A comeback to where? Even at her peak, Lindsay Lohan was not yet a 'movie star' or a box office draw. So don't expect her to become one now.

Come what may, last weekend's Saturday Night Live was memorable if only for the uncommonly creative "Real Housewives of Disney" sketch (embedded above).  The not good/not bad hosting job by Ms. Lohan is beside the point, as the whole gimmick was intended to show off that Ms. Lohan is apparently sober, sane, and ready to work again.  And if for no other reason than I don't want to see the gossip industry 'win', I am certainly hopeful that Lohan is indeed back on the 'straight and narrow' (or at least to whatever extent allows her to work in the profession of her choice, plenty of actors engage in vices while maintaining artistic careers).  But the meme that Lindsay Lohan is trying to 'reclaim her stardom' is a false one.  Lindsay Lohan, at her career peak, was never a movie star.  She was, like a lot of actors and actresses at a given point in their career, on the brink of true stardom.  She was ready to capitalize on a few years of popular films (Freaky Friday, The Parent Trap) and just coming off of a massive critical and commercial success (Mean Girls) which had her poised to truly break out.  But she was not yet a star.

Mc G's This Means War trailer is emblematic of what's wrong with marketing.

There is nothing particularly wrong with this trailer per-se.  It's neat to see Tom Hardy in a comedy, Witherspoon looks stunning, and the general plot (two CIA agents clash when they realize they are dating the same girl) is fitfully amusing.  But here's the problem.  In the first 66 seconds, we meet the two spies (Hardy and Chris Pine) and the young woman they are both dating (Reese Witherspoon).  We establish the conflict, toss off a few jokes and, with the opening action montage, establish that this will be a pretty big-scale action comedy.  So, after about 1:06, we have all we need.  Flash the title, maybe give a button gag, and then fade to black.  The remaining 85 seconds merely exist to spoil gags from the film.  And since we've established that this is a pretty expensive movie, it's pretty much guaranteed that the film will only have maybe half-a-dozen or so major 'give-and-take' moments between the two would-be suitors.  The trailer sees fit to spoil three of them, plus a major action sequence between the two male leads.  So basically all that is left for the movie to do is reveal whatever gags weren't in the trailer and reveal the finale*.  How wonderful would it have been for 20th Century Fox to merely leave the majority of the movie to our imagination, to merely cut to black at the 1:06 mark with the satisfaction of perfectly setting up the movie without actually giving anything away past the first twenty-minutes or so.  Alas... Anyway, McG's This Means War comes out February 17th, 2012 (better to capitalize on Valentine's Day) and as always, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson

*SPOILER GUESS --- I'm guessing that either Witherspoon gets kidnapped by the bad guys in the third act or (especially since she gets first billing) she turns out to be a spy using them for intel.