Starring Mindy Kaling as herself

Okay, everyone can clearly see Paramount has a piece of shit on their hands with the new romantic comedy NO STRINGS ATTACHED. Not only is the premise hopelessly dated, but the lead, Natalie Portman, is horribly miscast.

In case you've been able to avoid the annoying ad campaign, allow me to explain the premise of the film:

Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman play best friends who decide to fuck each other. They swear up and down they want to avoid all the annoying crap that goes along with a relationship -- they're just too professional and busy for stuff like that. But, they're still horny. So they arrange to be "friends who do stuff" which is what we used to call it back in 8th grade. A million points to anyone who can guess how this one turns out. Just kidding, you don't get any points.

Why do I think Natalie Portman is miscast? Because in order for the premise of this movie to pay off the way Paramount clearly wants it to, the main characters have to be retarded. That's fine for Ashton Kutcher, who has a track record playing complete tards. But Portman has something that usually works to her benefit, and that's the magical ability to project intelligence. I'm not saying she IS intelligent, or she's dumb, or anything like that. I don't know anything about her. I'm just saying she SEEMS intelligent. You can see her brain doing stuff when you look in her eyes.

Her big, beautiful eyes.

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, projecting intelligence.

That's why she (almost) always gets classy projects -- flicks with some intelligence behind them need chicks in them who seem intelligent. When she finds herself in a stinker, she doesn't fit. Take those three fake STAR WARS movies, for example. Remember how she seemed all wooden in those flicks, even though we all know she's a good actress? It's because those flicks were retarded, and she isn't. Her pretending to be retarded at the whims of the script just doesn't work -- an audience can see through it. An audience can see her thinking, "How did I get into this mess? What is George Lucas thinking? Didn't he make the real STAR WARS movie? What happened?"

Now, I'm not saying it's necessarily bad to cast against type. I'm a big fan of people trying new things. I'm a big fan of the unexpected and weird and offbeat. But if you want to put Natalie Portman in a romantic comedy, you have to make damn sure it's a GOOD romantic comedy. Not this one. To be fair, I haven't seen it, so for all I know, it could be a masterpiece. I mean, Ivan Reitman directed it and he made GHOSTBUSTSERS. Course he also made MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND.

The real mystery is that apparently Natalie Portman's an executive producer on this thing. Now, I know it's not out of the ordinary for huge stars to have a hand in producing their own movies, but the question is, is this one of those ones that Portman "executive produced" just by showing up -- or did she have a hand in getting it made, beyond appearing in it? Was it a passion project or a paycheck? Or both?

The worst thing about NO STRINGS ATTACHED is how the trailer tricked me the first time I ever saw it. If you've been lucky enough to avoid it, let me explain that the first scene of the trailer involves Ashton Kutcher waking up on a couch, clearly hungover and disoriented. Actress Mindy Kaling is sitting there with a cup of coffee in her jammies, and Kutcher jumps to the conclusion that he slept with her. At first she acts like she did sleep with him, but it turns out to be a joke, and then the rest of the trailer kicks in and it turns out to be the movie I described earlier.

Here's the thing. As the trailer unfolded, when I saw Ashton Kutcher, I thought, "Oh. Another shitty romantic comedy we've seen a million times before."

When Mindy Kaling showed up I sat up in my seat. "Wait a minute," I thought. "Is this a movie where Mindy Kaling fucks Ashton Kutcher? Is it like the opposite of KNOCKED UP with a gender switch?"

In those brief seconds I got all excited imagining the possibilities. A mainstream Hollywood romantic comedy starring Mindy Kaling! In case you're wondering who Mindy Kaling is, she's probably most famous for being hilarious as Kelly Kapoor on THE OFFICE, but she's turned up in enough other stuff like THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM to make it even more clear that she must be awesome. She's even written for THE OFFICE and SNL, and directed an episode of THE OFFICE, and wrote a play about Matt Damon and Ben Affleck called MATT & BEN that I picked up at Powell's one time and thought, "I should read this," and then didn't.

My mind leapt from one conclusion to the other. Maybe she WROTE this movie! Maybe it's from her point of view, inspired by her own life! Maybe we'll get some fresh and edgy insight into relationships in a unique romantic comedy featuring an atypical female lead!

But no. It turned out to be NO STRINGS ATTACHED.

So, since I'm clearly so successful and Portman is obviously struggling, what with her definite Oscar win coming in about a month and all, let me offer some advice:

Natalie, next time you want to executive produce something, make it an awesome romantic comedy starring Mindy Kaling. Maybe she's already written one!

You're welcome.