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Reviews - How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days |
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The Chick Flick - A necessary evil for
most heterosexual men. For every Schwarzenegger, blow 'em up, kung fu,
ultimate destruction movie that we drag our women to, we usually have to
balance it out by taking them to the dreaded Chick Flick. Therein lies
the great dilemma. What flick do we take our better halves to? To answer
this question I first break this genre into three main categories.
First, the "Terms of Endearments" class. These movies are
death for most men everywhere. Avoid them at all costs. Not only are
they often too sappy by half but also they are usually too long and very
rarely offer any type of adequate gratuitous flesh scene. As a warning,
sometimes Hollywood will try and entice you by casting a cool actor like
Clint Eastwood (ie. The Bridges of Madison County) to draw you in. Don't
be fooled. I usually go by the Meryl Streep rule. If she's in it, it's
probably not the movie for you.
The second type of film is the women empowering class of "Thelma
& Louise". This class is very dangerous. While the film might
be interesting, it might give her the wrong ideas. At the very least it
won't put her into a romantic mood, which might be OK if you want to go
out with the guys after but not if your looking to go into overtime. The
only way out of this is to suggest that she may appreciate it more if
she went with her girlfriends.
The best class of Chick Flicks to choose is the third type - the
"When Harry Met Sally" class. The romantic comedy is by far in
away the safest of the three. It has a number of redeeming qualities
that we look for in such a movie. First, it's short, so your time in
purgatory is mercifully muted. Second, often times the lead actress is
cute and if your going to sit there might as well enjoy the visuals.
Third, many are usually funny so at least you get a good laugh out of
it. The danger of course is that it can border on being too sappy. Being
romantic is good but if it crosses into sappiness it can be very groan
inducing. Another point is that the nudity is often non-existent but
I'll leave it up to you to decide if that's a good thing.
So getting back to the movie, where does "HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10
DAYS" fall into the scheme of chick flicks. Surprisingly, it does
pretty well. While not as good as "When Harry Met Sally" or
"Pretty Woman", it is a very enjoyable film with some
extremely funny scenes. The premise is pretty interesting, if somewhat
far fetched. An ad executive, Benjamin Barry (Matthew McConaughey) makes
a bet that he can stay in a relationship for more than 10 days so he can
get a lucrative ad campaign while aspiring journalist, Andie Anderson
(Kate Hudson) is out to write an article on how to get and then lose a
guy in 10 days for the magazine she is working for.
The first thing that I got from this movie is that Kate Hudson is cute.
I wasn't the biggest fan of hers but she really came across as a nice
girl, and that's in spite of the devilish things she was doing in the
movie. If she were to put out another romantic comedy I would probably
go see it because of her. There's something very sweet and spunky about
her in the movie that reminds me a little of Meg Ryan in her romantic
comedy heyday. She also seems to have a nice chemistry with
McConaughey's character, though he came across a little too
understanding at times. Given what she does to him, I'm not sure if
anyone could be that understanding.
The movie is also very funny. The premise is one that most guys can
relate to on some level or another. Each probably had to go through the
same stuff with their better halves at least once in their lives. I
found myself laughing out loud at some of the things that she did to the
poor sap. The bathroom scene is nearly a classic as well as another
involving the naming of McConaughey's unmentionables.
Now the movie did have its faults. Given that all romantic comedies are
predictable (that wasn't the problem) but sometimes I found it hard to
believe that there was any way that the two would get together and at
the end I wasn't really sure why they should be together. It almost
seemed like they threw it in as an afterthought to conclude the movie.
The message didn't come across quite as smoothly as some of the more
notable romantic comedies. And, oh yeah... The Knicks in the NBA
playoffs? That pushes the edge of credibility right there. Still it is a
sweet movie and if you have to go see a movie with your girl then this
is one Chick Flick I would definitely recommend. You might even enjoy it
more than she does.
  
- 7.5/10
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Takato Yamashita
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