romantic comedy, take # infinity
And this is why I love Linda Holmes:
"Romantic comedy, like some of the activities in which it ideally culminates, is something too many people believe they can do well with little effort."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2014/02/25/282427570/a-boozy-new-sitcom-lowers-and-lowers-the-bar
Sing it, sister. All of those "why are romantic comedies so bad these days" articles could probably be boiled down to exactly this: the people making those romantic comedies think that the genre is easy. After all, all you have to do is put two people into a contrived setup, have them argue a little bit, add a pause for meaningful glaring, then have them kiss! Then contrived obstacle, then big gesture of winning the other person back, then kissyface and jazz hands! Give it a title that's a commonplace saying or part of a song lyric, like Till There Was You, and you're done!
None of those things are bad in and of themselves (after all, any genre has its repeated conventions), but if you treat the conventions as a paint-by-numbers formula, you get insipid and lackluster movies. Sometimes you can save a film with the charm of the leads, but if you can't get your "best" talent to work in the genre because nobody respects it and comedies don't win Oscars, then even charm is often in short supply. (My favorite actors almost never do films in my favorite genre. This makes me deeply sad.)
Anyway, has anybody seen any good (relatively recent) romantic comedies lately that I should know about?
"Romantic comedy, like some of the activities in which it ideally culminates, is something too many people believe they can do well with little effort."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2014/02/25/282427570/a-boozy-new-sitcom-lowers-and-lowers-the-bar
Sing it, sister. All of those "why are romantic comedies so bad these days" articles could probably be boiled down to exactly this: the people making those romantic comedies think that the genre is easy. After all, all you have to do is put two people into a contrived setup, have them argue a little bit, add a pause for meaningful glaring, then have them kiss! Then contrived obstacle, then big gesture of winning the other person back, then kissyface and jazz hands! Give it a title that's a commonplace saying or part of a song lyric, like Till There Was You, and you're done!
None of those things are bad in and of themselves (after all, any genre has its repeated conventions), but if you treat the conventions as a paint-by-numbers formula, you get insipid and lackluster movies. Sometimes you can save a film with the charm of the leads, but if you can't get your "best" talent to work in the genre because nobody respects it and comedies don't win Oscars, then even charm is often in short supply. (My favorite actors almost never do films in my favorite genre. This makes me deeply sad.)
Anyway, has anybody seen any good (relatively recent) romantic comedies lately that I should know about?