Seven Pounds

We didn’t have the chance to see Duplicity before it opened today, but our friend Heidi did and we asked for a report.

According to Heidi, who has really good taste and a high tolerance for pain, Duplicity was “so mind-numbingly awful, I think we can call it the first Seven Pounds of 2009. I fell asleep for like 10 or fifteen minutes.”

Oh snap. She invoked Seven Pounds.

Seven Pounds is to good filmmaking what the Hindenburg was to aviation.

Let's get the painful worst out of the way first so we can end this year on the high note of what was great.

Worst
1. Hounddog
A terribly written, amateurishly directed, horrendously acted, self-important parable about lost innocence rife with Adam and Eve symbolism; the film’s major claim to fame is the rape of 12-year-old Dakota Fanning. To call it offensively bad is to be kind. 

Seven Pounds should be re-titled "Seven Pounds of Cheese."

Rotting, stinky cheese.

Will Smith’s latest vehicle, which is too irritatingly cryptic to be explained in a few lines here, earns the dubious honor of not only being one of the worst films of 2008, following closely on the heels of the unwatchable Hounddog, it is also the least comprehensible movie we can call to mind. It makes Memento look as linear as an episode of Hannah Montana.

Will Smith’s new movie, Seven Pounds, is a story so cryptic that any sort of synopsis would destroy the mystery which the film must remain shrouded in. Instead, as a descriptive, Smith refers to the Shakespearean line from The Merchant of Venice which inspired this tale of a man in search of seven people whose lives he can choose to change: “These griefs and losses have so bated me, that I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh to-morrow to my bloody creditor. Pray God, come to see me pay his debt, and then I care not!”

Where’s Carlton, Hilary, Geoffrey, Uncle Phil and Aunt Viv?

Tatyana Ali, who will always be Ashley Banks to us, came out to support her former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air co-star, Will Smith, at the premiere of his new film Seven Pounds in Westwood last night.

Seeing her makes us want to sing…

“In West Philadelphia, born and raised, on the play ground was where I spent most of my days…”

Will Smith and his co-star Rosario Dawson, who is perhaps the most exquisite woman in Hollywood as far as we’re concerned, attended last night’s premiere of Seven Pounds at the Mann Village Theater in Westwood.

Rosario, you are a vision in camel, girl!

When we sat down with Will to discuss this new film (more on that Friday), he admitted the film’s emotional core was what drew him in, rather than the prospect of international success. What he didn’t expect was that the character he plays would incite his own internal war. 

When we sat down with Will Smith during the Seven Pounds press junket last week, the amiable star, who sported an ear to ear grin throughout the majority of the conversation, was surprisingly candid.

At Friday’s press day for his new film Seven Pounds, Will Smith got called out by co-star Rosario Dawson about his painful shyness around their love scenes.

“My grandmother was really firm about how men are supposed to treat women. So for me, my worst nightmare is for an actress to feel like I’m taking this opportunity to get a little quickie feel. You know, some legal cheating going on,” Will laughed.