Must Romantic Comedies Suck?

10:43 pm EST October 31st, 2007 | Movies | 8 Comments

I confess: I like (some) romantic comedies. In no particular order I enjoyed: Sleepless in Seattle, While You Were Sleeping, IQ, Serendipity, and You’ve Got Mail. Yeah, it’s Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan heavy. They are the king and queen of the genre. But this past weekend I saw trailers for two romantic comedies you couldn’t bribe me to watch (not true, I have a price but I’m making a point). One was about Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up) being a bridesmaid 27 times and not finding the right guy. The other was Hilary Swank opening letters from her dead boyfriend/husband and following their instructions to get her life back together.

Yuck.

I understand that the romantic comedy genre is one designed from the ground up as an appeal to female moviegoers, but I felt like those films I listed as ones I enjoyed had something for the guy in them. You had the interaction between John Cusack and his best friend Jeremy Piven in Serendipity, or you had the silly WWII-As-Romance-Movie sequence from Sleepless in Seattle. But these two movies, and a host of others I’ve glimpsed in the last couple of years look like they were written for women. They’re Lifetime/Bridget Jones movies.

Doesn’t that seem limiting? 90% of the time a woman drags her gentleman to these movies, but would it hurt to throw the guy a bone so he says “Hey, that wasn’t so bad, surely you’ll come with me to Action Death Kill  7 : The Revenge with me now that I didn’t fall asleep during Romancing The Romance starring Hugh Grant?”

These movies seem to have over narrowcasted themselves. Either that or they just need more Meg Ryan.

 

Unintentionally Funny Press Releases From the Government

10:12 pm EST October 31st, 2007 | News | Comments Off

From the White House today:

Today, President Bush issued the first National Strategy for Information Sharing to prioritize and unify our Nation’s efforts to advance the sharing of terrorism-related information. The Strategy sets forth our plan to build upon the progress we have made in improving information sharing since the September 11 attacks and establish an integrated National information sharing capability.

God knows, the hallmark of this administration has been their willingness to share truckloads of information.

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Col. Steve Boylan’s Emails

9:44 pm EST October 31st, 2007 | News | Comments Off

It’s intriguing that when inquiries come from the left, the military is so slow, but when Joe Rightwingblogger calls up he’s got the entire public affairs section at their beck and call.

 

Don’t Question His Judgement

8:17 pm EST October 31st, 2007 | News | 2 Comments

General Petraeus pals around with Ahmad Chalabi, the huckster who helped fool the country into war, stirred up horrors, and is allied with terrorists.

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Department Of Bad Ideas

8:02 pm EST October 31st, 2007 | News | 7 Comments

A comic strip. About abortion. Starring a fetus.

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Donna Edwards for Congress

5:35 pm EST October 31st, 2007 | Democrats | 4 Comments

A real Democrat for Maryland. Vote Donna Edwards.

 

Hillary Hate Is A Weapon

3:53 pm EST October 31st, 2007 | News | 4 Comments

… for Hillary Clinton.

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One Of Us, One Of Us

3:39 pm EST October 31st, 2007 | Democrats | 5 Comments

John Cole drinks the Kool-Aid.

 

Hillary Clinton’s "Bad" Night?

2:31 pm EST October 31st, 2007 | News | 8 Comments

As if we needed even more proof that the press and the punditocracy don’t know what they’re talking about, the idea is taking hold that Sen. Clinton had a “bad” night in the debate last night. I think her only real misfire was her non-answer on the New York driver’s license/immigration issue and if she’s smart she’ll get out in front of that. But otherwise the debate was another status quo debate. Obama and Edwards have yet to seriously knock Sen. Clinton off of her game.

The press wants to make the race close so they have something to cover, and they will probably succeed, but the narrative – as it so often does – bears no relation to reality.

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links for 2007-10-31

8:23 am EST October 31st, 2007 | Uncategorized | 3 Comments

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