Hollow New Fame

Hotel lawsuit shows that humorless Erin Andrews still hasn't found what sheneeds

Erin Andrews filed the lawsuit she had to file against the hotels, but she'sclearly not relishing any of this.
A harmless question about her partner Maks set Andrews off in a Vanity Fairinterview.
Do you really think getting on Oprah was worth this devastation for Andrews?

It's hard not to root for Erin Andrews.

The ESPN sideline reporter turned Dancing with the Stars fascination suffered a horrific invasion of privacy by a stalking pervert. Any thought that Andrews is recovered from being filmed in hotel rooms through altered peepholes should be dismissed now though. It's clear that Andrews is still struggling — still hasn't got anything satisfying out of her increased fame.

Andrews filed a lawsuit against Marriott International Inc. and Radisson Hotels International late this week. This is something Andrews absolutely had to do. The fact that the stalker, divorced dad Michael David Barrett, was able to get hotel rooms right next to Andrews' rooms by simply asking is one of the more startling aspects of the case. It's not like Andrews stayed at cheap, run-down motels off the side of the highway. She was in respected business-traveler brands (95 percent of the sportswriters and sportscasters I know are obsessed with staying at Marriotts because of the chain's reward points).

And it's not like Andrews was an unknown when Barrett started hotel trailing her. Even before this case and Oprah, she was the most well-known female sideline reporter in America, the subject of countless fawning and sometimes creepy Internet photo gallery "tributes."

Barrett never should have been given such an easy path to play peeping Tom. Most media outlets missed the significance of the date of the lawsuit's filing though. Friday was July 16, a year to the day that Andrews says she first found out that naked videos of her shot through peepholes by Barrett were online. Andrews is clearly still thinking about the ordeal, still struggling with all the anniversaries of her new life and sense of security changing.

You can argue that Andrews never would have gotten on Dancing with the Stars without the attention brought about this case (it's a questionable argument though considering Andrews already had sex-object fame and ABC/Disney ties). But even if that's true, what exactly did Andrews get out of her DWTS appearance?

She certainly wasn't able to turn the increased fame into some type of breakthrough new job. Andrews is returning to ESPN and College Gameday and while she'll do some more studio hosting — and some nebulous, undefined, occasional appearances on Good Morning America — she's basically going back to what she did before. Any idea that Andrews widely benefitted with increased profile by being stalked (and this cruel argument's been made in numerous spots) is laughable.

Andrews doesn't seem to be enjoying her new profile either. Take her recent Vanity Fair interview. While Andrews clearly feels compelled to do things like talk to Vanity Fair when given the chance, it comes across like a dentist's visit (something you do because you think it will be good for you or in this case your career) rather than a joy.

George Wayne — whose persona centers around asking celebrities funny, awkward questions — conducted the interview. Andrews had to know that these types of questions would be coming if she or her team did any type of research whatsoever.

Yet, when Wayne posed them, she reacted with indignation.

Wayne asked about Andrews "long spindly legs" (which were on full display in the accompanying photo that Andrews posed for), he inquired if she had freakishly large feet like Paris Hilton (the answer: no) and wanted to know the one thing Andrews would take if she was constipated.

"Are you really going to write about that?" Andrews replied. "I'm not going to comment on that. That is kind of weird and I don't feel comfortable answering that question. I have gone through so much in the last year."

What being video stalked has to do with constipation is debatable, but Andrews at least had a point. The question was strange. But again, that's why he's George Wayne. He's not going to ask you what your favorite food is.

Andrews' outrage over a later question revealed a deeper truth though.

When Wayne asked, "What gets me to the vomitorium is that faux romance between you and that cheesy ballroom-dancing partner of yours. What was with this tabloid fake romance?"

Andrews shot back, "Do you know him?"

Wayne replied with the perfectly brilliant, "I don't need to know him to find him cheesy, honey."

If Andrews cannot handle a funny question about her boyfriend Maks Chmerkovskiy, she probably shouldn't be doing interviews with Wayne or anyone else. It's sad to see, but Erin Andrews is still very clearly struggling to come to grips with her rocked reality.

A year later, she's still reeling. Andrews mostly came across as damaged and hurt in that Vanity Fair interview. That's as powerful an argument as anything against the insidiously devastating effects of stalking.

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Movie Review

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is technically stunning but lacks emotion

Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

Matt Damon in The Odyssey.

For a story that is 3,000 years old and has been referenced innumerable times since the advent of the moving picture, it’s striking that The Odyssey has not been adapted into a film more often. Christopher Nolan’s new film is, depending on your definition, just the fourth time in film history that someone has attempted to tell the original story (oddly, the third film — The Return — came out just two years ago).

Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, who has been gone from his home of Ithaca for over 20 years. Waiting at home for him is his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland), as well as a hall full of suitors — most notably Antinous (Robert Pattinson) — who are hoping that Penelope will finally believe that Odysseus is dead and choose to marry one of them.

In typical Nolan fashion, the film goes back-and-forth in time often to show what has happened to Odysseus in the past two decades. His sea voyages with his crew have him attacking Troy using the legendary Trojan Horse; taking on the cyclops Polyphemus (Bill Irwin); trying to escape the clutches of the witch Circe (Samantha Morton); living with the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron); communing with the vision of Athena (Zendaya); and more.

Nolan, who wrote and directed the epic film, has a clear reverence for the material and, perhaps more than any current filmmaker, has the chops to make the sprawling story feel coherent. With a plethora of characters who have names that take some time to understand for those not familiar with the ancient tale, it’s extremely tough to wrangle everything and everyone together, and Nolan and his team make that trick seem relatively easy.

However, there’s a difference between making the story comprehensible and making it compelling, and Nolan is not as successful on this front. As portrayed in this film, it’s difficult to care whether Odysseus ever finds his way home. His connection with Penelope and Telemachus is tenuous, at best, and his status as a hero is called into question on multiple occasions. Complicated protagonists are nothing new, but in a story where the hero’s journey is the whole point, Nolan fails to make the quest all encompassing.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some standout moments along the way. The sequence in Polyphemus’ cave is tremendous, as are a few other scenes in which Nolan’s reported reliance on practical effects make you wonder how the crew accomplished what they did. Damon has said this is the hardest movie he’s ever made, and that effort shows up in every scene, especially those on the water.

At 56 years old, Damon is getting close to elder statesman status in Hollywood, and he ably embodies the role of the respected and feared leader. Hathaway, Holland, and Pattinson get the next most screentime, and each makes their character interesting if not mesmerizing. The murderer’s row of the supporting cast — Theron, Lupita Nyong'o, Zendaya, Elliot Page, Morton, Jon Bernthal, John Leguizamo, and more — give each scene a nice sheen whether or not their individual arc makes sense.

While the technical achievements of Nolan and his team in The Odyssey are admirable and occasionally awe-inspiring, the story he lays out is not quite as overwhelming. The structure he chose to use doesn’t allow the story to overcome the episodic nature of Odysseus’ brutal journey, keeping big emotions mostly at bay.

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The Odyssey opens in theaters on July 17.

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