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

Babes in Toyland (1986)

A made-for-TV movie featuring some of the most popular young stars of the day, Babes in Toyland is a modern take on the Victor Herbert operetta. Featuring very few of the original songs, this movie is a very loose adaptation of the original stage production, tweaked in various ways to make it work for the small screen. Unfortunately, the end result is an uninspired mess that misses the mark on many levels.

TV movies are held to a slightly different set of standards but they are still considered movies to me. Movies made for the small screen always have low budgets and the visual effects and props usually suffer. I try to take this sort of thing into account when I watch a made-for-TV movie. Still, in terms of what was possible back in 1986, Babes in Toyland is weak.

Drew Barrymore stars as Lisa Piper, a girl who has very little time for toys because she has to help pitch in for her family. One night, she is riding home with her sister and the boy her sister likes when a blizzard strikes and their car goes off the road. Lisa is transported into the magical world of Toyland, where toys are life size and characters from Mother Goose’s fairy tales populate the village.

The problem is that things are oversimplified in Toyland. I’m not sure if that’s the point or not though, as I have not seen the stage production or any of the prior film adaptations of it. But to me, it seems silly and campy for the 11-year-old lead to come up with all the best ideas, leaving the adults to smile and say “Ooooh!” like a bunch of simpletons. I can see how it might appeal to kids, which is certainly what they were going for, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

The effects are bad, even by TV movie standards, and the costumes are all a little too much. The cast either overacts or under-acts, leaving the finished product feeling like a bipolar mishmash of camp and boredom. The characters in Toyland are exaggerated versions of their counterparts in the real world as well.

What I took away from Babes in Toyland most of all was how similar it is to The Wizard of Oz. As it would turn out, the operetta was written in response to the success of a stage production of The Wizard of Oz. It replicated the same basic premise but changed things enough to avoid any accusations of plagiarism. With this in mind, it’s hard to imagine any version of Babes in Toyland rating too exceptionally high.

While the original story is a bit of a rip-off itself, the 1986 version of Babes in Toyland feels like an uninspired modernization of something that was probably much better. Still, it’s a TV movie. Had this been a major release, I would have torn it to pieces with my rating scale. Since it was a small screen affair, I’ll be nice.

RATING: 2 out of 5

Scream (1996)

Scream did two very significant things- First, it put the horror genre back on the map as a bankable Hollywood product. Second, it showed that you could infuse a film with the self-aware, self-deprecating and tragically hip attitude carried by the 90s generation. Both of these landmarks were groundbreaking and set the tone for cinema that even now is still with us. More importantly, both of these landmarks lost their luster very quickly.

Horror master Wes Craven’s Scream is a one-in-a-million film. It recognizes not only the faults and incongruities of its genre, but also of its own story. The writers then took these clichés and incongruities and told us that they know they’re there, and that, try as anyone might, they’re always going to be there, which causes us to not only enjoy the film even more, but also to actually enjoy the clichés for a change.

Let's face it, the plot is nothing new. Local large-chested girl is being tormented by a homicidal maniac, who intends to kill her eventually but wants to make life even worse for her by taking aim at her ridiculously gorgeous and witty friends. Everyone is a suspect, and remains as such until they either die or the true killer reveals their identity. It’s the same cat and mouse we’ve seen played out countless time before.

But Scream embraces poking fun at itself and plants its tongue firmly in cheek. Characters openly discuss potential motives (should they be the killer). They engage in debates about what to do and what not to do when in a scary movie type situation, then consciously break the rules they come up with. Most importantly, they ask the big questions that are on the viewers’ minds. You don’t have to worry about figuring out what’s going on, because the characters are doing a much better job of it for you.

This is Scream’s greatest asset. It changed the way we look at horror films, but it also changed the way they make horror films. Now producers and writers feel obligated to include some kind of self-awareness in slasher flicks, which really isn’t necessary. Scream raised the bar for what horror can be and very few will ever live up it.

If you can handle some language and a few graphic depictions of murder, you need to see Scream!

RATING: 4 out of 5