Perhaps the most brutally frank assessment of the sad little implosion that is currently Lindsay Lohan can be read halfway through David Halbfinger's business piece in today's Times: "I believe she?s uninsurable. And when you?re uninsurable in this town, you?re done.?
That's Bernie Brillstein, legendary agent/manager/producer and a guy who once represented John Belushi and Chris Farley. So presumably he knows something about people who can't stop putting things up their nose. His statement gets to a nasty truth about Hollywood -- that no matter how people cluck their tongues in dismay or sympathy over a celebrity tailspin, it's finally all about business.
And Lohan's business is headed for Chapter 11. (If you haven't heard, the actress was arrested yesterday after apparently chasing her former personal assistant's mother in a SUV; she had a high blood-alcohol count and a small amount of cocaine in her possession. So much for Hollywood rehab.) The Times article also reports how Lohan's legal woes may pull the financing out from under the independent film "Poor Things," currently in pre-production. Sad that the presence in the cast of two Oscar-winning actresses, Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis, means less to investors than a train-wreck of a post-adolescent, but there you go. I'm not blogging about MacLaine and Dukakis either, am I?
Lohan's woes have also put a damper on the release of "I Know Who Killed Me" (photo above), which opens this Friday without benefit of critics' screenings. (I'll catch it at the first showing then and post my review here later in the day; it'll run in Saturday's paper.) We reviewers are used to this treatment -- not happy about it, but used to it -- when it comes to D-grade horror movies like "Captivity," but when a studio embargoes a film with a star this big, that means it's either unwatchable or they're embarrassed to be associated with her or both.
Judging from "Georgia Rules," I'm guessing the latter.
