Modern Romance

Year 2, Day 50 - 2/19/10 - Movie #415

BEFORE: From Steve Martin to Albert Brooks, another of my favorite comedians. I suppose the title's kind of ironic now, seeing as this movie's almost 30 years old.

THE PLOT: Albert Brooks directs himself as a successful film editor with far too many issues that affects the relationship between him and his remarkably patient girlfriend.

AFTER: Again, I'm not really finding the humor in another person's messed-up relationship. And for 10 minutes of the film, Brooks' character is high on quaaludes, and we get to watch him stumble around his apartment and get ready for bed.

Since Robert Cole, the main character, is a film editor, there's a lot of outdated stuff showing the process of film editing - like people cutting actual pieces of film, and viewing them on those big flat-top Steenbecks. It's all done on computer these days, right? Nobody actually slices up film any more...

Robert has an on-again, off-again relationship with Mary (Kathryn Harrold), but his petty jealousies and constant neurotic behavior keep interfering with their happiness. Again, it's kind of slice-of-life funny, but not really laugh-out-loud funny like "Lost in America" or "The Scout".

Also starring Bruno Kirby, with cameos from Bob "Super Dave Osborne" Einstein (aka Albert Brooks' brother) as a sporting-goods salesman, director James L. Brooks (no relation) as a director, George Kennedy as George Kennedy, and Meadowlark Lemon (what is this, Love Boat?)

RATING: 3 out of 10 sound engineers

The Lonely Guy

Year 2, Day 49 - 2/18/10 - Movie #414

BEFORE: As with John Candy, I've seen the vast majority of Steve Martin's films, though I've avoided the "Father of the Bride", "Cheaper By the Dozen" and "Pink Panther" franchises. Sorry, but Peter Sellers WAS Inspector Clouseau, and I accept no substitutes. Somehow this Steve Martin film has eluded me, until now...

THE PLOT: A writer for a greeting card company learns the true meaning of loneliness when he comes home to find his girlfriend in bed with another man.

AFTER: Well, it sort of works as a snapshot of dating in the early 1980's, before there was a Facebook or a Match.com, or any internet at all, really. So people actually had to meet each other in bars, or at parties, or at lunch counters. Unfortunately, most of the jokes about swinging singles and answering machines and writing phone numbers on napkins seem really outdated now.

Also, I didn't find the jokes about men jumping off the Manhattan bridge or shouting their ex-lovers' names from the rooftops to be all that funny. I know it's an exaggeration, but it just seems sort of mean-spirited to laugh at these characters when they're down.

Also starring Charles Grodin, Judith Ivey, with cameos from Steve Lawrence, Merv Griffin, and Dr. Joyce Brothers.

RATING: 3 out of 10 ferns

Only the Lonely

Year 2, Day 48 - 2/17/10 - Movie # 413

BEFORE: From Eugene Levy in "Serendipity" to his SCTV castmate John Candy...

THE PLOT: A Chicago cop must balance loyalty to his overbearing mother and a relationship with a shy funeral home worker.

AFTER: I was a big SCTV fan back in the day - I used to stay up late on Friday nights and watch the show, NBC ran it at like 1 am, which probably caused my insomnia later on...

This is something of a departure for John Candy, it's not silly comedy but something closer to a dramatic role...but note that he went right back to silly comedies after this. He's devoted to his dominating Irish mother, played by Maureen O'Hara, and the implication is that he can't form a lasting relationship with a woman, since his mother's influence looms large in his life. She's also quite racist, with something to say about Italians, Greeks, Mexicans, etc. It must be challenging to play a racist character who also needs to be somewhat likable - late in the movie, she makes an honest effort to change, and that certainly helps.

Candy's character, Danny Muldoon, has these fantasy sequences where his mother dies in tragic accidents, which portrays the level of his devotion and his Catholic guilt - if he doesn't call her every so often, then she's dead in a car accident or a robbery, and it was all his fault.

Ally Sheedy plays his love interest, who's got her own issues, being an introverted funeral-home cosmetologist, but she eventually learns to assert herself so she can have an honest relationship without sneaking around behind Mrs. Muldoon's back.

The movie seems kind of like an improv act, after asking the audience for a U.S. city (Chicago!), 2 professions (cop! Funeral home worker!) and a situation (2 people falling in love!) It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but it's charming enough.

Also starring Jim Belushi, Anthony Quinn, with a brief cameo from Macaulay Culkin.

RATING: 5 out of 10 bodybags

Serendipity

Year 2, Day 47 - 2/16/10 - Movie #412

BEFORE: Speaking of being in the right place at the right time, I think that's what this film's title means...

THE PLOT: A couple reunite years after the night they first met, fell in love, and separated, convinced that one day they'd end up together.

AFTER: Actually, the word means "a fortunate accident", like accidentally watching the third John Cusack film in a row (I suppose unconsciously I must have known he was in this...) or picking a film that illustrates the points I've been making this week in the rom-com debate between destiny and free will in picking romantic partners.

It's also the name of a chocolate-shop in Manhattan, where Jonathan (Cusack) and Sara (Kate Beckinsale) go, after trying to buy the same pair of gloves in Bloomingdale's. They manage to visit a number of scenic NYC locations, such as Central Park and the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, in their first evening together, before separating. After all, he's got a girlfriend, and she has a boyfriend, so they split before things get too serious, figuring that if they're meant to be together, fate will make it happen.

So he writes his phone number on a $5 bill and buys some mints, figuring that the bill will eventually circulate back to her (because that's likely...) and she writes her phone number in a book, which she sells to a used bookstore - so he's supposed to walk into a bookstore every time he passes one, hoping to find the right copy of that book. If you try to calculate the odds of both of these things happening (outside of a movie, of course) at a time in their lives when they're BOTH looking for each other, you'd go bonkers.

They go back to their lives, and get engaged to others, but there's always that "What if?" notion in the back of their minds. So the audience can debate whether that doubt sabotaged their relationships, or whether the real relationships couldn't possibly live up to the imagined ones - based on a magical, unduplicatable evening with a stranger.

Despite the longest of longshot coincidences, I found myself enjoying this one - clearly the best rom-com I've seen this week.

Also starring Jeremy Piven, Molly Shannon, John Corbett and Bridget Moynihan ("I, Robot") with cameos from Eugene Levy and Buck Henry.

RATING: 7 out of 10 frozen hot chocolates

The Sure Thing

Year 2, Day 46 - 2/15/09 - Movie #411

BEFORE: Back-to-back Cusack, from an early film by Cameron Crowe to an early film by Rob Reiner...

THE PLOT: College freshman John (Gib) Gibson decides to go cross country to visit his friend in California during winter break. Awaiting there is a bikini-clad babe whom his friend assures him is a "sure thing".

AFTER: Another romantic comedy starts out with a huge coincidence - Gib (John Cusack) goes on a failed date with Alison (Daphne Zuniga), then ends up sharing a ride to L.A. in a car that also contains her. And they're both headed to the same California college to visit their romantic partners - what are the odds?

Did college students really ever do this - just pack up and head across the country during winter break? By car? Doesn't it take like a week to drive cross-country to L.A., and wouldn't the winter break be over by the time they got there? Why not just go home and spend Christmas with your family? Come to think of it, no one in the film seems to have a family, or wants to celebrate Christmas, which is a little weird.

Like a cross between "Moonlighting" and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" - after they're forced out of the car for bickering with each other, they need to hitchhike the rest of the way, and band together to get by. The experience changes them both, and makes them question the relationships waiting for them in L.A.

Also starring Anthony Edwards and Nicollette Sheridan, with a brief appearance by Tim Robbins.

RATING: 5 out of 10 cans of beer

Say Anything...

Year 2, Day 45 - 2/14/10 - Movie #410

BEFORE: Something for Valentine's Day - another 80's classic that "everyone" has seen but me...

We spent our Valentine's Day chipping the ice out of our driveway, then having take-out from Taco Bell and watching "Destroyed in Seconds". This was done to avoid the restaurant crowds, and we'll try to get out for a fancy romantic dinner in a few days.

THE PLOT: A noble underachiever and a beautiful valedictorian fall in love the summer before she goes off to college.

AFTER: I had thought that the title referred to the need to express one's love, how Lloyd Dobler needed to say something, anything, to win a girl's heart. But actually I think it refers to his girlfriend's relationship with her father (John Mahoney). They have the type of honest relationship where they can say anything to each other, but the movie suggests, in a roundabout way, that maybe in this case honesty isn't the best policy. Does a father really need to know the intimate details of his daughter's romance? Why would he even want to?

The movie takes a strange left turn when the IRS shows up to investigate the father's nursing home - it seems like an odd element to have in a romantic comedy. It points out how connected Diane (Ione Skye) is to her father, and how un-connected she is to the rest of her high-school class. I guess Lloyd is too young to recognize a girl with serious daddy issues - I don't really understand why the father's legal problems preclude Diane having a relationship with Lloyd. Unless Diane is so simplistic that there's only room for one man in her life, either her father or Lloyd but not both, which is a problem. Lloyd therefore has no chance of a relationship with her until she rejects her father, but that's still not an ideal situation, since she's never been independent, and is only defined by her relationship with these two men.

Most people remember and talk about the famous scene with John Cusack holding up the boombox, blasting "In Your Eyes" to get his girlfriend's attention. Honestly, there wasn't a whole lot to the movie, for me, outside of this scene. I'm trying to figure out if I hate romantic comedies, or if I'm just out of touch with them.

Also starring Lili Taylor and Joan Cusack (of course...), with cameos by Eric Stoltz, Bebe Neuwirth, Jeremy Piven, and Philip Baker Hall.

RATING: 5 out of 10 songs about Joe

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Year 2, Day 44 - 2/13/10 - Movie #409

BEFORE: Please, let this movie be about the wrong people being in love at the wrong time - that way I've covered all the bases in just 4 films...

THE PLOT: Peter takes a Hawaiian vacation in order to deal with recent break-up with his TV star girlfriend, Sarah. Little does he know Sarah's traveling to the same resort as her ex ... and she's bringing along her new boyfriend.

AFTER: I'm going to put this one out ahead of "The Heartbreak Kid", because the characters (well, some of them anyway) actually seem to learn something from their experiences - though it may be too late to salvage their current relationships, we get the feeling that they may be a better person down the road.

Peter (Jason Segel) has a hard time dealing with his break-up, so he remembers hearing about a great vacation spot in Hawaii, and decides to go there. Problem is, he heard about the place from his ex, who's there with her new beau. Remember what I said about coincidences? Any rational person would just go to another hotel, or another island, or leave Hawaii completely, but then we wouldn't have a movie.

So Peter is forced to watch his ex-girlfriend (Kristen Bell) having romantic dinners and cuddle sessions with rock-star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) prompting long crying sessions in his hotel room. But after a couple of dates with a cute hotel clerk (Mila Kunis), the tables seem to turn, and he's actually in a better position than Sarah is.

I won't reveal all the twists along the way, but from an emotional standpoint, it seems pretty realistic, in that there aren't "good" or "bad" people and the relationships are pretty complex. It's sort of like a romantic comedy from a guy's point of view. (not a chick-flick, maybe a dick-flick?) Some crude humor, too much male nudity.

Also starring Bill Hader, Jack McBrayer (from "30 Rock"), Jonah Hill, and Paul Rudd (last seen in "The Baxter"), with cameos from Steve Landesberg ("Barney Miller"), Billy Baldwin, and Jason Bateman.

RATING: 6 out of 10 pina coladas