He’s Just Not That Into You (2009) -vs- Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994)
EDITOR'S NOTE: "He's Just Not That Into You" is now on DVD after making $94-million at the box-office since coming out in February 2009. Smack ref Sherry Coben reviewed it then and, if you're looking for a romantic comedy to balance out what's in the current summer box office, Movie Smackdown offers a reprise of her Valentine's review...
The Smackdown. Valentine’s Day is in the air; the stores are filled to the rafters with cards and red hearts -- and even giant chocolate bunnies as merchants rush the holidays and compress our year alarmingly.
So. You buy a card, perhaps some chocolate, some roses, some lingerie. Good for you. How about dinner and a movie? That’s the ticket. Ah, but which movie? What do women want? They want movies about women and love. They’d prefer good movies about women and love, but even mediocre to bad ones will do in a pinch. They like their chickflicks like they like their men. There. But in a perfect movie-watching universe such as ours, with a multiplex in every town and classic films readily available, for the perfect romantic date night, which movie to watch?
The Challenger. "He’s Just Not That Into You" (2009) A wise, if snarky, friend once explained his secret of a happy love life, claiming that once he accepted the basic premise that all men are (pardon his French) assholes and all women are insane, there remained precious little left to argue about. Director Ken Kwapis, screenwriters Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, bestselling authors of the source material Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo all apparently got the same memo. Movieworld “Baltimore” is a bucolic urban shire mostly peopled with hobbit-sized beautiful crazy (read: needy) women looking for marriage and the commitment-phobic assholes who refuse to love them enough. Everyone is diminutive except for the biggest asshole of all, Bradley Cooper’s Ben, a blue-eyed satyr who lopes through the film in unblinking disbelief that both superhotties Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Connelly want him. Ben Affleck plays the saintly Neil who woos and wins sad-eyed Jennifer Aniston’s Beth and gets to keep his pants in the bargain.
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