Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Well, Color Me Asleep!


Grey Gardens helmer Michael Sucsy will make his feature directorial debut on Goree Girls, with Jennifer Aniston headlining the true story of an all-female country band in a Texas prison in the 1940s. (courtesy Variety.com)
Jennifer Aniston in a period piece? Where she sings? Country music?

As hard as it is to imagine boring ole Jennifer Aniston doing anything that would send her to prison, it's somehow even more difficult to picture her as a musician. The closest I can come to it in my mind is her playing a boring, even-less-believable-as-a-musician version of Sheryl Crow, who is herself nearly unbelievable as a musician, despite her career.

In fact, that's probably how this whole project got started in the first place: a vehicle for Sheryl Crow. Then they discovered she can't act, so they racked their brains trying to think of an actress that looks like her.

Enter Aniston, a dead-ringer who really resonates with lonely, pissed-off women who would love to see a boring movie about a bunch of tough women playing boring music about how much men suck and how hard it is to be a woman sometimes--yet how rewarding it can be, too--in front of a prison full of other tough women, in the 1940s, when women were women.

Don't believe me? Well, check out the titles of Aniston's recent projects, which will tell you all you need to know about not only how the world perceives her, but also how she and her reps want the world to perceive her:

Derailed - The true story of her life after Brad. Or something like that.

The Break-Up - A movie about Vince Vaughn breaking up with her

Marley & Me
- "In an attempt to stall Jennifer's 'biological clock', John gives her a puppy." Ouch. And she even plays herself? In a movie based on a book whose plot was clearly adapted from Clifford the Big Red Dog?

He's Just Not That Into You
- The Brangelina story? The Vince Vaughn story? The John Mayer story? The Adam Duritz story?

Love Happens
- If you wait long enough and lower your standards, grrrrl.

The Baster
- Who needs a pesky penis when they have cooking utensils!

Getting Rid of Matthew
- McConaughey?

The Divorce Party
- Nothing wrong with being single, bitches! It's fun! Let's have a party! Men don't define us!

Pumas
- I guess Cougars was already taken. LOL! So clever!


But, alright, back to this Goree Girls mess.

This project has been in development at DreamWorks for years, was based on a newspaper article, and has already chewed up and spit out at least two seasoned writers.

Shouldn't this be a sign that this movie wasn't meant to be?

Surely, Overnight Productions must have better projects in the pipeline...
Overnight has a November start set on the Darren Aronofsky-directed Black Swan, a ballet thriller developed at Universal that will star Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. And it will start production next year on the Jonathan Jakubowicz-directed Southbound, a border drama developed at Warner Bros. that will star Matthew McConaughey and Eva Mendes.
I guess not. Good luck to you, Overnight! I hope your company doesn't fold...overnight...because America is just not that into you...[snore]

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