Tons of the opposite of fun

Let me see if I can sum up the plot of Phat Girlz, the doubly-misspelled Mo'Nique vehicle that no one asked for, in three sentences:

1. Mo'Nique is fat.
2. Mo'Nique is also sassy.
3. African guys like their women fat.

Based on the trailer, this appears to be the entire plot. It's not clear to me that there is anything approximating the usual "unhappy person finds acceptance/love" trajectory going on; the one guy may like her, but where's the suggestion of some cathartic end scene where Mo'Nique's detractors either accept her or fall into a pool, and then if the film were made with white people a Smash Mouth song would play? Eh, it's probably in there. They just didn't want to spoil it.

I'm glad Mo'Nique has been able to find the humor in being a large woman in today's America, because really, the world of film hasn't adequately mined the fat-person comedy angle prior to now. It does seem kind of odd to me that Mo'Nique would be willing to take a role where the only time she's respected is when she meets some African guy... and he likes her because Africans objectify big asses. Girl power, sister! Though there's clearly a heartwarming ending where someone decides to use Mo'Nique's clothing designs, because this is a movie.

Two other things that bugged me about this trailer. One, here's a movie that supposedly wants to explode stereotypes - not that it does that, but bear with me - and yet Mo'Nique's girlfriend bemoans their lack of male attention, and why? Because she wears glasses! Horror of horrors! I'm sure there won't be a scene where she takes them off and is suddenly hot. Two, half the video is of such obvious low quality, it looks like it was taken from one of those videos on "Wheel of Fortune" where they show you a quick montage of the location where you'll go on your trip if you land on that space. Did they go back and shoot half the movie after returning their film cameras to Rent-a-Center? I realize that no one besides Mo'Nique's parents could possibly want to see this - take away all the most clichéd parts of the trailer and what's left is still inescapably unfunny - but if you're going to put a movie in actual theaters you might as well splurge. Plus, you wouldn't want anyone confusing this with the inevitable porn spinoff of the same name.

Phat Girlz trailer (Yahoo! Movies)

"Dallas" messes with Texas

When the director of Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! and Monster-in-Law walks away from your project before filming has even commenced, maybe it's time to re-evaluate what you're doing. Although to take the opposite viewpoint, Robert Luketic really has some balls to walk away from the film adaptation of Dallas no matter how potentially bad it is; once you've done Tad Hamilton, there's really nowhere to go but up. Luketic's opposition to the film apparently springs from some of the casting decisions, and I think I can see why - with John Travolta signed on to play J.R. and Jennifer Lopez as Sue Ellen, the only way to get more prima donna ego on the set would be to add Cowboys below the title and bring in Terrell Owens to play Bobby. Or maybe Kevin Costner would like to read for the Cliff Barnes role?

The second-most important question regarding the film is whether it will be played straight or whether it will take the route of every other 70s-80s TV remake and just camp it up, because it's really annoying and seems kind of pointless to make all your remakes into virtual parodies. On the other hand, the most important question is whether it makes any difference at all, especially with the questionable casting. For example, I don't think being a Scientologist automatically qualifies John Travolta to fill the role of a love-to-hate-him type; have you seen this guy play a villain? Fox ought to take out insurance on its shooting locations in case of teeth marks. Sure, Larry Hagman was never the epitome of subtle, but John Travolta? He's just going to be Gabriel from Swordfish wearing a ten-gallon hat.

Meanwhile, officials in Dallas are apparently desperate to make sure the production films there, which makes sense, because nothing classes your city up like association with a bunch of slimy characters from a primetime soap opera. It really does seem kind of perverse how much civic pride the city takes in the show, but I guess it's understandable when you consider that most people wouldn't even have heard of Dallas otherwise. But that's okay - some cities have famous landmarks, some have centuries of history, and some just have fictional oil barons. To each his own. You know who I feel bad for in all of this, though? The good people of Knots Landing. Their city won't even be considered as a location when someone gets around to making that movie, although that's mostly because it doesn't actually exist.

Sources: Director Quits 'Dallas' Movie (IMDb); 'Shoot J.R. in Dallas,' city tells filmmakers (CBC)