Ask a Boy: Is He Into HJNTIY?

Here's an interesting experiment. After watching the 10 Chick Flick Cliches clip from the male stars of He's Just Not That Into You -- you know, the one that promised dudes that they'd like the movie, too? -- the Independent's Alice Jones decided to test that theory.

Would the men in her life truly enjoy the flick? Her answer, along with some thoughtful speculation about the undying appeal of the chick flick template, is here.

Me, on movies and on the web!

I know, I know. I'm way behind on Awards Season. But in the meantime here are some links to my other writing about movies -- an increasingly widespread phenomenon!

(Clicking on shameless links is kind of like reading about Oscar gossip, right? Right.)

Here goes...

I'm now taking increased responsibility for the pop culture / travel segment of the World Hum blog. Check out my efforts so far:

• The Critics: 'Australia'
• The Golden Globes: Is It the Year of the Funny Travel Movie?
• Movie Tourism: 'An Obsessively Ridiculous, Embarrassing, Empty, and Needy Exercise'?
• Bollywood Comes to Miami
• 9 Travel Movies to Watch For in 2009
• Colombia on Film (Again)
• 'Gilligan's Island': Castaways Hitting the Big Screen?
  

Meanwhile, over at Not Coming to a Theater Near You, my year-end essay focused on (what else?!) chick flicks and the Big Apple:

• Definitely, Maybe: The Smart New York Rom-Com Hangs Tough in 2008

Stay tuned for more exciting news on my end (and yes, some more actual blog posts, too!) in the next couple of weeks!

Dana Stevens on Nick and Norah

I have to admit - with the release of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, I was a little worried that Michael Cera's magic might run out.

After all, how many sensitive, awkward indie-music-loving hipsters can one kid bring to the silver screen?

Thankfully, though, early signs are positive. Dana Stevens offers an effusive review:

Teen viewers accustomed to the rapid-fire vulgarities of Superbad and Pineapple Express may snort at this movie's emo guilelessness. But like its source, a young-adult novel of the same name by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, Playlist is unabashedly romantic. Some people really were made for each other, the movie asserts, and New York does look beautiful by night. You got a problem with that?

No, ma'am. No problem here!

Simon Pegg: Leading Man

The Times of London has an interesting profile of Simon Pegg, the man who invited the zom-rom-com and who's been romping around Hollywood ever since.

The story calls Pegg "the world's unlikeliest rom-com hero" (even less likely than Ricky Gervais?) and attempts to explain his appeal:

He doesn’t have Brad Pitt’s abs, Daniel Craig’s jaw or Johnny Depp’s smoulder. He is an everyman with dreams - letting men think that they, too, might kiss Kirsten Dunst while allowing their girlfriends to believe the slob beside them might yet shape up.

The whole thing is worth a read. Pegg's latest, How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, hits theaters this weekend.

The Buzz On 'Ghost Town'

The reviews are in on Ricky Gervais' rom-com debut - and the results are...mixed.

In a mostly-glowing review, the Globe's Liam Lacey calls Ghost Town an "innovative romantic comedy that is a mixture of British spice and American sugar." (Lacey also notes that Gervais is part-Canadian... File that away for future cocktail party trivia!)

Meanwhile, over at the CBC, Martin Morrow calls the flick a "tepid supernatural rom-com" and "a largely uninspired parody of Ghost." He praises Gervais, though, and here's a bang-on excerpt from that bit of the review:

Like some of the great comedians (Peter Sellers springs to mind), Gervais seems to possess an inner core of melancholy. At his best, he walks the knife-edge between laughter and pathos beautifully. Think of that funny/mortifying scene in Extras when David Bowie made up a nasty song mocking Andy Millman — Andy sat there, listening politely, his ego crumbling like a biscuit in hot tea. Ghost Town doesn’t give Gervais the same opportunity for subtlety.

Slate's Dana Stevens agrees that Ghost Town "doesn't do justice to the manifold gifts of Ricky Gervais" - but she's willing to give the film some credit. It does, she writes, have "inspired casting, a few memorable scenes, and enough laughs that mainstream U.S. audiences may finally get the point of that doughy English guy with the pointy canine teeth and the high-pitched giggle."

As for me, I'm still planning to catch this one in theaters. I said above that Martin Morrow's comment was bang on - but that's exactly my problem with Ricky Gervais. That "core of melancholy" throws this cheesy-ending-loving gal right off: too much of 'The Office' and I've been known to sink into a deep funk.

If Ghost Town is vintage Gervais with some syrup mixed in, that sounds just sweet enough for me.

Spreading the Chick Flick Love!

Well, it's official. I have my first published, paid, chick-flick-related clip. It's the first step on the road to global rom-com domination.

Here it is: a Speaker's Corner essay at World Hum, called Affairs To Remember - On-Screen and Off.

And here's the accompanying Top 10 list of "Euro-romances" - movies in which two characters meet on holiday in Europe and fall "suddenly, inexplicably, madly in love".

Last one, I promise

How could I forget? One last Sex and the City link - my own round-up of SATC tour info, over at World Hum:

Move Over, Frodo: 'Sex and the City' Tourism Takes Off

What, no Monster-in-Law 2 in the works?

So there won't be any zingers of the week today. No one is paying any attention to anything besides the new Indiana Jones movie, apparently. (In fact, hardly anything else seems even to have been released this weekend - are the studios combining forces to make sure they get at least one uber-blockbuster weekend opener, to prove the talkies still have what it takes? Huh.)

Anyhow, with no new chick flicks to heap love (or hate) on, we'll have to settle for this: Rotten Tomatoes' list of the Top 20 Sequels We're Still Waiting For.

It's in honour of the return of Indy, of course. And guess what? It's all man-tastic action movies (or comedy-action spoofs), all the time. What, no one's holding their breath for Bring It On Again Again? And am I the only one holding a torch for a Dirty Dancing three-quel?

Zingers of the Week

As I may have mentioned before, I'm nearly as big a sucker for vitriolic witticisms directed at chick flicks as I am for the flicks themselves. Hence, a new feature for the site: Zingers of the Week, courtesy of new (or recent) chick flick releases and the reviewers who dislike them.

First up, the Globe and Mail's Jason McBride, who asks of Canadian pseudo-ironic indie comedy Prom Wars: "If it's lame, derivative, and doesn't make you laugh, is it really a comedy?"

Next is Robert Wilonsky, writing for the Village Voice. He notes the similarities between Baby Mama and a January 2007 episode of 30 Roc, and concludes: "Baby Mama extends the joke, then softens it, then smothers it in its crib—an unpleasant picture perhaps, but not any more disagreeable than the phrase 'Produced by Lorne Michaels'." Ouchie!

Made of Honor gets not one but two mentions - incidentally, both imply that the answer to the question I asked yesterday is: My Best Friend's Wedding.

After some hilariously vicious commentary on McDreamy's career, Robert Wilonsky comes down with a verdict: "Director Paul Weiland and the three (!) screenwriters it took to boil down thousands of bad movies into 101 minutes haven't provided this one with a single original thought; it should only entertain those still getting adjusted to the idea of talkies."

And finally, after some digression (be sure to read her full anecdote about I Liked It Better Guy!) Katrina Onstad decides that bride-to-be Kathleen Monaghan is the best thing about the movie:

"If I knew how, I’d make a Youtube mashup of Made of Honor and My Best Friend’s Wedding in which Monaghan ends up with Dermot Mulroney, leaving Cameron Diaz for Patrick Dempsey, and Julia Roberts alone — I liked that best the first time."

Y Tu Mama Tambien gets the roundtable treatment

I never posted a Screening Log for Y Tu Mama Tambien, which I tracked down in a suburban Memphis Blockbuster back in mid-March, because I knew I'd be covering it over at World Hum for the monthly World Hum Travel Movie Club. Yes, email dialogues between two or more reviewers are, like, so hot right now - and I have shamelessly jumped on the bandwagon. I'm not sure how often the movie club is going to overlap with the content of this blog in future (there's talk of tackling Crossroads, Chasing Liberty or the like) but in the meantime, here's Part One of our take on the Mexican buddy road trip flick.

(Wondering how this qualifies as a chick flick? Dude, there are hot guys in it. And they're naked a lot. And they talk about their emotions sometimes. Comprende?)

Awards Season Pt. 4: Belated Post-Oscar Fall-out

Joke of the night goes to Jon Stewart for the line about the Vanity Fair Oscar party being canceled in solidarity with the writers. (It goes something like this: If you really want to help the writers out, you might want to try inviting some of them to the Vanity Fair Oscar party... Zing!)

Katrina Onstad has witty and vitriolic play-by-play here. Slate's post-op is here. (The line about Diablo Cody looking like a grown-up Pebbles Flintstone nearly made me spit out my iced mocha latte...) The chick flicks generally got stomped (though Diablo stepped it up in the original screenplay category) but hey, awards aren't really our thing, are they. Unless we're talking Teen Choice Awards, and then we own that shit.

It's going to be chick flicks lite this month around here, since I'm on the road and I'm not sure how many bad two-year-old rom-coms I'll be able to find on my motel pay-per-view. I'm hoping to find a theater to see Step Up 2: The Streets (it's a pun, get it?), but we'll see how it goes...

Awards Season Pt. 3: Red Carpets and Not-So-Bated Breath

Well, the show starts in two hours, and the endless pre-game shows are well under way. I've got Ben Mulroney and Co. on mute for the time being... If you're also less-than-engrossed in the Red Carpet interviews and the Hot vs Not commentary, here's some final pre-Oscar Night reading material: two email roundtables (those darn things are so popular these days) from Slate and The Globe and Mail. Witticisms and vitriol abound...

Classic New York Movies

Jaunted, the pop culture-focused travel blog that fuses two of my very favourite things, has been running a series of posts on Classic New York Movies, with an NYC movies map to match!

Five entries in, and two chick flicks have made the cut: Working Girl, and of course Woody Allen's Manhattan, which kicked off the series. I'll be very surprised if When Harry Met Sally, Annie Hall, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and even An Affair to Remember don't make the cut, too.

Stay tuned for more, and be sure to check the map if you're headed to New York and want to follow in Woody and Diane's footsteps...

See my take on the modern NYC rom-com here.

Dana Stevens on Juno

Over at Slate, Dana Stevens chronicles the rising Juno backlash (and the anti-backlash backlash) as the Oscars come closer, and the "little movie that could" takes its shot at becoming the first comedy to win Best Picture since Annie Hall. (Sound familiar? See: "Little Miss Sunshine".)

Here's a sample:

"Juno may not have had me at hello, but it managed to win me over by the time Juno's carapace of cleverness finally shows its first chink, as she admits to her disappointed father (J.K. Simmons), "I really don't know what kind of girl I am." Maybe it was Ellen Page's luminous face and brazen self-confidence, or the unexpected transformation of Jennifer Garner's character—beautifully played by Garner and, yes, beautifully written by Diablo Cody. Michael Cera's exquisite comic timing makes even his underwritten character come alive. And I know I'm supposed to sneer at the precious indie-rock soundtrack, but some of those songs are really catchy."

'Carapace of cleverness'? Best. Job. Ever. And people wonder why I want to be a film critic...

(As for Juno, I STILL haven't seen it!)

Katrina Onstad on Definitely, Maybe

As I've noted before, Katrina Onstad often rips my beloved chick flicks to pieces (with her bare hands... or her vicious rhetoric - name that reference! anyone, anyone?) but she also does so in style, with insight and wit. So when she gives one a half-decent review, I pay attention. And lo and behold, the latest offering from Ryan Reynolds, of all people, has gotten a slightly-more-than-lukewarm reception in a great review over at CBC.ca:

"Definitely, Maybe does a neat trick: It engages in the superficial appeal of the romantic comedy, the chess-piece manoeuvring of stock archetypes, but it stops just short of the saccharine punch line... For all its gloss — and a kind of awkward pacing imposed by the structure — the film’s message is the opposite of the princess fantasy that little Maya is seeking; the big reveal would probably crush a real-life 11-year-old. But for the rest of us, it’s radical to see a film proposing that love is fluid, and that there can be several happy endings in one long life. That may not be the Valentine you were expecting, but it’s definitely — maybe — a sweet one."

Sounds like my kind of rom-com.

Sentiment vs. Sentimentality

Over at The Globe and Mail, I was surprised this morning to find a (sort-of) defence of the tear-jerker - from Rick Groen, of all people, one of many (okay, all) Globe reviewers who is no friend of the chick flick.

It's a little academic, but a really good read nonetheless. Groen tries to parse the difference between sentiment and sentimentality, and the subjectivity of our judgments of the one over the other. He writes:

"On the positive end of the aesthetic spectrum, you have sentiment. Now sentiment is terrific. Sentiment is exquisite. Sentiment is thought pierced by real emotion. By contrast, way off on the spectrum's low-rent side, sentimentality is a whole other bag of cheap tricks. It's tawdry, it's commercial, it's the crocodile tear and the mawkish sob."

In other words: Pianist good, Notebook bad.

But that's just the starting point - an honest description of the view most critics (professional and amateur) probably have of the way things shake out. With some personal examples (who knew Rick Groen would be a sucker for The Way We Were?) and some impressive literary references, he works his way to this generous conclusion:

"A great film, where the sentiment is genuine and earned, liberates the emotions, and the experience is transcendent. A sentimental movie does none of that. However, it may have moments that draw you in, that don't so much free your emotions as briefly encircle them, wringing out a tear or a smile or a burst of pride or a bout of anxiety. Even if the picture itself often feels false, those moments do not, and it's okay to treasure them — that's personal, that's your own affair to remember."

Thanks, Rick Groen. I'll enjoy my next good movie crying session all that much more, now.

Fool's Gold: Another Hollywood Chemistry Reunion

Funny how things work out - just a couple days after my latest re-watch of How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, I get a reminder that Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson have been reunited, in the upcoming Fool's Gold. It's no secret that this movie was put together with the explicit goal of re-creating that great chemistry from How To Lose A Guy, but I'm a little skeptical - Hollywood's deliberate chemistry reunions don't always work out.

Some other chemistry reunions I can think of, off the top of my head? Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, following up Pretty Woman with Runaway Bride. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks channeling (or trying to channel) their Sleepless in Seattle magic in You've Got Mail. And Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler, chasing The Wedding Singer with 50 First Dates. Of the three, I'd say 50 First Dates was my favourite follow-up. We'll see how Fool's Gold ranks on that list, hopefully in just a few days...

The trailer is here, and an interview with McConaughey and Hudson, about how they work together, is here.

Katrina Onstad on 27 Dresses

Over at CBC.ca, Katrina Onstad is one of my favourite movie reviewers. Although she often takes my precious chick flicks to pieces, she always does it in style, with wit and humour.

Her latest gem is a vicious-but-fun dissection of 27 Dresses, and of wedding flicks in general. Here's a quality moment:

"A film as schematic as 27 Dresses should be, if nothing else, a sexy escape hatch from the real world. But the romance is as neutered as High School Musical. Marsden, so pretty, is trapped in a vague role as Jane’s counterpoint, but he never really comes off as the edgy challenge Jane requires. A courier bag doth not a brooding artist make."

I'm off to see 27 Dresses myself on Tuesday! Stay tuned...

Test your Chick Flick knowledge...

CBC.ca has just posted a quiz called "What a Girl Wants: Test Your Knowledge of Chick Flicks". I always enjoy CBC's quizzes, they're quirky and usually manage to slide in a few inside jokes or jibes in the questions and answers. This one was a little on the easy side for a Chick Flicks enthusiast though, particularly if the 1980s and early 1990s are your bag.

Check it out here!

I scored 9 out of 10. I blame Hugh Grant for spoiling my perfect game.

Death Becomes Her - My review at notcoming.com

I've been writing reviews for Not Coming to a Theater Near You for several months, but until now there has never really been an opportunity for cross-over between my subject matter there (Not Coming deals with older, obscure, and independent movies for the most part) and my subject matter here: Chick Flicks!

But for Not Coming's annual October feature, 31 Days of Horror, I reviewed Death Becomes Her - a 1992 chick flick/comedy/horror hybrid. From my review:

"Long before Simon Pegg brought the world the zom-rom-com, and before Wes Craven made us scream, there was another comedy-horror hybrid on the scene: Death Becomes Her. But it is neither as funny as Shaun of the Dead nor as surprising or suspenseful as the first Scream movie managed to be at times: it is left, instead, to flounder awkwardly between genres, with some small laughs and plenty of bone-breaking, blood-spilling special effects."

Read the full review here.