Boy meets girl. Boy goes out with girl. Boy and girl break up. Boy and girl get back together. Boy marries girl. Girl has baby. This is the basic premise for what seems like every movie or TV show romance. Of course, there are different elements to each one, but for the most part, this is it. I don't mind a romantic comedy. Call me a wuss or a "Mary" (thank you, George Costanza) but I'll admit to really liking some of them. What I
don't like, however, is the "giving birth scene."
Here it is: The featured couple is usually in an argument about something stupid and pointless when the girl is involuntarily forced to curl over in pain as she grabs her stomach. The guy immediately forgets their argument and rushes to her side.
The next shot is always one of two situations. The first has the guy driving like crazy and weaving in and out of traffic as the girl moans in pain. If the audience isn't treated to some outrageous driving, they will
always get to witness the woman being hastily wheeled down the hospital corridor on a stretcher by a group of nurses and doctors. Everyone is looking down at her as her husband tries to keep up and unsuccessfully tries to peek through the crowd at his girl.
From here, the audience is transported to the operating room where they have a view from the foot of the bed looking at the girl with her legs spread under a cover. The woman's hair is matted and plastered to her face with sweat as she screams. "Keep pushing/breathing," everyone in the room yells back. At this point the man shows up late with his scrubs and mask on. By the way, he was running down the corridor when she was on the stretcher, so why is he always late to the operating room? Once there, he will inevitably faint at the sight of his newborn crowning out of his wife. Hilarious, right? If he doesn't faint, he's by her side, petting her damp hair and occasionally leaning in for a sweaty smooch on the cheek. More yelling, more screaming, more obnoxious and unoriginal attempts at being funny until that wet and slimy life-form is sleeping contently in the arms of an exhausted and smiling mommy.
Whether the movie or television show is a comedy or a drama, for some reason the producers always feel that the birthing scene will add more hilarity or a new sense of comic relief. It's funny, right? A pretty girl throughout the show or movie is now an ugly, screeching beast. She wails expletives and curses her husband, but he better not think about leaving her side! The louder she howls, the funnier the scene, right? Or how about when she yells for drugs when just moments before she was insisting on having a natural birth? Man, that's classic!
I love a good romantic comedy. It's always fun watching a guy chase after a girl for an hour and a half and I've gotten a lot of advice from watching such movies. The birth scenes, however, are so cliche and overdone that they can almost ruin a movie for me.
Dinner for Schmucks - A group of business men invite unusual guests to a dinner party. The most unique guest wins the trophy. He is also given the prestigious title of biggest idiot behind his back. I have never experienced such a strong love/hate relationship with a film before. I hated this movie. The story was unbelievably unbelievable. I hate Paul Rudd as the straight man. Rudd is at his best win he plays the sarcastic man/boy that isn't blinded by love (Anchorman, Knocked Up and Role Models) which was not the case for this role. I don't think his character did one interesting thing. This film was supposed to be the reuniting of funnymen Rudd and Steve Carell and Carell was the only funny thing about this reunion. In fact, it Carell was the only thing I liked about Schmucks; and I loved him. Every tiny nuance small remark was pure hilarity. Every moment his face appeared on the screen, I was holding my sides and laughing uncontrollably. Was his character well-written? No. Not at all, but because Carell is such a comic genius I didn't care. I simply enjoyed his antics. How can I recommend a movie that I loathed so much? Two words: Steve Carell.
The Other Guys - There are the badass cops that tackle the criminals with car chases and shoot outs and there's the captain of the squad and a few up and comers. Then there are the other guys. Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg play the sit-down cops that do the paperwork for the bigwigs. Wahlberg was once on his way to the top before he mistakenly shot a New York celebrity giving himself the title of the Yankee Clipper. Ferrell works behind a desk hiding from a scarred past. I don't know. I couldn't get into this one. Don't get me wrong. I love when Ferrell and director Adam McKay get together. I loved Anchorman and Talladega Nights. I love their online videos too but like Rudd, when Ferrell plays a real person, his movies just aren't that funny. Couple that with Wahlberg and the movie doesn't have a chance. Keanu Reeves gets a bad rapt because Wahlberg is by far the worst famous actor ever. He was decent in The Departed but sucks in everything else. The Happening would have been so much better if they had cast anyone other than him as the lead. So when you take these two components and throw in a few old jokes, you're going to get a lame movie. Again, it had its moments but was nowhere near the hilarity and quotability of previous Ferrell/McKay projects.
Inception - Today was the second viewing for me. I was blown away by the visuals the first go around and the ability to piece together the story this round made for one heck of an experience. I had seen this before but felt like I was experiencing it for the first time throughout the entire film today. Without the distraction of drugs, how often can one say that about a film? If you've only seen Inception once, you were probably left with the feeling of, "I should probably see that again." Follow that feeling. Trust me. Inception has the action and the romance. It tugs at the emotional strings and massages the brain at the same time. I can't say it enough. This film was so much better the second time. Simply brilliant.
