I know, I know: it's horribly unfair to compare every movie that uses multiple personality disorder as a plot point to The Three, Donald Kaufman's fictional screenplay in Adaptation. And I quite liked Identity, which was basically The Three made flesh. But I can never resist.

The Three, you'll recall, involved a police detective, a serial killer, and the killer's female hostage, who later turn out to be the same person. Frankie and Alice, a psychological thriller that Halle Berry will produce and headline, is more like "The Two": according to Variety, Berry will play "a young woman struggling with multiple personality disorder and torn between who she is and a racist Caucasian alter-personality that preys upon her mind." It's not clear whether this is supposed to be pure schlock or an attempt at metaphor. Either way: oh dear.

Variety has no word on who is writing or directing, which could have given us a hint of what to expect. I feel like a script has to exist, because I can't imagine anyone shelling out money for this project based solely on that goofy logline. I missed Halle Berry's last dramatic offering, the fairly well-reviewed Things We Lost in the Fire. But Frankie and Alice seems more in the vein of Perfect Stranger, anyway, and unfortunately I did see that one. It's hard to know what to make of this project, but there's a distinct possibility of a fascinating train wreck.

Over at Cracked.com, they've made a list of the top ten worst twist endings of all time. Obviously that list has a lot of spoilers, but I'm going to attempt to write this post without revealing any of them. Why? To make sure you go over there, of course. So, if you're not worried about ruining the endings to some movies you probably shouldn't see anyway, then head over and read the hilariously confusing explanations, or attempts at explanations, and/or how some endings don't make enough sense to bother with explanations. I will let you in on the titles of the movies, just in case you are interested in seeing any of them in the future and would like to go in spoiler free. The ten, in order from "least asinine" to "most asinine", are: Stay (2005); High Tension (2003); Signs (2002); Hide and Seek (2005) and Secret Window (2004), which tie for #7, because they're considered the exact same plot (is that spoiling it for you guys? probably -- oh well, I tried); The Forgotten (2004); Basic (2003); Perfect Stranger (2007); The Number 23 (2007); Planet of the Apes (2001); and The Life of David Gale (2003).

I haven't seen the number one movie, but I can't imagine it's worse than the others that I have seen, especially Planet of the Apes. Basically, I think Cracked.com considers it the worst because it stars Kevin Spacey, who also starred in The Usual Suspects, which pretty much, along with The Sixth Sense, obviously, got Hollywood on this crappy twist kick to begin with (He was also in Se7en, which had another so-so twist ending). Look at those films; they all came out between 2001 and 2007. And what was the most common twist? The main character did it. Either he or she has a split personality, or amnesia, or suffers from some other psychological ailment. Other idiotic yet easily written twists include: aliens did it; it's all a dream (as if you need to steal from Bob Newhart, come on!); and, in the fashion of Suspects, it's all just made-up stories. Personally, I'm upset to not see my least favorite twist ending. It involved a whole crop of great actors who just so happened to be explained as existing inside the imagination of some mental patient. That one had the split personality plus the dream plus the Suspects idea that none of what we watched is real. Can you name it?

If your favorite scenes from The Last Boy Scout are the ones between Bruce Willis and Halle Berry, and you've been waiting patiently for 16 years for the two of them to be reunited on screen, then your prayers have been answered! Berry and Willis are co-starring in Perfect Stranger, a suspense thriller opening this weekend, and we recently had a chance to sit down with some of the main players from the film during roundtables at the Manhattan press junket. Willis was a no-show, but Berry, director James Foley, and Giovanni Ribisi were on hand to answer questions and talk about the project. You may have noticed that we already ran the news that Ribisi used the junket to announce his upcoming turn as Albert Einstein in a biopic, and a few other bits of news also emerged during the day as well. Here is a sampling of the questions and answers, with Cinematical's questions credited. This piece is relatively spoiler-free, but if you want to go into the movie with a clean slate, you might want to think twice about reading -- otherwise, enjoy!

Halle Berry


Cinematical: This is a movie where you're acting and the character you play is sometimes acting -- what's the process for keeping all of that straight? "I think about it all the time. Which is why I was scared of this role, because I saw all of the nuances and all of the layers and I knew that my character was never really herself, ever -- maybe a few moments in the movie do you get to see the real character that's not pretending to be somebody else. The challenge for me was to act as these other people and have the other characters in the movie believe what she was saying, but still not act so well that the audience saw through it. When I wanted the audience to know that I was acting, like with Catherine Pogue, I had to act well enough so that Bruce Willis' character would buy it, but not so well that the audience forgot that she was really Ro acting as Catherine. Those were like ... I remember James Foley would sometimes say 'cut!' and I'd say 'what, wasn't that good?' and he would say 'Ro does not have an Academy award. You have got to do that over.' So that was always my sort of balance that I tried to walk."

Well, I was a tad overly optimistic about Grindhouse last week, wasn't I? Turns out not that many people want to sit through three hours of zombie gore and vehicular manslaughter. Go figger. This week, just in time for Friday the 13th, we've got loads of movies opening, most of them thrillers. It's doubtful any of them will make a top-25 list of best thrillers, but they should provide for an entertaining weekend nonetheless.

Perfect Stranger
What It's About: A journalist (Halle Berry), suspecting a philandering businessman (Bruce Willis) of killing her friend, poses as an office temp and plays a seductive cat-and-mouse game with him to get at the truth.
Why It Might Do Well: Berry and Willis are big, big stars, each capable of headlining a hit movie on his/her own; and Sony has put some major marketing muscle behind this flick. Plus, Halle Berry is the most beautiful person on the planet. That isn't particularly relevant here, but I thought it needed to be said.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The reviews haven't been great, and it's rated R, which will limit its audience to adults and determined teens with cool parents and/or fake IDs.
Prediction: $15 million

Disturbia
What It's About: Shia LaBeouf stars as a troubled kid who's sentenced to house arrest for acting out in class. Having nothing better to do than spy on his neighbors, he and his friends start to think one of them may be a serial killer. It's kind of like Rear Window, except the protagonist's younger, not in a wheelchair, and, um, under arrest.
Why It Might Do Well: Going head-to-head with Perfect Stranger in the battle of the weekend thrillers, Disturbia has one crucial weapon in its corner: It's rated a teen-friendly PG-13. And LaBeouf's star is on the rise: Not only will he star in two big animated movies this year (Transformers and Surf's Up), but he's also just been tapped to co-star with Harrison Ford in the fourth Indiana Jones movie.
Why It Might Not Do Well: While he's certainly an up-and-comer, Shia's still no Bruce Willis. The biggest names besides LaBeouf are Carrie-Anne Moss (as his mom -- I don't know why this depresses me, but it does) and David Morse as the maybe-murderous neighbor.
Prediction: $15 million

If you search "Swordfish Halle Berry" on Google, a number of the front-page hits are about her nudity in the film. Does anyone really remember the movie, or do they just remember that it's the first film that Ms. Berry disrobed for? It was quite the shock when she decided to go sans-clothes, and it was the best thing she could do for her work. No, this isn't fanboy/fangirl talk, but rather something that the actress thinks herself. That's right, she's told Sun Media that the nudity in Swordfish was "absolutely" the best thing she's done in her career.

According to her, she knew the nudity was gratuitous, but did it because she needed to face her fear: "That was one of the things that drew me toward it. It gave me a chance to face this thing called nudity that I was afraid of." Sure, Halle, you've got a point. It's a shame how much we fear and run from our bodies. However, isn't it a big jump to say it is the best thing you've done? It's one thing to say that you're glad you faced a fear because it lead you to something greater, but it just seems silly to me to put it above an Oscar-winning performance. Not that she seems to put much stock in Oscar -- she talks (without irony) about proudly accepting her Razzie for Catwoman, which she says she loves.

Now, she's got another sexy flick ready for release next month -- Perfect Stranger. In it, she plays a woman who "tries to disgrace rich, powerful men who stray." Yawn. The film is apparently a tease, because it's an erotic thriller without sex, according to the article: "To have sex would have been attacking the intelligence of audiences today," Berry says. Is it attacking the intelligence, or just feeding into those hungry to see the skin of high-profile actresses, without actually delivering? It looks like Berry may be falling into the typical Femme Fatale roundabout, where all the focus and importance is put on the skin, and not the work.

I can't say I was terribly worried about whether Halle Berry, having never been one of my favourite actresses, would find a way out of "The Curse of Catwoman." Still, I have to admit, it's too bad that her latest release doesn't look like it is going to be the one to break that slump.

Moviefone now has the first look at the trailer for the upcoming thriller Perfect Stranger starring Berry, Giovanni Ribisi, and Bruce Willis. The story follows a woman with the unfortunate name of Ro, who gets caught up with a powerful and obsessive man (Willis) while trying to solve the murder of her friend. Beyond having a title that immediately brings Balki to mind, the movie seems like a pretty run of the mill "erotic" thriller. And on a side note, I think we all hope Willis doesn't venture into Color of Night territory in the love scene. If you are the type of person that doesn't like to be told too much about a movie, you might want to hold off on the trailer for now.

So, is it just me, or does a long trailer always look a little desperate? Especially when the trailer gives most of the movie away. I doubt Perfect Stranger will be the film that restores Berry to her Oscar glory, so here's hoping she has better luck with her next project Things We Lost in the Fire.

[via JoBlo.com]

First, let me just get this out of the way: as disappointing as it may be, Perfect Stranger is NOT a plural-free, big-screen version of the wacky TV series. God dammit. Instead, it's a "psychological thriller," about a woman who "goes undercover both online and off to investigate a friend's murder." (Thank Al Gore for the internet, huh? Where would writers be without that plot option?) The ballsy dame is set to be played by Halle Berry, and she will star opposite Bruce Willis, though who exactly he is playing is unclear.

Despite the fact that the usually reliable Giovanni Ribisi recently joined the cast (as, of course, an IT dork), this movie worries me a lot, mainly because when I think "Halle Berry" and "psychological thriller," I think "The Rich Man's Wife." And when I think "Bruce Willis" in the same context? Color of Night comes to mind, and I start twitching uncontrollably. Of course, the movie could turn out to be unspeakably brilliant but, at the moment, it's sounding a lot like yet another post-Oscar misstep for Miss Halle. Whatever it turns out to be, the movie goes into production early this year.