Our personal memories mingle seamlessly with our movie memories; classic romantic comedies make the sweetest and most thoughtful gift, longer lasting than any box of chocolates or long-stemmed roses.
Celebrate with us to find our readers’ all-time favorite Romantic Comedy. Many of our favorite films didn’t make the poll; we apologize most heartily if we’ve neglected to include yours.
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With her historic win, the narrative going into the Academy Awards gets a little trickier and a lot more fun. As everyone knows who cares, “Avatar†director James Cameron and Ms. Bigelow were once married. It’s like the perfect set-up for a Nancy Meyer rom-com. The other likely Oscar nominees — Jason Reitman, Lee Daniels, and Quentin Tarantino — go into the race as also-rans and bridesmaids, unburdened with the compelling domestic drama — Divorcee Twelve Million Grossing David Potentially Clobbers Her Ex-Box Office Goliath. No one’s betting on a big upset. After all, only six DGA winners have failed to repeat their wins on Oscar night. Forty-seven of the films that won the DGA prize went on to win best picture at the Academy Awards, and so the “Inglorious Basterds†momentum that seemed to be building at the SAG awards screeched to a sudden halt. “Avatar” has splintered every box office record in its path, but Cameron’s Golden Globes acceptance speech wasn’t terribly humble or eloquent; Bigelow’s at the Broadcast Film Critics was. These early awards season speeches are dry runs, virtual auditions. The industry tunes in and decides which player they want to represent them on the Big Night. Reitman’s consistently adorable and convincingly humble; they’ll surely give him a screenplay award. Tarantino is something of a loose cannon; if he dressed a little better, he’d probably have more of a chance. Hollywood is a giant high school, and the directors are running for class president. (The movie stars vie for prom king and queen.)
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Featuring precious little Rome and a lot of Antic, “When In Rome†falls back on every exhausted (and exhausting) rom-com convention in the book. In Rome for her sister’s wedding, a career woman cynically steals coins from a fountain and unknowingly makes five strangers fall madly in love with her. Kristen Bell makes for an adorable lead who needs fresher and smarter material to reach her full rom-com heroine potential. Josh Duhamel stands tall as her love object, slightly less generic than the usual rom-com Ken doll. There’s not much standing in their way, no real obstacles, and therein lies the rub. The two meet semi-cute in the first ten minutes, and we know they’ll wind up together; nothing much happens in the middle to call their happy ending into question. There’s much ado about the nothing; pilfered coins, local legend, and enchanted suitors sound like more fun than they are.
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It’s 1962, stylishly retro and way cool. TV’s Mad Men have paved the cultural way for two more stellar entries in the Sex And The Sixties pantheon. With the swinging sixties looming right on the horizon, Los Angeles college literature professor George (Colin Firth) and sixteen year old suburban London student Jenny (Carey Mulligan) fumble their un-merry ways through the rough-and-tumble terrain of love, loss, secrets, and sexual experience. Both lead performances have stirred up considerable Academy Award buzz, but they’re unlikely to compete head to head anywhere but right here. Dewy Maiden with Distinct Audrey Hepburn Echoes takes on World-Weary Confirmed Bachelor with a Not-So-Secret Secret. The winner? A grateful arthouse (and beyond) audience.
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Ah, consumption. That most romantic and cinematic of slow fades. Think Camille. Two wildly talented love objects with fatally bad lungs compete for this particular smackdown crown. It’s Frederic Chopin versus Bright Star John Keats in a death-baiting battle of ill-fated geniuses, fighting for every breath, playing fast and loose with history, and winning lovely lady hearts as they struggle for ours. I dare you to find two more gorgeous grandees, two saintlier objects of obsession in all filmdom. Go ahead. I’ll wait here.
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Cookie cutter romantic comedy satisfies a too-easily edified audience. No matter how formulaic and tepid the sausage, the factories grind out more product to feed the gaping maw; indie films usually attract a more marginal fringe-ier crew, on the hunt for the original, the untold (or even oft-told) story told in fresh new ways. Pitting a humble little indie versus a major studio wide release makes for an inherently unfair fight and one with a foregone conclusion at the box office, but ticket sales won’t sway this Smackdown. As “Leap Year†bounds onto virtually every available screen and Quirky Indie-That-Could “Youth In Revolt†limps onto a fraction of that number, ask yourself: Is bigger necessarily better? Does conventional beat quirky?
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Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and we are overcome with thoughts of love. Even here at Movie Smackdown, we are not so heartless or cynical as you might think. We wish fervently that […]
What a Daunting Task… So I’ll give you my criteria. It’s simple really. If the movie’s playing on television as I flip past and can’t stop watching even though I had no plans to do […]
Finally, it’s awards season again, when the really big guns take aim for our hearts, minds, and pocketbooks. Coming out swinging for the bleachers are two movies made for adults of a certain (middle) age, the demographic that lopes through the rest of the year nearly forgotten, begging for scraps at a table set for callow youth and action figures. George Clooney and Meryl Streep both navigate the rough and increasingly muddied waters of love and commitment, and it’s a thrill to watch them struggle.
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The Smackdown Movies about show business multiply like rabbits, and here’s a simple explanation. Not only do writers write what they know — everyone in show business finds show business (and himself) endlessly fascinating. That’s why they’re there […]
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