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Reviews
Morning Glory (2010)
Sweet, engaging, inspiring.
This is an engaging tale about a perky optimist with big dreams and bigger ambition. Expecting a promotion, Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams) instead loses her job at a morning show in New Jersey to someone with a more business experience. At first discouraged and reevaluating her longtime goal to work for The Today Show, Becky's hope is revitalized when she eagerly accepts the position of executive producer for a failing morning show in New York. Despite concerns about her less-than-desirable resume for such a high-ranking designation, Jerry Barnes (Jeff Goldblum) takes a chance on Becky when she promises that not only can she can save Daybreak from being cancelled, but she can also turn it into the hit it once was.
She's off to a rough start. There's a reason the show is on the verge of being axed, after all, and she's got little to work with besides a barely-there budget and a crew with a lot of potential that they're not that into using. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so Becky coerces Pulitzer Prize, 16-time Emmy winning veteran news journalist Michael Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) into co-hosting with Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton), whom he thinks is beneath him, along with everyone and everything else.
Michael's bad attitude and refusal to pretend he wants to be there (even while on camera) makes the situation worse, but underneath all that stubbornness and angry growling hides a reluctant willingness that only someone with Becky's pestering yet endearing nature might be able to tap into. In the end, will Becky and Michael stop yelling at each other long enough to save Daybreak and each other?
Hitch (2005)
Kevin James and Amber Valletta dominate!
Will Smith and Eva Mendes are supposed to be front and center, but it's Kevin James and Amber Valletta who steal the show. That's not to say Smith and Mendes don't have the necessary screen presence and chemistry to make a rom-com worth watching, both portraying assertive workaholics who don't feel they have anything to prove, but James as the bumbling CFO who's got no game and Valletta as the gorgeous heiress who's clumsily adorable are the supporting characters with the supporting storyline that effortlessly takes over.
Alex Hitchens a.k.a. Hitch (Smith) is a professional "date doctor" who helps socially challenged men woo the women of their dreams. Albert Brennaman (James) is a not-so-suave hopeless romantic who's love struck by a highly sought-after socialite (Valletta) that usually dates the rich, famous, and exceptionally tall and handsome. When Albert hires Hitch to assist him, a gossip columnist named Sara Melas (Mendes) gets a tip that sets her out to expose the infamous date doctor that she previously thought was an urban myth. But Sara happens to be romantically involved with Hitch, whom she doesn't realize is the date doctor she's intent on publicly outing, so that's likely to cause some drama in this sweet, charming tale.
Leap Year (2010)
Predictable and oh so good!!
Sometimes these chick-flicks are a lot of the same. The quirky girl, the cocky guy, and the constant bickering that inevitably leads to the realization that they're totally in love. And we wouldn't have them any other way. (Okay, maybe sometimes we would, but we still love the ones that take us through the same old predictable routine.)
This time the quirky girl is Anna (played by Amy Adams), the cocky guy is Declan (Matthew Goode), and the bickering is about Anna's determination to get to Dublin, Ireland, in time to propose to her boyfriend (Adam Scott) on Leap Day and Declan's determination to antagonize her as she gets knocked off course every step of the way. Anna, who is routine and rigid and has her life meticulously planned out (as well as this trip), hires Declan, a hotel manager/cook/taxi driver who's not so much of a planner as he is a spontaneous free faller, to drive her as far to Dublin as he can. But after a scuffle over a cassette tape, a blockade of cows in the road, a car that flies off a curve, and a stolen suitcase named Louis, Declan becomes more of an irksome escort than a taxi driver (seeing as how the taxi is in a ditch).
But jumping through all these hoops makes Anna wonder if she's on a mission to propose to the wrong guy. Her insistence on living her life and making her decisions according to a detailed schedule hasn't gotten her where she expected, so maybe veering off course is fated to show her that the cocky guy who doesn't have his whole life in order is the one she should've been looking at all along.
It's a Disaster (2012)
So ridiculous that's it's utterly fantastic!
It's so ridiculous that it's utterly fantastic. But you've never heard of it, and there's a reason for that. Considering the ultra-suburban setting, the amusingly stiff dialogue (these are awkward people, mind you), the Sunday-best wardrobes, and the fussy characters with their non-stop moments of "are you kidding me" (they aren't), the plot is out of left field. But it's also outrageously hilarious.
Eight friends get together for brunch and find out that the world is about to end - literally. After fits are thrown because the internet isn't working and the phone line is down and the electricity suddenly goes out, the Mr. and Mrs. of the house argue about whether the bills were paid until their neighbor (played by Todd Berger) shows up in a hazmat suit, looking for batteries for his flashlight. Whyyyyy is he wearing a hazmat suit, everyone wants to know? Oh, because a bunch of bombs full of nerve gas were dropped downtown and in other parts of the country and God knows where else in the world, so hello, they're all going to die.
Is he serious? Was he huffing paint? Well, the television isn't working, it's eerily quiet outside, and their only way of finding out by not opening the door is to find a radio. So they do. And it turns out that, no, Hal from next door wasn't high on paint fumes.
Pete (Blaise Miller) and Emma (Erinn Hayes) dropped their own metaphorical bomb on their guests just minutes before Hal showed up asking for batteries. They're getting a divorce. That seems trivial now, but while duct taping the doors and windows and arguing the best survival methods, more secrets are exposed that aren't met with any sort of trivial-because-the-world-is-ending equilibrium. It might be a good idea to keep a cool head and not break a window because of the nerve gas outside and all, but what fun would that be?
But forgiveness really is preferable so that everyone can die peacefully among friends. Hedy (America Ferrera), the chemist, breaks down the long and painful process that they'll endure once the gas seeps its way in. So what now? The only normal one in the group is actually the crazy one (in comparison and in general), and crazy usually knows best when facing an apocalypse.
You might not love it, but I promise you'll enjoy it.
The Romantics (2010)
If you enjoy stories about the complexity of people and relationships, you'll enjoy this one.
A bride, a groom, and a maid of honor that dated the groom for four years. What could possibly go wrong? Well, not as much as one might think, but still enough to ruin everyone's day, and Hulu's got it. The Romantics stars Anna Paquin as Lila, the polished bride who's either vindictive or oblivious or vindictively pretending to be oblivious, Josh Duhamel as Tom, the restless groom who behaves more like a groom who's about to take flight than a groom who thought this through at all, and Katie Holmes as Laura, the understandably afflicted maid of honor who would rather be doing anything else on the planet than playing happy helper to her sadistic best friend, who's in for the world's most awkward toast considering her peculiar maid-of-honor choice.
Based on the novel by Galt Niederhoffer, who also wrote and directed the screen adaptation that debuted at The Sundance Film Festival in 2010, The Romantics opens with Laura trying to make herself look somewhat enthused while she miserably makes her way to Lila's family's beach house, where the rehearsal dinner and wedding are set to take place. After watching her attempt to cheer herself up by singing along with the radio and then beating up the steering wheel instead, we get that she desperately wants this weekend to be over with. And after watching Lila watch Tom wander off by himself to kick rocks by the sea while her mother (Candice Bergin) unsuccessfully tries to tell her that this behavior isn't normal for a groom, we get that Lila and Tom want this weekend to be over with too. But for different reasons. Lila wants to be rest assured that the wedding actually took place, and Tom wants his temptation to leave Lila all alone at the altar like a fool to quit plaguing him. (Because surely he'll feel joyful and relieved once he just marries the girl already, right?)
Candice Bergin, Anna Paquin, and Josh Duhamel in The Romantics (2010)
It's not long before the pieces of Laura, Lila, and Tom's sordid past begin to surface, and considering each of their roles in this bizarre wedding, we eagerly anticipate the rest of the story's unraveling. Pile on the diverse wedding party that's more interested in the hows and whys of the wedding than they are the wedding itself, and we've got one interesting weekend ahead. Trip (played by Malin Ackerman), Jake (Adam Brody), Pete (Jeremy Strong), and Weesie (Rebecca Lawrence Levy) have been friends with Lila, Tom, and Laura since they all met ten years prior, during freshman year of college - also when Tom and Laura began dating. Lila and Laura, known as La-La to their friends, were roommates and best friends throughout college and remain best friends all these years later. (If they say so.)
Trip, who makes her importance known from the get-go, is the first to broach the subject of the Tom and La-La saga. Why Tom pursued Lila is a mystery that's perturbed her over the years, but most especially since their engagement. She gives us the breakdown of the whens and hows while confiding in Jake, who argues that she's being melodramatic but seems more annoyed about having to carry this burden now too. As far as Jake is concerned, it's not a problem until he's forced to see it, and thanks to Trip, now he sees it. But what Trip doesn't tell us, and what puzzles her most, is why Tom asked out Lila during what Trip rehashes as suspicious timing. She has her theories, though, and she's not careful in making them apparent. Unlike the others, Trip doesn't passively wonder. She's vocal, eager, and surprisingly aware. She notices and questions everything while the others pretend it's peachy-keen and not weird at all.
Katie Holmes, Rebecca Lawrence Levy, Malin Ackerman, Anna Paquin, Josh Duhamel, Jeremy Strong, and Adam Brody in The Romantics (2010)
The fun begins when Lila bolts out of the rehearsal dinner after the first of many humiliating moments that she should have foreseen but... didn't? She heads to her room for the rest of the night so as not to risk seeing Tom after the clock strikes 12. (She's superstitious.) Meanwhile, the others head to the beach for drunken skinny-dipping and whatever other mischief ensues. It's a reunion, after all, and mischief does ensue. While Lila is locked away in a bedroom on the second floor, voicing her own doubts about Tom to her little sister, Minnow (Dianna Agron), Tom is pulling a disappearing act and the rest of the group is embarking on their own dicey adventures in the name of "finding Tom."
They decide to journey off in pairs, leaving Laura the oddball out because Trip and Pete are married, and Jake and Weesie are engaged. This puts Laura with Lila's creepy brother, Chip (Elijah Wood), who's not only been leering at her since the walk-through rehearsal but also nearly stole her world's most awkward toast award during dinner. The group makes a half-assed attempt to save Laura from Chip, but the couples stupidly swap partners while barely looking Laura's way. So this pointless switch-around still leaves Laura to fend off Chip.
But it's not all bad if you're us (or Chip), not Laura & Friends.
Chip gets pretty real after the other four race off to cheat on each other and run around naked. "It's ironic, isn't it?" he asks Laura. "Asking you, of all people, to convince the groom to show up for this wedding?" Maybe Chip isn't as big a chump as we thought. He raises one of the best points so far and, sure, he was referring to how Laura's friends sent her off to help find Tom and drag him back to his bride-to-be, but he unintentionally raises the question of whether Lila (however subconsciously) asked Laura to be her maid of honor to ensure Tom would show up - to his own wedding. If Lila isn't as clueless as anyone in her position would have to be, she knows Tom has always loved Laura, and that as odd as it really really is, he's not going to miss this opportunity to see her again. (This opportunity, just to reiterate, being his own wedding - to Lila, not Laura.)
Or maybe Lila just wants the satisfaction of forcing Laura to stand three feet away while she's the one to marry Tom.
Either way, nicely played, Lila. But it's still going to be a disaster. Other lives are at stake, and they all love La-La and Tom.
And each other.
If you discount the debauchery and daring stunts that border on adultery, you have a group of friends so enviable that there's a reason they hardly exist beyond fiction. The seven companions balance each other out with their strengths and weaknesses, complement each other at their best and worst, and have a clear understanding of how to guide each other through every bump and hitch in the road.
Laura is the headstrong giver who bottles up her feelings until she can't, Lila is the picture-perfect allurer who knows how to make her friends feel loved and encouraged when she doesn't feel so loved and encouraged herself, Tom is the stable sympathizer who wants so badly to stop planning his life based on what's expected of him, Trip is the uninhibited wild card who means well even when doesn't behave well, Jake is the self-righteous loyalist who wants to see the best in everyone but often fails, Pete is the jokester who's always reaching for the spotlight but seems okay when he doesn't quite get it, and Weesie is the prudent wallflower who just wants to be a good friend and see everyone else do the same.
It's a wonderland until love gets in the way and competitive edges go too far.
Rebecca Lawrence Levy, Jeremy Strong, Malin Ackerman, and Katie Holmes in The Romantics (2010)
The heated confrontation between Laura and Tom is well on its way, coming with it the predictable encounter that will make or break Tom's looming grievances. And La-La's face-off, better described as a meteoric explosion, exceeds our expectations in every way possible. But unfortunately for everyone involved, too many pent-up frustrations emerge, irreversible decisions will be made, and the consequence is an inevitable collapse from which the group might be too vulnerable to survive.
The Romantics shines a light on the complex nature of human beings and relationships, where love and hate can co-exist in one short breath. Bonds are strong but wide eyes are weak, and no matter how tightly knit, few connections are safe from the toll that deceit disguised as aloofness can take. This isn't a story about Tom and La-La. This is a story about seven friends tested by a love triangle that disobeys boundaries and demands recognition. After six years of underestimating its power, accountability and self-discovery will force the friends to confront whether or not their attachments have really withstood the test of time.