Museum today. If it wasn't so far away I'd consider making a pilgrimage to see it. Though, somewhat disappointing: it turns out that kryptonite is white and not green.

You can't have everything, I guess.

Turns out that Desmond David Hume on "Lost," the character most memorable for calling everybody "brothuuh," (heavy on the accent), is actually an ex-brother! (well, ex-monk, but close enough). This shocking revelation was revealed on last night's episode, "Catch-22."

Here's the story: Desmond convinces Hurley, Charlie, and Jin to trek with him through the jungle in pursuit of Penny, his long lost love. Desmond believes she has somehow traveled to the island in search of him. In between events on their journey, audiences are treated to "before-Penny" flashbacks of Desmond's attempt to become a monk after jilting a different girlfriend of six years one week before the wedding.

The flashbacks include all sorts of interesting religious parallels: At Desmond's monastery they bottle wine called "Moriah Vineyards"--the name of the mountain where the Prophet Abraham takes Isaac to be sacrificed, according to many religions' scriptures. (Is Desmond the island's Abraham, who is supposed to trust God and take Charlie for slaughter--but then fails?) We also learn that Desmond left his fiance for the monastery because he awakens in the street one morning to find a monk offering his hand to him, and suddenly Desmond believes he has a "higher calling."

But it turns out, "the brothuuhs" decide he's not meant for the monastery and ask Desmond to leave while he's still a novice. He has an even higher calling, one of the monks tells Desmond before he's off on his way.

Is Desmond's higher calling wrapped up with Penny somehow? The last scene has Desmond meeting Penny as he's packing up to go. Is it Desmond's destiny to always run from his calling--since he runs from Penny too, just as he runs from Charlie's death?

Too soon to tell.

If you haven't already seen it, make time for "The Hoax," a riveting film about Clifford Irving that's based on a true story. In 1971 Irving almost fooled publishing house McGraw-Hill into putting out his utterly fictionalized "authorized autobiography" of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.

Watching Mr. Irving conceive the idea of the fake autobiography and deceive the big execs at McGraw-Hill and even the folks at Life Magazine into not only believing him, but buying and serializing the promised literary triumph for one million dollars (!!) is simply shocking. Was Irving simply a sucker for faith--in himself, that is--and his ability to pull off the almost-impossible?

Why did the big-time publishers put faith in Irving, who was only a poor-selling novelist and the last person on earth one would imagine Hughes choosing as his voice to the world? Didn't they ever hear of the phrase, "too good to be true?"Perhaps most stunning of all is watching Irving's own transformation from con man to believer in his own con.

If you like flicks in the genre of "All the President's Men," "Good Night and Good Luck," "Shattered Glass," and most recently, "Breach," go see this film. "The Hoax" stars Richard Gere (giving the best performance from him I've seen in ages--finally in a role that suits his age), Alfred Molina, Julie Delpy, and Hope Davis, is now playing in theaters everywhere.

When I worked in Residence Life at Georgetown University, one of the resident assitants (R.A.'s) on my staff was a young, beautiful Muslim woman who always wore a head scarf and whose clothes extended to her wrists and ankles. Her fashion sense was stunning, and each time I saw her I was amazed by her array of gorgeous, brightly colored scarves and the creative ways she found to wear them.

In "We, Myself and I," New York Times Ruth La Ferla reported this week about Muslim women's fashion sense--how to dress hip while still being truth to the tenets of your faith, and I was quickly reminded of my former R.A.:

'''Injecting fashion into a traditional Muslim wardrobe is ''walking a fine line,'' said Dilshad D. Ali, the Islam editor [and one of my Idol Chatter editors] of Beliefnet.com, a Web site for spiritual seekers. A flash point for controversy is the hijab, which is viewed by some as a politically charged symbol of radical Islam and of female subjugation that invites reactions from curiosity to outright hostility.

"In purely aesthetic terms, the devout must work to evolve a style that is attractive but not provocative, demure but not dour--friendly to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. 'Some young women follow the letter of the rule,' Ms. Ali observed. Others are more flexible. ''Maybe their shirts are tight. Maybe the scarf is not really covering their chest, and older Muslim women's tongues will wag.'''

Young Muslim women in the West struggle to decide where to stand on a line where at one end one dresses more conservatively, and at the other end boundaries are pushed pretty hard, La Ferla reports. And these women must make these decisions in a culture where it is difficult to find shops that cater to Muslim women at all--never mind style-conscious young women.

The young women whose photographs are featured seem to have figured things out. Nobody would doubt their fashion sense, and I certainly came away reminded how beautiful (while still modest) a hijab can make a young woman's face--framing her features and drawing them out. One woman even had leopard print stockings to boot!

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