In fact, it was made official, several times over. Everyone, from the formidable James Wolcott and feisty Maureen Dowd (of Vanity Fair and the New York Times, respectively, for god's sake!) blamed Sex and the City 2 as the "final nail in the coffin of women's cult films". That must hurt.
James Wolcott feebly mentioned the possibility of Eat Pray Love reviving the genre. In the opinion of yours truly who saw it over the weekend, that movie is no genre lifesaver, but the movies in the previews shown before Eat Pray Love might be....
"How Do You Know"
Paul Rudd is still Perfect. I've never seen a James L Brooks movie, but I did some quickie research and Brooks feels a little like a quasi-kind-of-Terrence Malick of romantic dramadies so I have high expectations for this one.
"You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger"
I'm not sure Woody Allen counts. Especially hearing the tepid word-of-mouth coming out of Cannes. But he is Woody Allen and all that so here's an honorary trailer:
Funny.
"Morning Glory"
My heart sank the moment I saw Rachel McAdams looking like Jennifer Garner's doppelganger in the cliched power-chick businesswear. It rose again as the trailer continued - hilarious Harrison Ford! A rare appearance by Jeff Goldblum! The romance reduced to an actual subplot! Might this be called progress? Even if Rachel McAdams does look a little demented at times in the trailer. I mean, just look at that shot....
"Love and Other Drugs"
I mean, it is Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal, both of whom have a semblance of integrity and ambition. Yes, AH did appear in that awful Valentine Day movie that tried to pass itself off as the spunky American cousin of Love Actually, but at least Anne had only small role...I'm not sure because I refused to see the movie. Valentine's Day was one of three movies I heard my classmates actually discuss throughout the entire goddamn year, the two other films being Avatar and you-know-what.
Are screenwriters and studios alike responding to the vacuum of decent romantic comedies? My fingers are crossed. Not really. I've never crossed my fingers in real life. But you know what I mean.
**Update: Forgot to include this one - the much-buzzed about Sundance documentary, though most doubt that it's a legitimate documentary. With the inclusion of Facebook as a main plot device and hinted themes like online psychology, it's shaping up to be a kind of zeitgeist for our age. I'm terribly interested.
"Catfish"
I definitely don't think the romcom is dead, if anything SATC2 (which if I remember correctly, did really well) proved that. And judging how many romcoms are coming out just this fall (and usually romcoms are saved from the worst movie months of year, like January)they're going strong. I think all of these look intriguing, have great casts, and the potential to be funny even if all of the trailers are rather unclear.
ReplyDeleteOh & being a sucker for cheesy romcoms, I actually found "Valentines Day" to be much better than expected. Not as solid as "Love Actually" or even as cute as "He's Just Not that Into You" (other ensemble romcoms), but definitely charming.
I think what the journalists are talking about in terms of quality, not box office. But that's what I mean - the state of the romcom is pretty dismal, if SATC2 (which doesn't have much to say, only lots of pretty things to look at) is now the standard norm expected of romcoms. Movies like SATC2 and The Ugly Truth are rarely funny or romantic. They're just popcorn flicks - product porn targeted at the female demographic instead being the thoughtful, insightful vehicles of wit and wisdom that both genders deserve, especially in constrast to earlier decades when romantic comedies like Annie Hall and Terms of Endearment were winning Best Picture at the Oscars.
ReplyDeleteBasically, we haven't seen effort or intelligence in romcoms for a long time. So I love that the trailers are unclear - it's an unmistakable sign that the movies will NOT be standard formula love-crap. I think it's great that we can watch a trailer and not know exactly what's going to happen. I haven't seen the second SATC2, not going to lie, but I'm sure that I can write down the movie summary without too many major differences or subtleties lost from the actual plot. It seems that Hollywood is finally interested in exploring off the beaten path, and I'm on for the ride.