Back in 1990, smack-dab in the middle of the first Bush Administration, during the run-up to the first Iraq war, the film Pretty Woman was unleashed upon the world. From the moment Julia Roberts opened her humongous mouth to do her soon-to-be-patented, humongous open-mouthed laugh, the world was transfixed. In a time of division and strife, Julia Roberts’ humongous mouth united us all.
Now it’s 2009, and things are 50 times more effed-up than in 1990, and Hollywood is once again sending Julia Roberts’ humongous mouth to the rescue.
Ms. Roberts’ delivers a full-on, high-octane, open-mouthed laugh at :26 or so….but somehow things seem off. There’s no doubt that Duplicity will be, at the very least, a much better movie than Pretty Woman. But the exploitative use of Julia Roberts’ humongous mouth seems desperate and fishy. “Look!” the trailer seems to screams. “Here’s another one of those movies where Julia Roberts does her humongous open-mouthed laugh!” I’m left wondering if Ms. Roberts is contractually obligated to deliver at least one such laugh per film. And I wonder if she hates that goddamn laugh as much as I’m beginning to. (She, however, has the ability to hate her laugh from on top of a pile of million-dollar bills in her Hollywood mansion, while I can only sneer at the TV in my Central District apartment.)
Whatever happened to Julia Roberts? She was in that whore movie, and then just sort of went away…
She must be old, now, huh? That’s kind of sad I guess.
It is her trademark and it is what we all find comforting in times or uncertainty and desperation. She probably is obligated to due that laugh in most of her high-spirited films. It is no different then Tom Cruise’s cheek clench or Ben Affleck’s bad acting.
I guess it was charming until it was packaged and sold as a consumer product. Now, not so much.
She needed that mouth to get where she is. In more way than one.
I have no idea what the fuck this post is supposed to be about. Are you sure Mudede didn’t write this?
@5 – that was my thought too.
That hairstyle on Clive Owen is wigging me out. It reminds me of that picture of Mudede as a young man with a part in his ‘fro.
At Entertainment Weekly, we charted the correlation between the number of minutes Julia Roberts smiles in a film and its grosses. The correlation was precise. When she doesn’t smile, she bombs.
spot on, mr. schmader.
If you pause the trailer at :26 during the laugh, she looks kind of cross-eyed…