Duck Season

This time from David Edelstein over at Slate:

Do Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, the stars of Gigli (Columbia), have chemistry? Of a sort: He brings out her mushiness, and she brings out his wooziness. It's not the stuff of great screen pairings, which tend to thrive on tension more than harmony. Lopez plays Ricki, a lesbian "independent contractor" dispatched to keep tabs on a none-too-swift hood, Gigli (Affleck), who has been ordered to kidnap the mentally disabled brother of a federal prosecutor. Lopez saunters into Affleck's bachelor pad and mocks his machismo, then tells him not to "allow the seed of carnal hope to sprout" in his soul. But within seconds this ostensibly hard-ass dyke is jiggling her tongue and giving her co-star hot, appraising looks—which turn Affleck, already an actor of amazing edgelessness, into a twinkling doughboy. Disparaging her sexual preferences, he tells her that "every relationship has a bull and a cow," but Gigli looks for all the world like heifers in love.

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Gigli's advice to Brian on the subject of how to approach women evidently makes him even more alluring to his lesbian antagonist, who finally demands some of that "sweet hetero lingus" for herself. I'd suggest that Lopez and Affleck issue a public apology to lesbians, but when moviedom's hottest couple is reduced to gobbling and mooing at each other, it's likely that heterosexuality has suffered the more lasting injury.

While seeing America's power couple crash and burn gives me nothing but infinite pleasure, I sure hope the bad publicity from this movie doesn't hurt 'Jersey Girl' one bit. Kevin Smith doesn't deserve to have his opportunity for real commercial success ruined by someone else's shoddy film.

Here's what Smith has to say about his Affleck/Lopez movie:

As for the film -- well, I'll say this: I fucking love it. I do. I really adore it -- moreso than anything we've ever done before. Outside of marrying Schwalbach and being too lazy to rip open a prophylactic that apparently had Harley's name written all over it (though not necessarily in that order), it's the best thing I've ever done. That's not to say it's for everybody; in fact, a good number of the folks who've loved our previous flicks will probably abandon us after seeing JERSEY GIRL is nothing like them (not even AMY), if they even see it at all. Anybody who incorporates "Snootchie Bootchies!" into their Internet postings or daily conversations might wanna wait for the CLERKS cartoon flick (which -- take this as promise or a threat -- is next for us) and skip this one. I'll save you the time of having to post this on our Web-board and let you know that I understand you feel I'm a "pussy," a "sell-out," "I've lost it" (whatever "it" was), and I "eat cok." You're not going to change my mind about the flick; I just love it too much.

Despite the horrid performance of 'Bennifer' on screen this week, that endorsement is good enough for me and my $9.50.