Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

For the finale of “Matthew McConaughey Romantic Comedy Month,” I’m going to take a look at the 2009 comedy, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.”

Peter Howell stated in his review, “Matthew McConaughey is a cad and a bounder in the Charles Dickens update Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, and here's where things gets interesting.”

Howell goes on to say, “The lanky Texan typically plays the scallywag, the boy-man who charms rather than offends. But youthful hijinks age into immaturity and insincerity, which no thinking person wants to watch.” McConaughey evidently understands this, seeing how he is close to 50.

Howell mentioned, “He deliberately curdles his cuteness in Ghosts, a high-concept romantic comedy co-starring Jennifer Garner that happily also boasts a high IQ.” McConaughey’s abhorrent Connor Mead uses his good looks to attract, use and throw away women. Connor is mature for reward, and he’s about to get it the way Ebenezer Scrooge did in A Christmas Carol, with nonsense ghosts and irritating guilt and an ending that’s never in doubt.

Despite knowing all of this, “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” is a joy to watch. Howell noted, “No recent romcom has had such wicked fun with formula, and a lot of this is due to the script by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. As for director Mark Waters, Ghosts represents a return to Mean Girls sharpness, after dulling things down with Just Like Heaven and The Spiderwick Chronicles.”

Most of all this is pure luck for McConaughey, who risks losing his audience by playing a character who is so hard to like, or forgive.

Connor is a Scotch-drinking fashion photographer and woman chaser who barely covers himself before looking for more women to get in bed with. He snickers at marriage, including the coming marriage of his brother Paul, played by Breckin Meyer, and rudely says that “the power of a relationship lies with whoever cares less.”

That women are able to tolerate Connor’s behavior, much less jump right on him the way many do, is maybe a larger fantasy than the film’s main pride of ghosts setting the man straight.

The first spirit is Connor’s late Uncle Wayne, played by Michael Douglas with a wink to the actor’s own well-earned reputation as, how Howell says it, “a roué (and that of Robert Evans, the notoriously priapic producer whom Douglas spoofs in dandified dress and manner).” As we see through phantom visitations arranged by Uncle Wayne, Connor was once a shy boy who couldn’t even ask a certain girl to dance.

The girl was the handsome but determined Jenny, played by Jennifer Garner, who seems wanting to be forever near Connor – she’s a guest in the brother’s wedding party – but never close enough to warm his cold heart.

Things might change after Connor learns the mistake in his past, on a ghostlike tour led by the ghost of Allison, played by Emma Stone, an 80s cliché with attitude, who was very briefly his first girlfriend. She takes Connor back to his teenage years (Logan Miller), where we learn that his misery over the unreliable Jenny (Christa B. Miller) led to his choice to grow up like his Uncle Wayne.

Howell said, “Take this stuff too seriously – as a few cranky critics evidently are – and you could work yourself up into a lather over the sexist implications of a good man turned bad by the wiles of women. But why do that?”

Howell continued, “You've got to love a movie that so eagerly assassinates its leading man's cuddly image, and which also manages to blow a wicked kiss to Fatal Attraction, which starred Douglas as the philandering hubby of Anne Archer.”

Yes, the still beautiful Anne Archer is also in this film playing the bride’s (Lacey Chabert) mom at the wedding, who is fumbled and propositioned by Connor. Howell ended his review by saying, “She gives him a look and a lecture that could boil a bunny, and that alone is worth the price of admission.”

I saw a part of this movie when I studied abroad in Mexico eight years ago with my roommate but I never finished it. It took me six years later to go back and finish the movie. When I saw the entire movie, I liked how this movie played around with A Christmas Carol storyline into a romantic comedy, and they actually did a hilarious job with it. Definitely see this film, especially if you’re a fan of lady’s man McConaughey or Jennifer Garner.

Well everyone, we have now come to the end of “Matthew McConaughey Romantic Comedy Month.” Stay tuned next month when I do this year’s installment of “Black History Film Month.”

Failure to Launch

Desperate Parents bring in a girl to win the heart of their “staying-at-home” son in this Comedy.

35-year-old Tripp, played by Matthew McConaughey, is a bachelor with no plans to get married. KamWilliams stated in her review, “That doesn’t bother his parents as much as the fact that the he still lives at home, rent-free, with no interest in cutting the umbilical, despite a successful career as a pleasure craft broker.” Meanwhile his mother, Sue (the great Kathy Bates), is getting tired with waiting on him, and his father, Al (Terry Bradshaw from FOX Sports), is a closet nudist and just wants to be free to walk around the house naked.

It doesn’t help the problem at all that Tripp’s two best friends, Ace (Justin Bartha) and Demo (Bradley Cooper), are adults in a similar situation who share his immature failure to overcome this disinterest. Williams noted, “As members of the so-called Boomerang Generation, they, too, are quite content mooching off their parents for room and board with no intention of ever leaving the nest.”

Fortunately for Sue and Al, help is available in the person of Paula, played by “Sex in the City” star, Sarah Jessica Parker. Williams said, “Paula’s an irresistibly attractive consultant who has carved out her niche by putting her womanly wiles to work coaxing reluctant men out of their childhood homes.” They keep the beautiful girl’s wants to attract Tripp, but with the firm understanding, obviously, that she’ll stop short of sleeping with him. This impossible point of leaving starts “Failure to Launch,” a 2006 silly, well-made romantic comedy which, as Williams described, “unfolds like a cross between Hitch and Meet the Parents.” Given that you’re able to take in this picture’s funny story, you’re likely to enjoy the variety of eccentric tricks up on the screen.

Williams said, “Predictably, Paula’s professionalism goes out the window when she finds herself falling in love with the handsome hunk she’s been hired to date, much to the chagrin of her impatient clients’. However, as this exercise in the obvious winds its way to happily-ever-aftersville, we’re treated to a ton of laughs, most of which come courtesy of a stellar cast of colorful supporting characters.”

Actually, Zooey Deschanel steals so many scenes as Paula’s anti-social roommate, Katherine or “Kit,” that she deserves to share top billing along with McConaughey and Parker. Williams said, “The emerging ingénue adopts a flat affect, delivering line-after-line with perfect timing, playing a blasé misanthrope irreversibly at odds with the entire world.”

For example, here’s how Kit clearly explains her decision to not join her friends at TGI Fridays for Happy Hour: “I don’t like that place, or anybody I work with.” When Paula asks Kit whether she’s interested in either of Tripp’s friends, she caustically responds, “How shall I choose?” after pointing out that one just got fired from Fed Ex Kinko’s while the other is usefully employed.

Williams said, “When not indulging Kit’s sublime sense of humor, Failure to Launch tends to trade in decidedly less cerebral fare, whether it’s Terry Bradshaw romping around in his birthday suit, or an anthropomorphic animal sketch featuring a mockingbird, a dog, a chipmunk, a lizard, or a porpoise.” These brief distractions don’t relinquish your chance to enjoy a completely complicated effort which succeeds at satirizing at an apparent style which threatens to turn into an all-out social experience.

Oh and there’s an emotional love story in there as well.

This is another comedy that I think people will find themselves thoroughly enjoying because it actually is pretty funny. I think we all can say we know someone like Tripp, who is well into his adulthood and still lives at home with no interest in getting married. If not, well you must be fortunate to not know someone like that, but I think everyone can say that they know someone like Tripp. That’s what makes it so funny because of how relatable they make this situation and it works. Don’t skip this one, especially if you’re a fan of any of the actors in this movie.

Alright everyone, look out next week for the finale of “Matthew McConaughey Romantic Comedy Month.”

How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days

“How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” released in 2003, is an old-fashioned comedy that revolves around the idea of two people falling in love over a bet. Instead of one bet, there are two in this story. Other than that, there are no real surprises, just a funny comedy with some romance added.

The hot Kate Hudson stars as Andie Anderson, a magazine writer who comes up with the idea for an article about what women can do to accidentally make their boyfriends insane. The article will be based on her own experiences. She says she will date a man, get him romantically hooked, and then shove him off in 10 days by purposely making the usual dating mistakes, like being dependent, interfering with his friends and family, and different other separation behaviors. The man she picks as the basis for the article is Ben Barry, played by Matthew McConaughey. Barry just happens to have a work-related bet of his own happening. For him to land a big diamond advertising campaign based on romance, he bets his boss he can make a woman fall in love with him in 10 days. You would think it would be very unlikely for two people with the same type of bet that just happen to meet each other at just the right time to get into this problem, but the script does have a good explanation for how this happens. It involves handling the situation by other characters that know about both bets, and have a good reason for wanting to lose his bet.

Robert Roten said in his review, “Anderson's bait and switch tactics are very funny.” After getting together with him on the first day, she begins to make him insane with very aggravating behavior. She places stuffed animals around his apartment. She puts tampons and other feminine hygiene stuff in his medicine cabinet. She speaks in baby talk around his friends. She clings to him, but orders him and his friends around at the same time. She interferes with his enjoyment of sports games and interferes with his family. The pranks continue, but Barry holds on. He refuses to break up with her. Andie can’t understand why Barry hasn’t broken up with her. She knows she is making him insane. Barry begins to doubt whether he will not win his bet. Andie’s behavior is weird and he cannot seem to get inside her head. Roten said, “She keeps deftly deflecting his advances. She says that she loves him, but avoids intimacy.”

Of the two main characters, it is easier to sympathize with Andie. Roten said, “She was maneuvered into pitching the story idea to her editor and she doesn't like what she is doing to Barry. At the same time, Barry seems like a fairly shallow, self-centered womanizer. He goes into the relationship fully intending to break Anderson's heart.” We find out later in the film that he has never brought any woman home to meets his parents, and he isn’t that young. In a way, it looks like Barry deserves the punishment that Andie puts on him. The comedy in the film works very well. The romance isn’t really that convincing. Matthew McConaughey is one of the best romantic leads in the movie company and Kate Hudson is extremely talented and charming. Roten said, “Their chemistry together is such that they manage to pull off a believable romance despite a couple of creaky plot twists at the end of the movie.” They are supported by Adam Goldberg (Barry’s friend, Tony), Thomas Lennon (Barry’s friend, Thayer), Robert Klein (Barry’s boss, Phillip Warren) and Bebe Neuwirth (Andie’s boss, Lana).

Director Donald Petrie shows a nice look with romantic comedies, and he overcomes the problems in this one. Roten credited, “The script has some sharp, witty dialogue.” Despite the lack of character development in the story, it works really well, especially as a comedy.

This is a funny movie, despite the fact that it can get annoying with Andie’s antics and how you would think they will lose the bet, but they hang on. You know what will happen in the end, and you might say that it’s predictable, but you cannot deny the fact that Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey really work well together and actually put their all in their roles. Definitely see this movie if you’re a fan of either or both actors because they really do a funny and great job here.

Look out next week for the next installment of “Matthew McConaughey Romantic Comedy Month.”

The Wedding Planner

Happy New Year everyone! To start off the year, I will look at all the romantic comedies that Matthew McConaughey starred in. Let’s kick off the month with the 2001 comedy, “The Wedding Planner.”

When casting a nice comedy, the hot Spanish singer Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey would probably be the last two people to actually think of. However, in Adam Shankman’s “The Wedding Planner” this decision was actually best. Steve Rhodes said in his review, “A good-spirited, romantic comedy with an almost child-like innocence, the movie sweeps you off your feet and puts you in the mood for laughter and love.”

Rhodes noted, “The frequently inspired script is by Pamela Falk and Michael Ellis -- a pair of love birds, according to the press kit, whose relationship did not survive the many years it took to get the script produced.” “The Wedding Planner” is a film that’s easy to love, but, like the writers’ romance, the relationship gets difficult. After an amazingly successful first half, the romantic comedy runs out of humor, leaving the love story to be a part of the second part. However, what happens is that the film is at its most romantic exactly when it’s the funniest.

Mary Fiore, played by Jennifer Lopez, is the wedding planner. Rhodes said, “An anal-retentive who alphabetizes her credit cards, Mary laments that "Those who can't do, teach, and those who can't wed, plan."” However, she is a planner average excellence, running weddings with funny, military accuracy. “Cover me. The FOB is MIA,” she yells to her assistant, Penny, played by Judy Greer, over her wireless microphone. (Translation: The Father of the bride is missing.)

After Dr. Steve Edison, played by Matthew McConaughey, Mary’s love interest rescues her from a dumpster, it’s love at first site. However, there is a little issue. Steve is actually the groom of her high profile new client, Fran Donolly, played by the hot Bridgette Wilson-Sampras. To add on top of this trouble, Mary’s father (Alex Rocco) introduces her to Massimo Lanzetta (Justin Chambers), her newly arranged husband-to-be. Rhodes said, “The last time Mary saw Massimo, he was a mud-munching little kid in Sicily. Judging from his accent, he just got off the boat.”

The chemistry between the controlling wedding planner and the more relaxed pediatrician is wonderful. They make sparks on the screen even though their relationship is restricted to a single kiss.

The movie is easily one of the softest PG-13 films in some time. Rhodes noted, “Save a reference to a female organ and an innocent and sweetly funny scene involving a male nude statue, the movie would have been at most PG.” “The Wedding Planner” is a comedy that leaves you with a good feeling instead of making you sick to your stomach. Imagine that. It’s no surprise that some of the memorable scenes happen while an old film is playing in the background. In many ways, “The Wedding Planner” is a delightful throwback to a nicer time at the theaters. However, the film never feels dated. It’s a firework of a date movie and good family film on top of that.

In the end, if you haven’t seen this film, and you’re a fan of Matthew McConaughey in romantic roles, this is the film for you. It’s one of the funniest romantic films and you will enjoy yourself from first minute to last. Definitely check this one out if you haven’t because you will have a good laugh when watching it.

Tune in next week when we look at an even funnier film in “Matthew McConaughey Romantic Comedy Month.”