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Why doesn't Kate Hudson just sign on for a sitcom and be done with it?
Her last four films -- Alex & Emma, Le Divorce, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and, now, Raising Helen -- all could have easily been sliced into palatable, half-hour servings and dished up weekly. Seriously, you read it here first: premiering in the fall of 2006, Helen's Le Rules for Divorcing Alex in 10 Days, right after The George Lopez Show!
Remember back in 2001, when Hudson looked like a lock for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar? And, from there, the complete, head-to-toe Paltrowsization of her career? The Vogue covers, the prestige biopics, the adoption as muse to various sunglass-wearing European designers? She had the same sunny blonde hair and excellent bloodlines as Gwyneth, but was also infused with a lovable daffiness, inherited from her mother, Goldie Hawn.
Sure, she lost the Oscar to surprise winner Marcia Gay Harden, but so what? A minor setback, that's all! A distraction! The machinery was all set up! We could have...it was only...and then it...
Whaa happened?
Somebody -- perhaps Ms. Hudson herself -- obviously decided that Kate Hudson would not follow up her lovably daffy and soulful role in Almost Famous with more lovable and daffy and soulful roles. Instead, she would become the Next Julia Roberts Dammit (NJRD).
So she's been stuck recycling the same movie over and over with increasingly less appealing male leads. Luke Wilson! Matthew McConaughey! Er...John Corbett!
(Speaking of whom, what happened to John Corbett? Has he been on an all-plasticine diet? He looks so uninterested in Raising Helen -- so embarrassed to be sucked back in to the same Big Fat Swamp of Romantic Crapola -- that at times I wondered if he'd been hypnotized into participating, and might wake up at any moment and flee the set, screaming.)
In the most recent effort to cement Hudson's NJRD status, they even brought in Garry Marshall, director of Pretty Woman and The Runaway Bride and recently appointed to the federal position of Hackmaster General. He then surrounded Hudson with an all-star team of crowd-pleasing ringers: Corbett! Joan Cusack! Adorable moppets!
But instead of becoming the NJRD -- or, better yet, this generation's Goldie Hawn -- Hudson's become the cut-rate Jennifer Aniston. She's certainly charming enough in Raising Helen -- at least, charming in that way that says, "What I'm really doing is discreetly auditioning for a sitcom pilot while earning enough money to support my husband, Scary McBarnspook" -- but this is a role Jennifer Aniston would have knocked off while taking a call and having a manicure.
Come on, Kate! You are authentically cute! You were authentically winning in Almost Famous! And, perhaps because you grew up with two movie stars for parents, you aren't as automatonically relentless in your pursuit of the NJRD crown as is, oh, say, we don't know...Jennifer Garner, whose smile grows more cyborgian with each Oscar telecast appearance.
You can pull yourself out of this tailspin, Kate! We know it! We want to give you more fame...but you don't deserve it. Yet.
Here's the prescription: fire your agent. Call your mom. Have a chat with Kurt Russell. Tell him to give you one of the pep talks from Miracle. Turn down all romantic comedies for two years. Start, you know, reading your scripts before you accept the roles in them. As a rule, reject all roles that require you to fall for a guy named "Pastor Dan."
Because you know what will happen if you don't? You know where this tailspin winds up? In a 9:00 PM slot on a Friday night on ABC, trading quips with Andy Dick.
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