Bridesmaids (US, 2011)

A female-themed The Hangover (US, 2009)? Well, maybe; but it’s better. Better because it focuses on women, and written by a woman? No, because it’s funnier. Daft questions but gender has stuck to discussion of this film. I’m not sure the gender question is particularly important regarding the film, but it does tell us a [...]

Stranger Than Fiction (US, 2006)

This mildly amusing postmodern piece of frippery, with a stellar cast, the posits mildly anarchic Maggie Gyllenhaal character falling for the totally anodyne IRS exec (Will Ferrell). Why!?! Readers please point me to a movie where an interesting man falls for a boring woman. That aside, this is barely a romcom as the laughs are [...]

My Super Ex-Girlfriend (US, 2006)

This could have been good; this could have been very good. Mocking male sexual anxiety is always good and letting the girls (women?) be on top; that’s good. Female super heroes: excellent. What’s not to like? It’s funny too: having a shark thrown at you by an ex-lover, brilliant! Then it dawned on me that [...]

My Sassy Girl (Yeopgijeogin geunyeo, S.Korea, 2001, and US, 2008)

Tamar Jeffers McDonald (Romantic Comedy, Wallflower, 2007) suggests that, in the screwball comedy, affection is expressed through aggression and that the protagonist is often female; an anarchic force that disrupts the stuffy male. Katharine Hepburn is the archetype – so brilliant is she that that word is correct – in the classic Bringing Up Baby [...]

Pillow Talk (US, 1959)

Why was this surprisingly funny, a ‘classic’ romcom from the 1950s? I assumed it would be anodyne given the mores of Hollywood at the time and that reactionary values would prevail. Having seem some, not this one I think, Day-Hudson vehicles as a child my memories of them were nothing special. However… As a child [...]

It Happened One Night (US, 1935)

This classic screwball comedy looks good despite the varnish of 75 years. Claudette Colbert may have dated a little but Gable’s only anachronism is his pipe smoking. He’s great at having his male belligerence undermined, as in the image above where his so-called expertise in hitchhiking is revealed to be bluster. The film also includes [...]

Up in the Air (US, 2009)

It’s certainly going beyond stretching a point to say this movie is about unemployment but at least the reality for many people, after the bankers have blown the money, is alluded to in this film. And even if the ‘great unwashed’ are used, at the end, to verify the authenticity of family life, at least [...]

It’s Complicated (US, 2009)

Maybe with the aging demographic Hollywood is starting to ‘get’ the fact that the cinema-going audience are not all 16-25 year olds and that sex does not stop when children are produced. Certainly kids make it harder but what about when they leave home…? Surely not! That’s disgusting! Well, that seemed to be the emotion [...]

Ghost Town (US, 2008)

I’m not sure when the current cycle of romantic comedies, a staple of Hollywood, began (late ’80s with When Harry Met Sally, 1989?) but I wish it would end. However, if it has to continue let it be in the vein of Ghost Town. Ricky Gervais’ comic genius gives the usual slush an edge; he [...]

Me and You and Everyone We Know (US, 2005)

Bonkers movie that remains engaging because of a marvellous performance by John Hawkes and the satisfyingly loopy plot/character of Miranda July (who also directs). Some of the scenes are edgy and the teenage girls are out of Ghost World; a typical indie movie so see it. (DVD) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0415978/ Update April 2010 Is Me and You [...]