No.318 : What’s Your Number? (2011)

What's Your Number? at the IMDb

‘Chick Flick’ is such a pejorative term - surely a film can be about the issues women face in modern society and not be tarnished with a brush that says it’s a vapid and nonsensical foray into female wish fulfilment? This chick flick stars Anna Faris and is really terrible, but you will get yourself a few guilty laughs as well as seeing the lead jump around in her underwear if you sign up.

Anna plays ‘Ally’ a 30 something single girl in Boston who works in marketing and likes to make models of people as a hobby. She lives across the hall from womaniser Chris Evans, and there is no way at all that they will get together. Anna’s sister is due to be married and Anna decides to take stock of her life. She has just lost her job, having been sacked by finger smelling Joel McHale who stretches himself in the role of 'douche bag boss' - See ‘Ted’ for the same.

Anna reads a magazine article that says the average woman has slept with 10.5 men, with Anna’s tally amounting to 19. A friend tells her that women who have slept with 20 never get married due to their lack of commitment and because they are big sluts. She decides that her next lover will be her last, but this resolve doesn’t last the night when she wakes up having slept with McHale. He is dumped due to the previously mentioned finger smelling, and Anna decodes that she’ll have to find her life partner amongst the 19 other guys she has slept with.

She enlists the help of Evans who agrees to help her with the tracing of the men in exchange for Anna allowing him to use her apartment to hide from women he is avoiding. Anna then works through the list, with all previous boyfriends coming up short - but what about Evans? He’s nice and the two are getting closer whilst working on the ridiculous project of stalking men.

With Anna’s sister’s wedding coming up will she find her true love?

Tuesday following Monday offers more surprises than this rom-com, but I guess if you have the girls round and a crate of Prosecco on hand you won’t complain. The unlikely nature of the quest did allow for a few funny cameos with Chris Pratt and Tim from 'The Office' both livening up proceedings. You also got Falcon off ‘The Avengers’ who turned out to be gay, just as he was in ‘Black Mirror’ and Ed Begley Jnr as the estranged Dad who showed up in time to hand out some sage advice.

As soon as Evans appeared without his shirt on you knew he was the one and when we saw Anna tart her self up before her latest lover woke up we knew she has self worth issues to be addressed. Her journey, as it was, was peppered with pratfalls and dirty chat which would no doubt entertain the target audience. I thought it was a bit light, but as frothy throwaway fun with plenty of famous faces, it was worth the 2 hour’s of commitment that it demanded.

Faris was pretty much her usual self but looked good in her boy pants and didn’t mind the plenty of jibes that her slutty character rightly received. There wasn’t much in the way of moral judgement here, with the only redemption being to believe in oneself and to get off with the even sluttier neighbour because he believes in you.

Not one you’ll remember tomorrow but decent fun, with pretty people all having a good time.

Best Bit : basketball Play Off  ‘W’ Rating 15/23

No.256 : Words and Pictures (2013)

Words and Pictures at the IMDb

Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche star as rival teachers trying to prove which of words (language) or pictures (art) is best. If that sounds a bit of a pointless endeavour you’ll not be surprised to learn that the film is too.

Owen plays Jack, that tired old cliché of a character of the great writer who hasn’t written anything worthwhile in years who takes a teaching job to finance his creeping alcoholism. Binoche plays a totally different character, a great painter who hasn’t painted anything worthwhile for years due to her creeping arthritis who takes on a teaching job.

The pair teach at a school for precocious teenagers who can’t act. Clive’s lessons are like something out of ‘Dead Poet’s Society’ with the kids all admiring and fancying him in equal measure despite his contempt for the job and his fat and unshaven appearance. Binoche limps when she remembers to do so and has a stick, but a steely determination to help her pupils - they’re the original odd couple!

Owen takes a shine to Juliette and soon engages her in his tiresome ‘how many syllables’ game to which she rightly tells him to piss off. Owen isn’t discouraged however and tries to woo the stuffy artist while juggling with a career crisis and a distant son who is embarrassed about pissed old Dad.

During one of Owen’s unstructured classes a debate arises over the phrase ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ to which he argues that words can supply the details and emotion that a picture cannot. When Binoche’s art class hear of this they are outraged; surely a good picture can convey a lot more than pages of a book? This not very interesting argument captivates the school and a big showdown is planned for the end of the term/film.

Meanwhile Owen is up for dismissal for being pissed all the time and for not offering the school any published works to raise their profile. He wisely chooses to steal his son’s best poem for himself and sets off to get drunk to celebrate. Elsewhere Binoche is trying out new ways to make a mess by dropping paint onto canvas using different methods.

For reasons not clear Owen manages to get Binoche into bed before spoiling it all by getting drunk and wrecking her new ‘masterpiece’ a big red and blue splodge that frankly looked better once Clive had his way with it.

With his career and relationships all pissed against a wall Clive decides to try Alcoholics Anonymous and start afresh with Binoche and his son. But will it be too little too late and with the ‘Words and Pictures’ showdown coming up can he win the day for words? C’mon words!

The premise of this film was a bit like the Hugh Grant vehicle ‘Music and Lyrics’ and when I say Grant’s film was more enjoyable you’ll understand what a clunker ‘Words and Pictures’ is.

The main issue is the central relationship which has no spark whatsoever. Binoche, lovely as she is, cannot act while speaking English and Clive Owen didn’t seem to believe in either his wooing or his madcap fervour for words over pictures. You are probably thinking ‘can’t we have both?’ - well don’t as that will spoil the ending!

Some of the arguments were quite interesting but they were articulated by some of the worst teen actors you will ever see and they look like winners of an essay writing contest reading their work on screen. There is a lamentable subplot about an Asian girl with self worth issues but that was ghastly and predictably resolved. Don’t even ask about Owen’s woes with his prissy son - awful!

So what we have is a no rom, rom-com with no com either. You’d think in a high school there would be some chemistry - I blame the cuts.

Words and pictures? If they are presented like this I’ll have neither please!

Best Bit _ Owen does some redecorating.
‘W’ Rating 7/23

No.212 : When in Rome (2010)

When in Rome at the IMDb

I’d never heard of this 2010 rom-com until it appeared on Netflix, which was a surprise given its stellar cast and the fact that I’m a sucker for formulaic rubbish like this.

The flat faced Kristen Bell stars as Beth, a museum curator who has been unlucky in love. Her more impulsive sister, played by the naked one off ‘Broken Flowers’, plans to get married in Rome after a two week romance with an Italian. This is something of an issue as Beth has a big exhibition planned but after promising her bitch boss ( a show me the cheque Anjelica Huston) that things will go smoothly, she jets off.

The wedding is a great success with the stapes of the mistranslations, comedy vicar and cultural misunderstandings all present and correct. Beth, in a dress that writes cheques her chest can’t cash, meets the lovely Nick (Josh Duhamel - remember him from ‘Win a Date with Tad Hamilton’ - No.205? ) and it seems far too predictable that the two will hook up at the end. Better put some flimsy obstacles in the way then!

With love still being resisted a drunken Beth wanders into a handy fountain that promises love to anyone who leaves a coin there and pockets a fistful of change. When I do this it’s stealing but for Beth it’s to stop people being hurt by love. Tell that to the judge. She pulls out four coins and a poker chip and immediately through some lightning flashes the five depositors immediately fall in love with Kristen.

Fortunately four out of the five appear to be American tourists so it makes it a bit simpler when the action moves back to New York. Obviously there is a bit of vagueness about the exact owners of the coins so we don’t know what is real love and what is fountain induced love.

Once back to her life Beth discovers that she’s suddenly very popular. It may be her tight running gear, but soon she has five blokes all battling for her attention. The most annoying of these is GOB off ‘Arrested Development’ who is a cheesy Italian artist with a secret - he does have a decent line in murals though. She also has Napoleon Dynamite (still with Pablo!) as a street magician and Danny DeVito as a sausage magnet who looks like he’s eaten his whole stock. Filling to roster is Dax Shepard whom we know from ‘Employee of the Month’ and ‘Idiocracy’ as a self loving athlete whom she ends up marrying in real life - lovely.

The fifth coin is a poker chip which comes from Nick and although Beth has feelings for him she can’t act as it would be immoral to use the fountain’s magic to trap him - or could it be true love?

This was a very by the numbers rom-com but it was enjoyable with lots of attractive people clearly having a good time in Rome and New York. The plot was ridiculous but everyone just got on with it and didn’t try to have the lead sectioned as she babbled on about magic fountains.

The four guys pursuing Kristen clearly didn’t have a chance but it all worked out well with a bit of redemption doled out for each. It wasn’t laugh out loud funny but there were a couple of smirks, not least when people like Don Johnson showed up for a couple of scenes and no doubt a nice holiday in Rome.

The pace was kept to a good tempo and although everything was telegraphed from the start there were a couple of well managed obstacles put in love’s path to ensure the 90 minutes run time was padded out.

Of course this was never going to be a classic but as a throwaway piece of fluff it was a good effort and an enjoyable guilty pleasure.

Best Bit : Always a sucker for a bad translation subtitles gag.
‘W’ Score 14/23

No.166 : Wedding Daze (2006)

Wedding Daze at the IMDb

Sometimes the clue to a film’s quality can be found in its title and given Wedding Daze’s pishy pun offering you can be assured that you won’t overawed by the quality on show. But let’s not jump to conclusions, let’s look at the content and production values and then declare it a pile of crap.

Pie shagger Jason Biggs is all excited as he’s about to propose to his girlfriend in a home made cupid costume. His friend, the private eye guy in ‘House’ tries to dissuade him to no avail. We the viewer know the relationship won’t work as the girlfriend is flirting with the Spanish waiter but when she conveniently drops dead of heart failure all bets are off.

We skip forward a year and rather get counselling and stuff he’s been sitting about in his flat, presumably boning baked goods. His long suffering friend persuades him to go to the diner and for no explicable reason he proposes to the waitress Isla Fisher. As he asks the question we see her life in flashback and learn that her douche bag boy friend proposed the night before. For other reasons unknown she accepts and the unlikely premises is off and not quite running.

The mismatched pair then go through a few dull trials as they meet each other’s parents and encounter a few bumps in the road. His parents are sex mad swingers who seem a bit creepy and her mother has a new Jewish husband and an ex in prison in the shape of Joe Pantoliano.

After an extremely long middle section where the ‘will they, won’t they’ trundles along before they eventually do. As you’d expect Joe breaks out of jail and soon the whole party is on the run with some hapless cops on their trail. I can guarantee you won’t care by the end but just to hammer it home how pointless the whole thing is we get the treat of an extended ‘what they did next’ montage.

Despite a half decent cast this a real charmless stinker that’ll have you fast forwarding before the end on the off chance that Isla gets down to her skimpies for the finale. The rest of the film tries to be a bit edgy with snotters and riske sexy practices sprinkled about to offer something for the lads in a genre that rightly has ‘chick flick’ written all over it.

Part of the problem is that the central premise is so feeble; he’s an emotional wreck and she’s patently mental so where is our investment in them getting together? That allied with the zero chemistry between the leads makes for an awkward 100 minutes as they bumble around to the general apathy of the audience.

The big finale, which goes on for half an hour is a real shocker with the ass hole boyfriend inexplicably becoming gay and the straight-laced Mom going back to the jail bird ex. For a romantic comedy to be so lacking in comedy and romance is a rare feat but one executed here with some aplomb.

Best Bit : Isla’s Black bra an boy pants combo 'W' Rating 10/23