This was the very first movie review I ever wrote. It was suppose to be the start of my 52 entry saga, Joe's Chick Flix. Laziness always prevails...
Originally Published 1/25/2008
Okay, so about 3 years ago I came up with the idea for my first novel. Just like my life and everything I do it was a complete joke. My first novel was the touching story of a boy who loses his little brother in the mall and has 5 hours to find him before said mall closes. In these 5 hours he finds love with his nerdy best friend who he had never noticed was in love with him, fights a monster of some kind, and falls into a time vortex. It was a mystery romance with a sci-fi twist, everything a teenage girl would look for in literature. The title for this amazing novel was, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. I chose this title because I thought it was clever and just seeing the trailers for the movie of the same name made me laugh. No, I didn't laugh at the trailer because I thought it was funny (I DIDN'T! You believe me right?!), but because I thought the title was fucking terrible. I mean Breakin' 2: Electric Bugaloo, terrible. So, because it was already worthy of being the title of my first novel I chose How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (Yes, I will write the entire title every time) as the first movie in my groundbreaking expose on chick flicks. Having never seen it, no other movie could possible be first in my year long odyssey. In preparing for this review I did some research on the film, I didn't want to just bash the movie for a couple of paragraphs. I wanted to understand why it existed and why I wanted the people responsible for it dead. There was something I didn't know about this movie, something that turned my world upside down and then shook it a little. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days was the film adaptation of a book called, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. That's right, not only had my first novel been written and published, but it had already been made into a movie. Before I had a chance to call my lawyers I decided to find out more about this book. You see the book version of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is a cartoon how-to book made to make people laugh (something the movie makes poor attempts to do). I know its cliché, but the book is almost always better and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is no exception to this.
Before I get into my review of the movie let me just say that writing about chick flicks every week will be 100 times harder than I thought it would be:
1) Some of these movies will be fucking terrible and very hard to watch with out some MST3K treatment and that's hard to do when you're alone in your room with your pants down.
2) I have given up drinking for the next month so at least the first four entries in Joe's Chick Flicks (working title) will be seen by me sober. I was on vacation last week and I proceeded to get drunk for 6 straight days. No more drinking, unless these movies drive me back. I have a bottle of scotch just in case shit happens.
3) Buying these movies was an awful idea and I should shoot myself for entertaining the idea of it ever in my life. I don't even care about the embarrassment of being seen buying it or it being seen in my DVD collection (I own Joe vs. the Volcano proudly). It's the spending more than $4 for How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days I can't stand. I mean I can watch it on USA for free any day of the week. So no promises on me buying all of these movies, it only matters if I watch them and dear God did I watch How to Lose Guy in 10 Days.
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is about a woman named Andy Anderson (Kate Hudson). She works for a Cosmo like magazine named Composure. She writes a monthly How-To column which ranges from the interesting topics How to Get a Better Body in 5 days to even the more interesting topic like How to Talk Your Way Out of a Ticket. For some reason she doesn't enjoy writing these types of stories and would like to write stories that matter on a global scale. Helping women get out of speeding tickets by using their breast isn't fulfilling I guess. She has a friend/co worker, whose name I refused to remember, that has just broken up with a guy after a week. She is a clingy cry-baby succubus of a woman that deserved anything bad that has ever happened to her in life. This woman leads to Andy getting the idea and being forced into writing a column on How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (we have a title!).
Meanwhile, there is ad executive, Benjamin Barry, played by Matthew McConaughey. We are introduced to Ben as he rides into traffic on his motor cycle wearing a black leather jacket and a black helmet. He is all that is man. Six minutes into the movie and less than 3 lines into his character McConaughey's shirt is off. I'm pretty sure that this is what the women who paid to see this movie wanted and I think it was foolish to put it in so early in the movie. Ben is a young shirtless go-getter and for some reason the only way he can land an advertising contract is by tricking a woman to fall in love with him before the a big office party that happens in, you guessed it, 10 days. Other characters appear in the movie, but only to force these two people together. Adam Goldberg is in the movie, but I would like to erase that from my memory because I like Adam Goldberg and I enjoy him in movies. Then there is the woman who is competing with Ben for the same job (played by Michael Michelle). She knows of Andy's story about losing a guy in 10 days and she manipulates it so Ben has to make Andy fall in love with him in 10 days. Andy and Ben meet each other and for some reason they have a conversation only using verbs that only gave me a headache and the movie was only 20 minutes in. After this conversation they have an amazing date that starts an awful chain reaction that is the plot of this film. The next 10 days are the most ridiculous 10 days of dating I have ever seen.
Each day is essentially a new skit for Kate Hudson to try and be as funny as her mother was in the 80's. Looking like Goldie Hawn can only get you so far and from this movie it looks like it isn't really that far. She takes him to game 1 of the NBA Finals. The New York Knicks vs. the Sacramento Kings and game 1 is in New York. There are at least 30 things wrong with this game. During the last minute of the game Andy makes Ben miss the final shot pf the game by insisting that he buy her a soda. Thus begins the chess game that is How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Andy tries to make him dump her and Ben tries to make her fall in love with him. The next day Andy makes Ben go to see Sleepless in Seattle and gets him beaten up. The third day she moves in all her stuff and starts to give his penis girly nicknames. I'd feel sorry for the guy, but I don't give a shit. The movie would be watchable if it had a different plot and a different cast. Hudson and McConaughey play two characters you care nothing about. Most of the movie you are suppose to feel sorry for Ben for having to deal with this shitty, shitty woman, but he is equally shitty. It's not that they will end up together (they will); anyone who sees this movie knows that before they watch it. It's not even about the ridiculousness of the plot. Any movie you see has a bit of absurdity to it and nitpicking the coincidences that led to their dating is pointless. Most romantic comedies feature one person who is in the relashionship for love and another person who is in it for the wrong reason or they never notice the great thing they had in front of them the entire time. In the end the person who was in the relationship for the wrong reason realizes they love the other person and chases them because the other person is worth it. This movie chooses to take the dirt bags from other chick flicks and forces them to fall in love.
By the third act both characters have really fallen in love with the other and now it is time for each to find out the horrible truth about the other. This happens at the big office party were Ben wins his bet and gets the job. For some reason the movie decided to have a musical number here and the two characters belittle each other while singing. They argue and go their separate ways. Ben starts his new job and Andy quits hers, but not before she writes he article about her time with Ben and about how she really found love in her stupid attempt to lose a guy. Ben reads it and decides that he must go and get back the woman he dated for 10 days that lied to him pretty much the entire time. He loves her dammit! Ben runs to her office, but she is no longer there. She is moving to Washington for a better job! That's right with 10 minutes to go in the movie he has to go stop the woman he loves form leaving him forever. This is the first chick flick I have chosen to watch and review and I am already sick of this plot device. (It's going to be a LONG year) I'd tell you if he stops her, but I would just be wasting more of my own time.
Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. At no point did I laugh, but I didn't fall asleep and honestly that's a victory for this movie. The movie also taught me a lot about life. If you are in a relationship and both of you are lying, no matter who has lied the most it's up to the man to apologize because he is wrong. If you're gay, you're both wrong. If you're a lesbian you're both right and you better go find a new girlfriend.
Since this is the very first movie I will not give it a rating. It will be the bar for which all other chick flicks I review will be judged. So I'll be back next week with Two Weeks Notice and maybe a beer of seven.
Picture of the Week
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is about a woman named Andy Anderson (Kate Hudson). She works for a Cosmo like magazine named Composure. She writes a monthly How-To column which ranges from the interesting topics How to Get a Better Body in 5 days to even the more interesting topic like How to Talk Your Way Out of a Ticket. For some reason she doesn't enjoy writing these types of stories and would like to write stories that matter on a global scale. Helping women get out of speeding tickets by using their breast isn't fulfilling I guess. She has a friend/co worker, whose name I refused to remember, that has just broken up with a guy after a week. She is a clingy cry-baby succubus of a woman that deserved anything bad that has ever happened to her in life. This woman leads to Andy getting the idea and being forced into writing a column on How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (we have a title!).
Meanwhile, there is ad executive, Benjamin Barry, played by Matthew McConaughey. We are introduced to Ben as he rides into traffic on his motor cycle wearing a black leather jacket and a black helmet. He is all that is man. Six minutes into the movie and less than 3 lines into his character McConaughey's shirt is off. I'm pretty sure that this is what the women who paid to see this movie wanted and I think it was foolish to put it in so early in the movie. Ben is a young shirtless go-getter and for some reason the only way he can land an advertising contract is by tricking a woman to fall in love with him before the a big office party that happens in, you guessed it, 10 days. Other characters appear in the movie, but only to force these two people together. Adam Goldberg is in the movie, but I would like to erase that from my memory because I like Adam Goldberg and I enjoy him in movies. Then there is the woman who is competing with Ben for the same job (played by Michael Michelle). She knows of Andy's story about losing a guy in 10 days and she manipulates it so Ben has to make Andy fall in love with him in 10 days. Andy and Ben meet each other and for some reason they have a conversation only using verbs that only gave me a headache and the movie was only 20 minutes in. After this conversation they have an amazing date that starts an awful chain reaction that is the plot of this film. The next 10 days are the most ridiculous 10 days of dating I have ever seen.
Each day is essentially a new skit for Kate Hudson to try and be as funny as her mother was in the 80's. Looking like Goldie Hawn can only get you so far and from this movie it looks like it isn't really that far. She takes him to game 1 of the NBA Finals. The New York Knicks vs. the Sacramento Kings and game 1 is in New York. There are at least 30 things wrong with this game. During the last minute of the game Andy makes Ben miss the final shot pf the game by insisting that he buy her a soda. Thus begins the chess game that is How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Andy tries to make him dump her and Ben tries to make her fall in love with him. The next day Andy makes Ben go to see Sleepless in Seattle and gets him beaten up. The third day she moves in all her stuff and starts to give his penis girly nicknames. I'd feel sorry for the guy, but I don't give a shit. The movie would be watchable if it had a different plot and a different cast. Hudson and McConaughey play two characters you care nothing about. Most of the movie you are suppose to feel sorry for Ben for having to deal with this shitty, shitty woman, but he is equally shitty. It's not that they will end up together (they will); anyone who sees this movie knows that before they watch it. It's not even about the ridiculousness of the plot. Any movie you see has a bit of absurdity to it and nitpicking the coincidences that led to their dating is pointless. Most romantic comedies feature one person who is in the relashionship for love and another person who is in it for the wrong reason or they never notice the great thing they had in front of them the entire time. In the end the person who was in the relationship for the wrong reason realizes they love the other person and chases them because the other person is worth it. This movie chooses to take the dirt bags from other chick flicks and forces them to fall in love.
By the third act both characters have really fallen in love with the other and now it is time for each to find out the horrible truth about the other. This happens at the big office party were Ben wins his bet and gets the job. For some reason the movie decided to have a musical number here and the two characters belittle each other while singing. They argue and go their separate ways. Ben starts his new job and Andy quits hers, but not before she writes he article about her time with Ben and about how she really found love in her stupid attempt to lose a guy. Ben reads it and decides that he must go and get back the woman he dated for 10 days that lied to him pretty much the entire time. He loves her dammit! Ben runs to her office, but she is no longer there. She is moving to Washington for a better job! That's right with 10 minutes to go in the movie he has to go stop the woman he loves form leaving him forever. This is the first chick flick I have chosen to watch and review and I am already sick of this plot device. (It's going to be a LONG year) I'd tell you if he stops her, but I would just be wasting more of my own time.
Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. At no point did I laugh, but I didn't fall asleep and honestly that's a victory for this movie. The movie also taught me a lot about life. If you are in a relationship and both of you are lying, no matter who has lied the most it's up to the man to apologize because he is wrong. If you're gay, you're both wrong. If you're a lesbian you're both right and you better go find a new girlfriend.
Since this is the very first movie I will not give it a rating. It will be the bar for which all other chick flicks I review will be judged. So I'll be back next week with Two Weeks Notice and maybe a beer of seven.
Picture of the Week
No comments:
Post a Comment