By Debbie Schlussel
Was extremely busy on Friday and didn’t get a chance to post a lot of things, including my weekly movie reviews. And since–because of Jewish Holiday scheduling conflicts–I did not screen “High School Musical 3” or “Pride and Glory”, I figured you aren’t missing much. Actually, I never saw the first or second “High School Musical” flicks, so I didn’t bother asking about the screening for the third installment because then I’d have to watch those, and life is simply to short to waste on that.
Unfortunately, I did go see this movie, which did not have a press screening, and I don’t wonder why:
* “Rachel Getting Married“: One of the worst movies of the year and a complete waste of my–and your–time. Hollywood apparently feels it doesn’t put out enough New Age melodramatic crap, so they brought us this cinematic version of “Oy.”

Or someone wanted to give their talentless hacks–at both acting, music, and wedding party planning–exposure, so they wrote this movie around it. Either way, there are only two possible reasons this movie got made: 1) the person who wrote it has the last name “Lumet” (Jenny Lumet) and is apparently a relative of the talented director Sidney Lumet; or 2) someone needed a large business loss tax deduction before the end of 2008.
And it’s a great example of how Hollywood can’t come up with anything original, even in the crappy melodramatic, bad wedding movie genre. Last year, there was another, even more crappy movie about a similarly mentally screwed-up sister who similarly sabotages her similarly New-Aged sister’s wedding plans at a fancy East Coast home. That torture session was called “Margot at the Wedding” (read my review), one of 2007’s worst movies.
The “plot”–if you can call it that: A drug addict, played by Anne Hathaway, who has been in and out of various rehab facilities for the last ten years, returns to her New Age, wealthy Whitebread Connecticut family’s home for her sister’s New Age, interracial, Indian-themed wedding to a Black man. Amidst all this, we’re treated to fleeting–but not fleeting enough, unfortunately–scenes of Indian and other Bhaghwan Shree Rajneesh guru types and speeches–and performances by talentless no-name musical (un)”talents”.
Hathaway’s character is incredibly needy of attention and disrupts a lot of the wedding festivities and plans with her acerbic comments, speeches, and antics . . . and she sleeps with the best man, also a recovering addict, within an hour of meeting him. Oh, and Debra Winger, back in movies at age 53, is her mother. We’re also treated to a lot of melodrama, screaming, yelling, whining, fighting between characters we don’t give a damn about, and two hours of wishing we’d walked out of the theater earlier.
Blechhhhh. See, I knew you wouldn’t miss my movie reviews, this weekend.
FOUR MARXES