Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Failure to Launch
Well, Oscar season is over and back to my usual fair of romantic comedies...Well, I saw Failure to Launch this weekend. I did not want to see it. But god, this is a dead time of year movie-wise. Our (Christine and Mine) only choices were Failure to Launch, a bunch of horror movies, or aquamarine, about a teen mermaid stuck in a pool. Well, we might have been better off with Aquamarine because Failure to Launch was absolutely terrible. I had the same problem with it that I have with all Matthew McConaughey movies, I simply cannot see why anyone would fall in love with him.
But here is the bigger the problem, We were fooled by the New York Times into seeing this movie. It's review is not terrible:
The director Tom Dey obviously cherishes 30's comedies, and he confidently guides a screenplay (by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember) that has some of the sass and bite of those oldies through the screwball rapids. It's all about tone. And until the movie succumbs to sugar shock at the end, it remains brisk and tart. Mr. McConaughey and Ms. Parker (in a role not far removed from Carrie Bradshaw) make well-matched sparring partners.
Thus, fooling Christine and I into thinking that while we won't be seeing great moviemaking, at least it will be an enjoyable two hours.
I have a theory about this (surprise, surprise). It is patronizing obnoxiousness of low expectations. Movie reviewers such as Holden do not expect very much of romantic comedies and so they have serious problems seeing variations between them. Take another absurd movie that ends in sugar shock and wierd Terry Schiavo undertones, Just Like Heaven. It is like a reviewer like Holden simply can't see that Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo are far superior sparring partners.
As a lover of tv, i deal with this phenomenon all the time. People expect even less from tv than they do from romantic comedies. sigh.
But here is the bigger the problem, We were fooled by the New York Times into seeing this movie. It's review is not terrible:
The director Tom Dey obviously cherishes 30's comedies, and he confidently guides a screenplay (by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember) that has some of the sass and bite of those oldies through the screwball rapids. It's all about tone. And until the movie succumbs to sugar shock at the end, it remains brisk and tart. Mr. McConaughey and Ms. Parker (in a role not far removed from Carrie Bradshaw) make well-matched sparring partners.
Thus, fooling Christine and I into thinking that while we won't be seeing great moviemaking, at least it will be an enjoyable two hours.
I have a theory about this (surprise, surprise). It is patronizing obnoxiousness of low expectations. Movie reviewers such as Holden do not expect very much of romantic comedies and so they have serious problems seeing variations between them. Take another absurd movie that ends in sugar shock and wierd Terry Schiavo undertones, Just Like Heaven. It is like a reviewer like Holden simply can't see that Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo are far superior sparring partners.
As a lover of tv, i deal with this phenomenon all the time. People expect even less from tv than they do from romantic comedies. sigh.
# posted by Julia @ 4:55 PM 
