Hats have a vivid and rich history in Hollywood. It’s no coincidence that the Golden Age of Hollywood coincided with the Golden Age of American Hats. It’s also no coincidence that Cowboys and Aliens, an incredibly bad film, was released during a period in America when the only people wearing hats were people in nightclubs and Ryan Murphy.

I have just proven the correlation between hat prevalence and the quality of films Hollywood produces. Let us now take a trip down hat-memory lane by looking at 9 iconic hats in film history and the heads that they covered.

Thomas Crown’s Bowler Hat

Ever the symbol of refinement, this particular bowler hat first surfaces in The Thomas Crown Affair as a reference to Magritte’s famed painting “The Great War.” In a sly nod to the intimation that Thomas Crown is nothing more than an anonymous businessman, he completes his final heist at the Met using dozens of similarly dressed men, all wearing bowler hats.

I don’t appreciate that this film implies a correlation between bowler hat-wearing and criminal activity; rather, I prefer to think of the correlation as between bowler hat-wearing and having sex with Rene Russo, which Thomas Crown also does.

Crocodile Dundee’s Alligator Skin Cowboy Hat

“G’day, friend-o! Let’s barbecue some shrimp on the grill!”

In Crocodile Dundee, a rugged outback hero collides with urban living as a reporter takes him back to the States in order to complete a story she is writing on him. His hat is black with a wide brim. It features an alligator band and has alligator teeth arrange around it in symmetrical fashion. This hat is both rugged and pleasing to the eye. So much so, actually, that I tried to recreate it using a baseball cap to which I scotch-taped all my saved baby teeth and wore for a year. The fact that I was 28 and gainfully employed when I did this led to several human resources complaints, and ultimately my own office.

Overall, a wonderful hat.

Oddjob’s Bowler Hat

Oddjob’s hat, like Thomas Crown’s is a black bowler hat. Also like Thomas Crown, Oddjob’s wearing of this hat conjures up images of criminal activity, as its razor sharp metal edges were used to kill people in the James Bond film Goldfinger. People should not be killed, nor bowler hats thrown. When they’re not resting on a man’s head, they should be placed in a hat box to maintain both their shape and cleanliness. Oddjob’s reckless hat behavior should not be celebrated, but it should be remembered so as not to be repeated by future generations.

Living in Los Angeles, I have been bombarded with this image and commercials on bus stops, buses, and countless other non-bus related avenues:

I find this offensive. Not offensive to men, though it probably is, and not offensive to women, though it probably is offensive to them as well. I find it offensive to people who go through their day-to-day lives without having to congratulate themselves on completing the ordinary tasks that life (business, family, and social) requires.

A few of the things that we’re not expected to know how she does them:

“Make coffee”
“Organize files” (whatever the fuck that means)
“Schedule meeting”
“Lunch”

Also, at the top of the poster “pick up dinner” is listed while the fourth item from the bottom appears to be “make dinner.” And, directly in front of her navel, she needs to “make dinner reservations.” I’m not going to feel sorry for someone who consumes three dinners per day. I’m sorry, I’m just not.

If the movie is to have us believe that she’s so high-powered, the script writers should have educated themselves on an economic concept called opportunity cost. The third item on the list is “fix the leak.” Why is this high-powered businesswoman doing her own plumbing? Either she is really poor, or she is an idiot. Either way, the producers are selling us on a paradox. Gordon Gekko doesn’t mow his lawn because the value of his time is somewhere north of $10,000 per hour. She can outsource some of these tasks. That’s the very reason a lot of people work so hard – so they don’t have to fix leaks.

Going through the balance of the list, you’ll see that SJP’s tasks constitute the most mundane to-do list in history. She’s not special. She’s just like everyone else. Sadly, the producers (or marketing team or whoever) can’t even create this list without redundancies such as “check email,” then a little lower on the list, the hopelessly vague “email.”

To anyone with any semblance of a life, this list isn’t all that daunting or even unfamiliar. So why is she so great, and, more importantly, why can’t we understand how she does it? I would think that if she works hard at the office, then works hard raising her kids, that would suffice in “doing it.”

People who have kids aren’t oblivious to the notion of raising them. SJP didn’t become the court-ordered guardian of two orphans after losing a wager. She had unprotected sex (presumably) on two separate occasions, became aware of her pregnancy at some point thereafter, gestated and birthed them. Which is great. Miracle of life and whatnot.

What is not great is acting like you’re climbing a mountain every day of your life because now you have these children. If I go to the housewares sections of a department store with a baseball bat and destroy all their nice flatware and vases, I forfeit the right to complain about how I don’t have any money because I have to pay for all the stuff I broke. It’s the same principal as the act the producers are pulling in regards to SJP’s character.

Tons of people get through the day without complaining about having to make coffee or check their email. You know what’s hard? Raising kids without a white-collar job. If you can afford a nanny and don’t hire one, but still bitch about how busy you are, you’re not brave. You’re an asshole.

I’ve gone and upset myself with this piece, so there are just a few other items I would like to bring up before I eat my first dinner of the evening.

Look at the other poster:

Love that tagline, “If it were easy, men would do it too.” First of all, it’s implying that men don’t do hard things, like fight in wars or see films like this to please their retarded significant others, which is totally untrue.

Secondly, I’m having a hard time pegging what “it” is, but that’s probably the crux of the film. That oh-so-elusive tightrope walk between parenting, career, and love? I know many successful businessmen who are excellent parents, excellent husbands, AND have mistresses. That’s one more element to juggle and they don’t complain about it. You know what they do? They talk about how great their lives are.

If we are supposed to pity Sarah Jessica Parker’s great career, burgeoning love, and beautiful, healthy children, the filmmakers are aggressively barking up the wrong tree. Her life is great, and pretending it’s not, or that it’s harder than ours, is just stupid and condescending.

Here’s the theatrical trailer. See if you can figure out how the shit she does it.

“‘Bag of Bones‘ centers on bestselling novelist Mike Noonan (Brosnan), who is unable to stop grieving after the sudden death of his wife Jo (Gish). A dream inspires him to return to the couple’s lakeside retreat in western Maine where he becomes involved in a custody battle between the daughter of an attractive young widow and the child’s enormously wealthy grandfather, the mysterious ghostly visitations, the ever-escalating nightmares and the realization that his late wife still has something to tell him.”

Oooooh, scary. The miniseries will be shown on A&E, which is continuing its quest to be the AMC-lite of quality television. Filming is set to begin next month. (Deadline)

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Also starring Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Christina Hendricks Olivia Munn and Seth Meyers, so if Parker wasn’t the lead, at least the cast would have interested me.

In Salvation Boulevard, Pierce Brosnan plays the charismatic head of a super crazy mega church, who kills an atheist professor (Ed Harris) in front of a deadhead-turned-church-goer Greg Kinnear. This puts Kinnear in great danger – even Jim Gaffigan‘s character tries to kill him. Normally, Gaffigan’s a pretty cool guy, but witness the wrong murder and Gaffigan will take you apart like a hot pocket.

Based on a novel by Larry Beinhart, Salvation Boulevard is directed by George Ratliff.

Nothing is known about the film’s plot, although Bier has revealed that the film will be a lot more light hearted than her darker, Foreign Language Oscar winner. She said of the new film:

““It’s a tender story with a much lighter atmosphere than my previous works: enough with conflicts.”

This new, conflict free, possibly Beatles related comedy shoots on the Amalfi coast this spring. It’ unknown how or if the Fab Four will figure into the plot, but it’s entirely possible that it could involve iTunes (*The Beatles, now available on iTunes!!). (Empire)

I Don’t Know How She Does It is the story of Sarah Jessica Parker as a working mom who, judging by the title, wows her peers who just don’t know how she accomplishes all that stuff that looms over 40 year-old women The box office breakdown is expected to be 95% women and 5% sad, broken men. Kinnear will play her husband and Curtin will play Parker’s mom. The film is based on the Allison Pearson novel of the same name.

All those critical of having to hear SJP whine about how hard it is to be a single professional in SATC now get to hear her whine about how hard it is to be a married professional in IDKHSDI. (Don’t expect that acronym to catch on.)(Collider)