As you can probably tell, I’m a pop culture addict. That’s why I love Fametracker. And Fametracker’s fame audits. Here’s an excerpt on the recent one about Scarlett Johansson, going off on how much of a sellout she’s become lately.
So here’s a radical idea: why 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.