Picture Imperfect

Two new film releases reveal Hollywood8217;s contempt for the audience

If gals are fools for diamonds, princes and marrying up, and guys are suckers for sports, burping and crude talk, Hollywood has the movies for both8212;or thinks it does.

The two films couldn8217;t be more obviously targeted: The Other Boleyn Girl brings Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman together as sisters of the Tudor era, all puffy sleeves and funny headdresses, and vying for the royal hand of Henry VIII. And Semi-Pro is a basketball comedy starring Will Ferrell as the washed-up owner of a 1970s team of bush-league8212;not to mention bush-haired8212;losers. And yes, there8217;s a lot of locker-room talk.

Collectively blanketing more than 4,000 screens across the country this weekend, The Other Boleyn Girl and Semi-Pro are just two of the hundreds of movies to be released this year that are designed purely to trigger a sale. They contain no profound messages, no artistic purpose, but just enough emotional high points to make us believe we8217;ve had a meaningful experience.

Which of this weekend8217;s down-market invitations should we go for? Well, neither. But if this were a contest, Boleyn Girl would win by a teeny, royal nose. Like the Philippa Gregory 8220;historical8221; novel it8217;s based on, it8217;s essentially a bodice-ripper with Johansson as Mary Boleyn, the 8220;other8221; of the title, and Portman as her more famous sister, who amounts to Iago in a dress8212;about two-thirds seductress and one-third Satan seed, this Anne stops at nothing to secure that snug spot in His Majesty8217;s four-poster bed. Her modus operandi includes sib-on-sib back-stabbing, treachery and even8212;horrors!8212;attempted incest with brother George Boleyn. All this to produce a male heir for Henry played with buff-bodied diffidence by Eric Bana.

While Peter Morgan8217;s script draws us into the world of women and the ugly measures they have to take to achieve status in a patriarchal world, it8217;s also a parade of the worst cliches man ever bestowed on the other sex8212;the suffering martyr-mother Kristin Scott Thomas as the Boleyn matriarch, the scheming trollop Portman and the saintly sucker Johansson.

Its message here is unintentionally self-hating: men may be pigs, but women8212;especially those women8212;deserve everything they get. Send 8217;em all to the Tower! And, we8217;re left feeling vaguely unclean for having participated in all this.

The formula in Semi-Pro is La-Z-Boy simple: As the player-coach and owner of the Flint Michigan Tropics, Jackie Moon Ferrell is forced to prove his team is good enough to join the newly unified NBA.

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The movie is full of the tackiness, inelegance and intentional lack of sophistication that traditionally govern men at their most relaxed and unguarded. But it fails to imbue the locker-room world with the edge that would turn this careless toss of a premise into a three-pointer.

What guys appreciate about Ferrell8212;if they put down their beers and think about it8212;is the way he brings a bird-just-born innocence to male stereotypes. He is a perpetual child forever trying to come to grips with a complex world. And he makes it okay, funny and lovable to be a dude, no matter what character he8217;s playing.

But in Semi-Pro, he8217;s just a bushy-haired loser, given to jarring profanity.

Hey, there8217;s nothing wrong with movies that address without apology some of the chestnuts and traditions that allow us to revel in our sexual identity. But we can do it, and have done it, in a smart way. Unfortunately, here8217;s the real depressing part: these films make you yearn for a documentary about Iraq.
-Desson Thomson LAT-WP