Okay, I was really not expecting this. From what I remember of the plot synopsis for The Baster (which is now being called The Switch), the film was supposed to revolve around Jennifer Aniston’s character…? But this trailer is very Jason Bateman-heavy. Which thrills me to no end, because The Bateman is a God Amongst Mortals. Now, even though I love him and he’s beautiful and funny and maybe one of the best, most effective comedic “straight men” working today, this film looks like a turd.
First, let’s go the minor stuff. Why switch the name from The Baster to The Switch? The Baster was surprisingly catchy. The Switch sounds like it’s going to be one of those Freaky Friday type movies, where father and son “switch” bodies. What else? The costuming looks like it’s straight out of Friends. Like, nice, upwardly mobile yuppie clothes that compliment Aniston’s figure and you’re supposed to rush out to Banana Republic and get the same outfit. I get tired of boring sitcom-y styling and costumes. It makes all of these films blend together. “Oh, this is the film where Jennifer Aniston wears a blue scarf.” Eh.
Now, for a major plot point that struck me as I was watching this trailer – both Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston have blue eyes in this film. Her “son” has brown eyes. Now, while I’ve read that two blue-eyed parents can have a brown-eyed kid, and it totally happens all the time, apparently, doesn’t it seem weird that they wouldn’t have given the child actor colored contacts so that he would look more like a little mini-Aniston/Bateman? Am I the only one who noticed that? Or are we supposed to instinctively know that Jennifer Aniston really has brown eyes?
Here’s a little more Bateman love, for the ladies:
Like Jason, Aniston not so much.
This whole premise is really, really creepy. I literally shuddered at the bathroom scene in the trailer.
swoon indeed. He’s one of my faves too!
maybe the twist is that he turns out not to be the father and but they still fall in love.
Cath – Yes, it’s “genetic rape” or something like that. Law & Order: SVU did an episode along the same lines.
I thought the movie looked kinda cute and I would’ve never paid attention to the eye thing had you not said something.
OK Two disturbing things: seeing Jason Bateman play with a cup of semen, seeing Juliette Lewis in this, I thought that was just a like sick f*cking IMBD joke, but holy sh*t there is she. Oh let me make this 3 disturbing things…why the f*ck is Patrick Wilson in this movie? Why baby? I am gonna like cry now, I adore him, the thought of his face and lips going on Aniston’s mug makes me die inside. Patrick you were in Little Children you didn’t have to do this movie. Does actually look interesting. I will watch when it hits cable.
Love Jason Bateman, too.
About the eyes: I thought that two blue-eyed parents always produce blue-eyed off-spring….so, I’m wondering if it’s possible that “The Switch” means that Jeff Goldbloom is going to turn out to be the father.
And, Kaiser, are you serious?…does Jennifer Anniston actually have brown eyes? That would be truly shocking (to me, anyway)!!!
I thought it looked really funny and kind of interesting.
Lighten up, people. “Genetic rape”? It’s a movie about someone who loves someone else accidentally dumping sperm into a sink and replacing it with his own-whilst drunk. It’s not like he did it to screw over the other guy or cheat Jennifer Aniston’s character.
Lots of blue-eyed parents have brown-eyed children. Brown eyes are genetically dominant and most blue-eyed people carry a brown-eye gene unless they come from Scandinavia or some other area where blue eyes are really really common.
If Jennifer Aniston has brown eyes, she has the best colored contacts I’ve ever seen.
What do you expect them to wear in a movie about upper class New Yorkers? Puffer jackets and 80s high tops?
Two blue-eyes people CANNOT have a brown eyed child, it is a genetic impossibility!
Genetic, IMPOSSIBILITY. Jeff Goldblum is the father.
@love angelina
seeing lewis in the trailer, made my stomach lurch.
she irks me.
as for patrick wilson, perhaps he just needed some money??
i too will watch this on cable, or better yet an airplane.
I love, love, love Jason Bateman. I like Jen but not enough to see her movies but I might check this one out since he’s in it.
I doubt I would have noticed the eye colors in the movie.
I am glad they changed the name. The baster sounds gross.
They’re trying to make it appealing to men. Good marketing.
this one looks like it might actually have potential to be a hit. i’m shocked.
Genetically it’s impossible for two blue eyed people to have a brown eyed child, since blue eyes are recessive. You have to be double recessive blue eyes (or ‘light’) eyes to have blue eyes. Now, two brown eyed parents could have a blue eyed child, because brown is dominant, so although the parents have brown eyes, genetically, they could carry the blue eye gene.
BB = Brown eyes double dominant
Bb = Brown eyes, heterozygous (could have a blue eyed child)
bb = blue eyes
Mendalian genetics.
You are completely correct. Two Brown eyed people CAN have a blue-eyed kid, but two blue people CANNOT have a brown eyed kid.
So how did Jeff Goldblum get her pregnant?
Crash, I remembered that from high school biology too, but apparently it does happen, and it’s somewhat common. I put the link up there.
I’ll see this just for him. LOVE Jason Bateman! Aniston doesn’t bug me like she bugs so many others though. I actually liked her in a couple of films.
I will certainly see this for The Bateman, I just adore him! Jenny An doesn’t bother me and I may be in the minority but I think Juliette Lewis is funny. As for Wilson, he can’t make a living solely out of those (great) indie movies. Well he can, but I guess the money was great here.
Just been watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie in which he starred as a child (he played James). Cute!
um, they changed the name because the name “The Baster” is repulsive and embarrassing on every level?
That picture with his daughter is just TOO cute with their matching expressions!
Despite what we were all taught in high school, eye and hair color are not strictly Mendelian. I can and does happen. Oh, and the movie looks like it will suck, like most of Jennifer Aniston’s movies. Love, love, love Jason Bateman, though.
Well, I am going to take 50 friends and see it three times when it comes out.
@ crash2GO2
After reading that, I got a brain hemorrhage. I remember Mendalian genetics from biology but didn’t get it then, either.
Both of my parents have blue eyes and I have green eyes. How does that happen?
LOL Mel, you are adorable.
Jennifer’s natural eye color is brown, she wears blue colored contacts. She can afford the highest quality ones, that’s why they look so real.
I think it looks kind of cute, and I love both Aniston and bateman, so I am excited to see it.
In fact I am going to see the Bounty Hunter this weekend, just becuase it looks like a fun movie to sit and laugh at.
Eye color is not controlled by a single gene, so you can’t do a basic Punnett square here people. A single gene with dominant brown and recessive blue alleles is a simplified example given in introductory biology classes.
It is completely possible for two blue eyed parents to have a brown eyed child.
Dominant always wins. A blur eyed person has recessive and no dominants. If dominant is brown, how could two parents with recessive genes all of a sudden produce a dominant? That liks saying you packed two apples in your lunch bag but you pull out a banana! Completely, ridiculous.
Yes, I did notice that and thought the same thing about the fact that this kid has brown eyes and looks NOTHING like EITHER of them! Ugh! Love him…hate her!
Lol, mel.
I’ll see it for Jeff Goldblum (lookin foxy as usual) and Jason Bateman. There is some yummy eye male eye candy happening in this movie.
Ughh, a “genetic rape” comedy sounds so empowering for women! How gross. While I like Batemen, I definitely won’t see this. And, I really can’t stand Aniston, esp since she criticized Sex and the City as not empowering for women. I thought she was a jealous hypocrite, given her equally stupid film choices.
2 People duscussing eyes color – try to read the link Keiser provided in this very post, and you’ll have all your questions answered.
The movie looks generic, but rather well made and played.
With Jason Bateman and jeff Goldblum starring in this, I just might go see this at the dollar theater.
Love Jason, such a shame he is in this mess though.
I’m glad they changed the title, ‘The Baster’ sounded really awful! (guess it might have fit the movie more then right? LOL)
J.Lo’s film is a similar story gist, and it comes out before this, so I doubt people will bother going to see this one. I know I won’t.
i believe jen a also sported brown eyes in that leprechaun movie – i didn’t see it, but i remember the stills. but yeah, jen wears blue hand painted color contacts, that’s why they look real, it’s not like she rocking freshlooks. it’s just like how paris hilton wears blue color contacts
I thought Lainey really said it best about this trailer and Aniston’s career choices of late. Dead on!–in my opinion
“The reviews are starting to come in for The Bounty Hunter. And they are BAD. Like super, super, super sh-t. Here’s a taste:
There are no rewards to be claimed for enduring The Bounty Hunter. – Variety
I stared with glazed eyes at The Bounty Hunter. Here is a film with no need to exist. – Roger Ebert
You want Girl Power? Why support an actress who keeps accepting roles that sh-t on the very notion of Girl Power? This is my fundamental problem with Jennifer Aniston. She speaks and sells like she’s the emblem of strength and independence, and yet every professional move she makes undermines what strong and independent really mean. A woman is not interesting unless a man is involved and she’s trying to love him. And that irresistible man in this case happens to be barely evolved. Owen Gleiberman, in his review for Entertainment Weekly, actually called Gerard Butler a Caveman. Great. Is that what we’ve gone back to? Is that the MiniVan’s version of the new old ideal man? What does it say about us if this movie does well? Please can we clone some more Tina Fey?
And still, Jennifer’s next film looks more promising. Mostly because, well, it’s not really about her. They’ll try and position the campaign around her, certainly, and her face is tops on the poster, yes, but if the trailer is any indication, The Switch, formerly known as The Baster, is Jason Bateman’s vehicle.
GOOD.
Because he’s delightful. Almost everything is better when Bateman is in it. Even something with Jennifer Aniston. It’s a well cut trailer because it focuses on him. So well cut I want to see it. “
I knew that Paris Hilton has brown eyes, but had never heard that about Anniston.
WOW. I know that beauty in Hollywood is all about illusion. But this seems so fundamentally dishonest.
I feel kind of sorry for her because she’s trapped now. She trapped herself. And she does look terrific with the blue eyes. But it will always seem like a letdown whenever she reveals her true self to anyone.
That’s a tough way to live.
This looks quite good and I hope it will be as successful both critically and commercially as Juno and Little Miss Sunshine. It is based on a short story by prize winning Jeffery Eugenides that was published in the New Yorker, and seems to have a great cast.
JA’s eyes are in fact blue – check out clear baby pics of her where you can see this. Those shots you linked to have been used to make the claim she has brown eyes, but you can’t tell by looking at them. It’s just one of the many lies that have been spread about JA.
…
Calm down people. She is not “living a lie” or “scared to reveal her true self” to people.
She does not have brown eyes. That link up there has pictures that are super old. My entire family has light eyes ranging form hazel to dark grey to blue and let me tell you, there are pictures that are taken when it isn’t so bright and we look like we have varying degrees of brown eyes.
Trust me, it happens.
Has anyone seen The Road? The boy actor who plays Viggo and Charlize’s son looks EXACTLY like Charlize! No kidding. My man and I couldn’t believe it, at first we honestly thought she really did have an eight year old son cast in the movie! It was one of the best casting choices I believe for a parent/offspring pairing ever! I mean you could really SEE her face in the boy’s closeups even though they weren’t biologically related.
I’d never heard about her having brown eyes – if she does wear colored contacts, they are incredibly well done. Don’t really care either way. I like her OK, and have liked a few of her movies, but most of the rom-coms don’t interest me that much.
I am however, a big Jason Bateman fan and will definitely watch this at some point, probably DVD.
Love Jen and Jason, they look like they have great chemistry in the clip….can’t wait to see the movie.
Lainey NEVER says it best when it comes to Aniston, she’s completely biased and frankly has a thing about her because she believed a her darling Pitt shouldn’t have married a ‘tv girl’. She takes a low shot at Aniston at every opportunity, the evidence is on her blog today. She’s even managed to weave Jen in to the whole Sandra/Jessie James sorry mess. No mention about Sandy (who I love) having questionable taste in men….hardly a strong, independent move marrying a guy like him.
I find JA sooooo boring. She is the same in every movie. She looks the same, dresses the same, talks the same, etc. I also feel that way about Julia Roberts. Same, same, boring, boring…..
I can’t believe I just googled ‘jennifer aniston eye colour’….
But she definitely does not wear colour contacts, there’s a whole mass of pics of her as a small child-
http://www.friendscafe.org/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/761
with very light eyes.
LOVE Jason Bateman. Love. Though I did watch an episode of punk’d where he looked like a bit of a dick. I can’t believe I admitted to ever having watched that. Sigh.
The show looks fun, but there is not a lot of substance. Typical of a romantic comedy, but they can be a fun way to pass the time. I don’t think it’s so much genetic rape as ‘oh shiz, I can’t believe I just spilled that down the sink, where is the closest location to get some more?’ Intention counts for a lot.
Why was Brad Pitt a darling to Lainey? Brad Pitt is gross now with that stupid goatee who would want him? I think Lainey is onto Jen’s tricks with the media. Trotting out convenient boyfriends all the time whenever she has something to promote. I used to find her intersting but ever since she started dating that douche Meyer I realized she was faking everything so now I don’t bother reading all about her fake love life.
Maybe someone will see it now. Jason is funny and can put people in the seat, Jennifer not so much. I think the studio knows exactly what they are doing. She needs a popular male character to sell her boring azz movies. I have never seen her have tremendous box office gross on her own.
Lainey is not witty, just mean. I tried to read her blog since so many people mentioned it on this blog.
I’d rather go to Perez Hilton’s blog if you know what I mean.
@crash2GO2: It is a really bad example of genetics because it has more than one allele but they use that example in textbooks all the time. My teacher once had a student confront her parents after seeing the eye color example to see if she was adopted. It turned out she actually was but the eye thing wasn’t as solid proof as she had thought. My nephew has blue eyes, but neither one of his parents do, we thought he would grow out of them like some babies do but he seems to have kept them.
Jennifer Aniston’s eyes have to be natural. Colored lenses in the 90’s when Friends was on were not that great and I’m sure with her picture being taken all the time and the magazines constantly digging for dirt on her, she would have been “caught.” The article doesn’t even mention a change in a color and it is too hard to tell in the picture what color they are.
Thanks for the link Kaiser. I haven’t kept up with genetics as it isn’t my field.
The premise is so odd, even if it was absolutely impossible, the kid having brown eyes would not even compare to the fact he was alone holding someones else’s “stuff” purposely and for a good length of time. Even drunk he would have had to go to the fridge, find it, and take it with him, right? @ Jen – I don’t think the morality is all that ambiguous, it is tricking someone into having your son, rather than the person they picked. Even though I like Jen I don’t want to hear anymore of the “will she?/won’t she?” baby drama.
I barely remember the SVU episode but I do remember the odd doctor that inspired it. He was a fertility doctor that used his semen to impregnate women instead of a donor. Creepy.
@Lilias – I liked your last comment, you could change the look of the modern romantic comedy. I think that Sandy Powell was referring to the same thing when she won best costume design at this Oscars this year when everyone called her a witch. If it is a modern movie there really isn’t a whole lot to work with to make it really stand out from every other movie in a good way. I like your idea of puffer jackets and high tops, I think they should make one where the whole main cast is dressed in an clothes obviously from another decade and it serves no purpose it is not acknowledged in the script, they are never looked at oddly by the extras in modern day clothes.
I think the switch looks good…I’ll watch it!
Duh, he’s Jason Bateman
I wish to God she’d do something different with herself. She bores me to tears. All her films are stupid; you would have to force me to buy a ticket at gunpoint. And I am so sick of her look. I would be interested to see her do anything serious and with a new look. I saw The Good Girl where she was toned down and playing a serious role. It wasn’t half bad. I don’t dislike her personally, but I am not going to pay ten bucks to see JA with the perfect straight highlighted hair and the perfect wardrobe play basically herself on a search for love. I won’t even take the time when its on cable.
Jason Bateman, however, I can appreciate in anything.
“I barely remember the SVU episode but I do remember the odd doctor that inspired it. He was a fertility doctor that used his semen to impregnate women instead of a donor. Creepy.”
I remember that too. There was a TV special on him called “The Sperminator”. Maybe they could of called the movie that!
You’re right, “The Switch” is a dumb name. But “The Baster” is a gross name, so there ya go.
Love Bateman and Goldblum and like Aniston, but this does look kinda dumb. I know I will rent it though, primarily for the Batester. I see everything he does.
Everyone who’s saying: “It does happen! I have brown eyes and my parents have blue eyes!” needs to admit something to themselves: Your mom cheated. Sorry.
I’ve loved Jason Bateman since Silver Spoons and the Hogan family so I will probably see the movie even though I am not big Jennifer Anniston fan!!! In regards to the eye color issue, I noticed it too and it bothered me… I have read up on the gentics of it and have learned that it is common for two brown eyed parents to have a blue eyed child (1 in 4), but in regards to two blue eyed parents having a brown eyed child, it is incredibly rare (1 in 100,000,000).
I’m super happy to see I’m not the Only Person that was super bothered by the two Blue eyed people having a a Brown eyed child. While the kid was super adorable with his big Brown eyes they should have picked a child with blue eyes. Frankly that almost ruined the movie for me. Luckily my friend told me that it is possible. Probably just so it wouldn’t bother me the rest of the movie. Thank god she did or I probably would have ended up thinking about it the ENTIRE film!! I did really enjoy the movie. And Jason Bateman….YUMMY!! He is sooooooooo freaking sexy!!!!
Okay I would just like to make it clear that two blue eyed parents CANNOT EVER give rise to a brown eyes child. It is genetically IMPOSSIBLE. Otherwize this movie is good.
Actually it is biologically impossible for a two blue eyes people to have brown eyed children, if you have heard of it….wrong daddy.
Ok, i noticed the 2 blue eyed parents and brown eyed child issue too, and regardless of whether it is actually possible or not, most people think it is not, so why would you not simply have a blue eyed child in the movie? to keep viewers guessing? it is really just distracting and confusing!