As romantic comedies go, I thought this was pretty good. Here’s the synopsis, courtesey of the good folks at IMDB.com:

A middle-aged husband’s life changes dramatically when his wife asks him for a divorce. He seeks to rediscover his manhood with the help of a new-found friend Jacob, learning to pick up girls at bars.

The film has an all-star cast:

• Steve Carell
• Ryan Gosling
• Julianne Moore
• Emma Stone
• Marisa Tomei
• Kevin Bacon
• Beth Littleford
• John Carroll Lynch

I’m generally rather disappointed with romantic comedies — they’re never written well, and I find the plots to be trite. On the other hand, I thought Crazy Stupid Love was rather well-written. The plot had some well-travelled themes, but it went another level. The characters were good people and interesting. As a result, I found the whole film to be ultimately engaging.

Crazy Stupid Love (2011)

Back to this film — to summarize, Barrymore and Long meet up through happenstance at a NYC dive bar, and they hit it off. Actually, they hook up, but they continue their little budding relationship in the six weeks that she will be in town before moving back to California. The two ultimately decide to continue their relationship long distance through phone calls, texting, and the occasional flight to see each other. The film features on how they attempt to keep the relationship going in spite of being thousands of miles apart.

Okay, so this wasn’t a terrible film. I didn’t quite find the two main characters very exciting, but the good news is that I didn’t feel the need to roll my eyes at any time. I’ve actually hurt myself during the viewing of a rom-com due to a reflex eye-roll, so I guess since I didn’t roll my eyes in this film, that’s a plus, no? This movie was definitely a rental, but it’s not that bad. I’ll rate this film zero eye-rolls, which is actually good thing.

Going the Distance (2010)

Joseph Gordon-Leavitt plays Tom, an aspiring/struggling architect who is currently working for a greeting card company. He meets the new hire admin asst Summer, played by Zoey Deschanel. As the film progresses, the story jumps back and forth in time (marked by a counter denoting which day of the relationship it is), but the audiences that, due to the timer, the relationship is a ticking time bomb.

The story was entertaining and fresh, the direction was well done, and acting was very good. I liked Joseph Gordon-Leavitt in this. I recommend this movie.

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

When implanted in a person’s wrist, a TiMER counts down to the day the wearer finds true love. But Oona O’Leary faces the rare dilemma of a blank TiMER. Her soul mate – whoever and wherever he is – has yet to have a TiMER implanted. Staring down the barrel of thirty and tired of waiting for her would-be life partner to get off the dime, Oona breaks her own rules and falls for Mikey, a charming and inappropriately young supermarket clerk with a countdown of four months.

This was a romantic comedy of sorts, with a dash of sci-fi in there. It didn’t ask a whole lot of probing questions, but it was decent entertainment and the characters were interesting.

Timer (2009)

Friday night, we had a date night planned after all the school Halloween school parades and parties. We would drop off the kids for the evening, then catch dinner and a movie. Logistically, this didn’t work out as well as we hoped, so decided to go out for a sushi dinner, then come home to watch something streaming at home. We didn’t see anything we liked, so settled on Killers on FiOS Video on Demand. Sadly, we watched it on standard definition, not HD (couldn’t find HD movies.) Painful for me on many levels.

Killers stars Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl, with smaller roles for a number of actors and actresses like Tom Selleck, Catherine O’Hara, and others who must participate in these types of films for the money — it can’t be the artistic value. To summarize the plot, Kutcher is an assassin who meets Heigl’s character in Nice (France) during a job — you know, an assassination. They fall in love, and three years later, they are married, living in surburbia, and living average Joe-type married lives. All of  a sudden, there’s a $20 million bounty on Ashton’s head, and killers come out of the woodwork to collect the bounty. Big spoiler here — some of these killers are their own neighbors. Dum dum DUM!

I didn’t like this movie because I thought it wasn’t very good. Frankly, the plot was convoluted, and didn’t make a lot of sense. I found the relationship dynamics/chemistry between the two characters boring once they got married. The sheer number of their neighbors/friends who are contracted killers, all living in proximity to them, was unbelievable. I mean, really, all these people are killers? Was their sole responsibility to sit and wait for three years or more, just in case they had to kill Ashton Kutcher? Do they get paid to sit and wait?

Finally, I didn’t find the whole Kutcher-as-an-assassin to be believable. As a guy, I’ve watched my share of movies about cold-blooded assassins. Ashton Kutcher was a joke as an assassin. His entire mannerisms didn’t match the personality of someone would kill people for money. In this movie, Ashton Kutcher is a goofy assassin that women wouldn’t be appalled with — handsome and isn’t threatening. He’s a killer that doesn’t kill often, has a conscious, and WIN WIN!, he has boyish charm. I don’t personally know any real-life assassins, but I’m pretty sure contract killers are assholes with personalities that don’t work well within stable long-term relationships. Furthermore, once the action starts and the killers come out of the woodwork, he’s a terrible fighter. All of a sudden, he’s a joke, and the action is a mere backdrop so that Heigl and Kutcher’s characters can bicker about their relationship. The finale came together quickly, but the resolution was abrupt.

I didn’t like this movie. I’m disappointed, and I’m confounded that Hollywood studios can’t hire smart writers to write decent movies that have both romance and comedy. Ironically, after the film was over, we browsed through the FiOS On Demand menu, and found the HD version of Killers, plus other movies. This was our first On Demand purchase, so lesson learned, now we know where to find the HD movies for rent. Doh!

On a random note, in the movie poster below, doesn’t Ashton Kutcher’s hair look like a toupee?

Killers (2010)

We decided to hang around an additional 50 mins to see Valentine’s Day, a Garry Marshall rom-com starring a shitload of big-name Hollywood actors and actresses. This was not the first choice for either of us, but we made due. You can gather the premise by watching the commercials. The movie involves the intertwining storylines of a multitude of characters.

I’ll go out on a limb, and say it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. My wife was able to predict most of the plotlines, but there were too many stories IMHO. Young teenage love, senior love, unrequited love, infidelity, childhood crushes, marriage, engagements, and on and on. Out of all of the intertwining stories and characters,  I thought the Topher Grace and Anne Hathaway characters were the most interesting. Everyone else was just blah.

Valentine's Day (2010)

The premise of the story is that Krasinski and Rudolph are a couple who are about 6-months pregnant. Living near Krasinski’s character’s parents, they originally planned to have his family nearby to help. Turns out, the parents are soon moving to Belgium long term. Our intrepid couple heads out to visit various family and friends around the USA and Canada, in order to find a suitable home where suitable locale with family/friends that would be best for their future daughter. They end up travelling from place to place, finding these various people to be odd, or off their rocker, or whatever, unable to find the perfect spot.

I don’t think this was the best movie, per se. It was a decent rental. I liked Krasinkski and Rudolph in these roles, and I personally liked the characters they played. They didn’t have much, but they were two likeable people in love, surrounded by a sea of nutjobs. I could relate to them, even though they had “cardboard windows.” They were both approx 33 years old, deeply in love, and not exactly at the pinnacle of wealth and power. I’m 33, deeply in love with my wife, and not exactly rich and powerful. We don’t have the perfect life.  In the movie, they don’t have a particularly perfect life, and openly question, “Are we fuck-ups?” Hey, when you’re at this stage in your life, and you didn’t have the “perfect” life, you’d wonder if you were a fuck-up at times too.

In addition, the supporting actors/actresses establish those characters very well.  I will say that I could have done without the folksy, earnest soundtrack, which is starting to get cliched in some of these indie movies.

So final assessment — it’s a decent rental.

Away We Go (2009)

I’d go into more detail, but really, what else do you need to know?  Will sparks fly between Messing and Mulroney’s respective characters?  Will hilarious situations ensue? Will they start to feel attraction for each other? Will they make up in the end?  Frankly, it wasn’t all that good a movie, and Debra Messing is not a good actress.  I never really watched her Will & Grace show, but from what I’ve seen, it’s the exact same character. Not a good sign of a great actress.

The Wedding Date (2005)

Only You is a 1994 romantic-comedy starring Marisa Tomei (yes, back when she was making movies), Bonnie Hunt, and Robert Downey, Jr.  Oh yeah, and Fisher Stevens was in it too — truly a 90′s flick.  At age 13, Marisa Tomei’s character gets the name of her soulmate from a Ouija board and a weirdo carnival gypsy.  The movie picks up some 17 years later, and 10 days before she is to marry this podiatrist. A friend of her husband calls to say that he won’t be able to make the wedding, as he’ll be in Italy.  His name? Damon Bradley!  She and Bonnie Hunt dash off to Venice, Rome, and the Tuscany region on the search for Damon Bradley.

This could seem the typical love story and more or less it is, but it makes you remember the classic romantic movies. It has the same spirit. A movie where you get exactly what you expect. It was nice to watch Robert Downey Jr. and Marisa Tomei still fresh faced and full of potential, before their personal troubles began. Excellent location shooting, including Venice, Rome and a small Italian beach town, with beautiful cinematography. Impossibly romantic premise? Yes, but I guess that’s what you wanted in 90′s movies, including the expected payoff at the end where everybody lives happily and so on.

Only You (1994)

Turns out, yes, it’s a chick-flick, with some cliched plot elements and twists, but it certainly had some good comedic moments.  In fact, I’d say the supporting cast was excellent — Craig T. Nelson, Mary Steenburgen (I like her a lot), Betty White, and Oscar Nuñez’s character Ramone stole the show in my view.  He was frickin’ hilarious.

BTW, there was no closed captioning during the movie.  Does no one like the disabled?

The Proposal (2009)