He's Just Not That Into You (2009)

Despite my long-standing feud with the chick flick genre, I refuse to give in to the desire to use the un-clever and obvious comment that this film’s title sets itself up for. If you’re thinking of popping in a heart-warming and mushy romantic comedy, this is not the film you want. Sure, there’s plenty of fluff, but this is a sunny path with plenty of rocks in it.

The hub of this ensemble is Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin), a slightly scatterbrained single who reads far too much into the actions and words of the men she dates. She’s in love with the idea of being in love and is repeatedly crushed when things don’t work out the way she thought. An off-the cuff conversation with a bartender named Alex (Justin Long) leads to an odd friendship. Alex tells it like it is and illuminates Gigi to how guys work when they are or are not into a girl. This leads to Gigi constantly calling Alex for advice in a variety of situations.

Alex’s friend Connor (Kevin Connolly) is the exact opposite. He’s hung up solely on his long-time best friend Anna (Scarlett Johansson) but is afraid to tell her how he feels about her. She’s not into him in quite that way. Anna also happens to be in the early stages of an affair with Ben (Bradley Cooper), who is married to Gigi’s co-worker Janine (Jennifer Connelly). Their marriage is on rocky grounds to start but Janine is desperate to try and save it. Between Gigi’s new intel on how men avoid commitment and Janine’s desperation, their co-worker Beth (Jennifer Aniston) decides to break up with her marriage-phobic boyfriend Neil (Ben Affleck).

As you can tell, there is an awful lot going on at one time in this film. Bouncing back and forth between the storylines doesn’t give you whiplash but it certainly makes for a frustrating viewing experience. Gigi and Alex are fun to watch because Alex is almost always spot on with his observations about men and desperate single women. Gigi on her own is a tad annoying though. The slow destruction of Janine and Ben’s marriage is powerful but not exactly pleasant to watch, what with all the fluff the other sub-plots hold. Conner and Anna are equally tough to watch because he’s such a stoop for a girl who will probably never reciprocate. Finally, Beth and Neil serve little purpose whatsoever other than to add commentary about long-term, unmarried couples.

If the point of the film is merely to make observations about a select few relationship scenarios, then it succeeds. But, if that is the case, then it’s a pretty cheap way to provide entertainment and the construct is absurd. It’s bad enough that there are eight main characters plus Drew Barrymore thrown in to boot. This forces He’s Just Not That Into You is forced to split up its 129-minute run time a little too much. Some characters are more developed, leaving others feeling flat and (as with Beth and Neil) mostly unnecessary.

Part of me wants to blast the film for having all of the characters connected in one way or another but I loved both Magnolia and Crash, which use a similar six-degrees-of-separation approach to tell an engrossing story. Perhaps it’s the genre in general or the fact that some of the characters turned me off that prevented me from being fully engaged in the story. All I can really say is that this film lacks that special quality that successful ensemble films possess.

Women are the target audience for this film. I am positive of that. With that in mind, it will likely strike a chord with a lot of women who have been through frustrating and uncertain relationship. Men will enjoy the film for Alex’s spot-on assessment of relationship but they will also cringe at the chick-flick cop-out that comes at the end.

He’s Just Not That Into You suffers from trying to hit too many issues. It probably needs another hour for all the characters to truly develop properly but who would really want to watch a three-hour chick flick? I sure don’t. Despite some clever dialog spread throughout, there isn’t much special about this film and its sugary, chick-flick marketing betrays the emotional darkness that lies within its reels.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5

License to Wed (2007)

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

This movie serves as little more than a vehicle to provide Robin Williams with an age-appropriate role that provides him with the opportunity to behave in his tried and true zany manner. The problem lies in the fact that Williams’ performance comes off as a half-desperate attempt to prove he’s still full of life.

No one in their right mind could suggest that Williams has lost his knack for humor, but his over-the-top delivery seems out of place with his character. He plays a minister, Reverend Frank, who puts a young couple through hell in the form of pre-marital counseling.

The setup is pretty ridiculous and highly unrealistic. A young couple, John Krasinski and Mandy Moore, fall in love and get engaged, but due to Moore’s lifelong dream of getting married in her childhood church, the lovebirds face either a 2-year engagement or a three-week rush job.

Being a comedy, they naturally choose the latter option. Reverend Frank gives them all sorts of homework assignments that challenge the young couple including: abstaining from any more sex until the wedding night; seminars to highlight their differences and the quirks that bug each other; taking care of a creepy pair of robotic babies who do all the unpleasant things that regular children do, but to a decidedly more disturbing (though intended to be humorous) degree; and even trying to navigate each other down a busy street while blindfolded. In other words, it’s all a bit too much.

But License to Wed doesn’t stop there. Reverend Frank goes as far as to bug the couples’ apartment and has his young altar boy assistant follow them around, snooping on them and aggravating them into fights over seemingly trivial things. This all made me ask the dreaded question that can mean instant death for a movie: why? Why would a minister want to torment a couple that wants to get married to the point of unraveling their relationship? Why would a minister be so underhanded about all of his actions? Why would an altar boy take such pleasure at disrupting peoples’ lives?

None of it makes any sense and drives home the reality that this film goes too far in trying to pry a few laughs out of its audience. The situations; the approach; it’s all too much. The movie goes above and beyond what is necessary and reasonable to function as a comedy. Part of this is the fault of the writers for trying to manipulate viewer sensibilities for laughs and not respecting the limits of what can be funny and believable at the same time.

The flip-side of the coin is that audiences are getting dumber and the industry’s standards for humor have been in a downward spiral for quite some time. We really shouldn’t be surprised that toilet humor is commonplace and a means to an end in movies today because appealing to lowest-common-denominator laughs has made an obscene amount of money. Thankfully, License to Wed doesn’t sink to such Will Ferrell or Adam Sandler lows too often.

My other big complaint is with the smarmy, predictable ending. Moore decides to break it off and spends what would have been the honeymoon on vacation with her parents. Naturally, Krasinski goes after her and confesses his undying love, patching things up all squeaky clean. This sort of crap insults me. After the film was over, I leaned over to my fiancée and told her not to get any ideas.

Nearly all men, myself included, will not follow their woman of choice to a foreign country just to track her down and prove their love to them. First of all, we certainly don’t have the cash required to make such an expensive trek. Second of all, if we know you’re coming back, we’ll just wait. I really wish Hollywood would stop perpetuating this silly, idealistic fantasy version of love. It’s not real, and the fact that it keeps showing up in movies makes it all the more harder on girls when they realize that REAL love is nothing like the movies.

While this review may seem mostly negative, don’t think that I hate this film. I am merely indifferent due to its numerous shortcomings. License to Wed does connect with people who have either been in serious relationships, engaged couples, and those who have gone through pre-marital counseling. So, certain demographics can relate to the movie, which helps. Some aspects will ring all too true with some viewers, but these same people will be able to spot the ridiculous approach I have gone on about at length above.

In the end, License to Wed is your typical forgettable summer comedy that isn’t worth the price of admission.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5

Sesame Street presents: Follow That Bird (1985)

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

The rating for this film is more subjective than most, because this film is a piece of nostalgia for me. Granted, I was only 1 when it came out, I remember watching it when I was young and in my Sesame Street days. Follow That Bird takes me back to when Sesame Street was still good. There’s not a ridiculous amount of silly colored monsters, nor do we rap the ABC’s. Nope, this goes back to the days of Gordon and Maria and Telly and Guy Smiley (when Elmo hadn’t yet hit the big time).

Big Bird has no bird family and is sent by a social worker to live with some Dodo birds in Illinois in an attempt to give him a family of his own kind. Once there, Big Bird realizes his home is Sesame Street and his family is everyone he left behind. So, he sets off on a trek back to Sesame Street. He ends up getting lost and his friends try to come to his rescue.

It’s a very good movie for young children and has a good message without all the crude humor or jokes designed to go over kids’ heads so parents can put up with watching it. Follow That Bird goes back to the days when kids' movies were for kids and it excels at what it does. It entertains and provides a valuable lesson about friends and family.

While there are a few subtle goofs and inconsistencies, Follow That Bird is a priceless kids' classic that I plan on showing to my kids someday. While not fitting my criteria for greatness, it’s certainly the next best thing.

RATING: 3.75 out of 5