Rom-Com Weekend

Rom-Coms!

I went stir crazy over the *long holiday weekend* and bought a BULK of DVDs from my friendly neighbourhood DVD pirate.

As you can see from the pic above, all of them are romantic comedies (rom-com); not that I have a predilection for them or summat...I just find they make great opening lines to start a conversation with woman.

Abg Long: WTF ?! Wait...are you saying u buy this rom-coms SPECIFICALLY with the intention of picking up chicks ??


Me: Dude...trust me. I’ve been doing this for a year already. Most women LOVE rom-coms...I just take advantage of that by loaning ‘em out to them then chat about it over coffee or lunch.

Abg Long: Woaaahhh... *blink* *blink* .... U da man.....

Me: *grins* At the end of the day, u just want to get to know the lady more...so as
the conversation starts rolling, just start asking leading questions about what THEY would do if they were in the heroine’s situation. What happens from then on is up to you....

Abg Long: No way! It can’t be THAT easy... ur pulling my leg man...


Me: Women LOVE drama....their life isn’t complete without DRAMA...that’s why they seem to have a strong fascination with soap operas and mags that exposes celebs private flings and affairs. Unlike us guys who couldn’t care less about stuff like that, women LIVE for the moment of...blablabla (start going into Freudian psychobabble)

Abg Long: Dude ! Check out this 3 on 3 porn special featuring Ramon Gonzalez ! Sweet!


Me: *Sigh* Ur hopeless you know...and put that away...that’s GAY porn for chrissakes!!!

;-p

Neways, since I went thru quite a few of them over the weekend, I’ll just give bite-size reviews of them instead of the regular long spiel.

Wimbledon Vs. Fever Pitch
I lumped both rom-coms together because both of them have a sports-driven theme with the rom-com plot playing a minor role.

Wimbledon featuring Paul Bettany (Mr. Jennifer Connely, the LUCKY Bastard!) and Kirsten Dunst is another Working Title Productions film. For the uninitiated, Working Title has produced most of the witty Brit rom-coms in the past 10 years from Four Weddings to Notting Hill to Love Actually.

They usually use perennial Brit favourites like Hugh Grant or Colin Firth as the lead, but I don’t mind Paul Bettany ‘cos he’s a talented actor and can pull off the physical side of this movie well. Neways, this movie follows the same formula of boy meets girl, boy loses girl to some conflict (this time, it’s due to the father of the girl’s strict training methods and her drive to win Wimbledon), then boy gets girl finally once conflict is handled.

The twist now is it uses the Wimbledon tennis tourney as its underlying theme, offering us an insider’s look into the world of tennis at the highest levels. All the glamour, the pressure to perform, and what it takes to really make it in the game.

Fever Pitch on the other hand is a U.S. adaptation of a Nick Hornby novel (the famous writer of other book-turned-movies such as High Fidelity and About A Boy). In his novel, it charts how a 30-yr old Manchester United fan has to let go of his fanaticism a ‘lil in order to compromise for the love of his life.

The adaptation to the U.S. sports-culture from football to baseball works to a certain degree thanks to the deft hands of the directing duo, Peter & Bob Farrely (famous for their comedy hits like Dumb & Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, & Shallow Hal). They manage to make Jimmy Fallon’s undying love for the Red Sox believable and Drew Barrymore is a cute enough romantic foil to match Fallon’s geeky charm.

In comparison, I think Wimbledon falters (when other Working Title productions in the past has succeeded) because it focuses too much on the sports-theme instead of the rom-com aspect and despite my gushing earlier, Bettany seems stiff as a rom-com lead. Fever Pitch, albeit not as good as the other Nick Hornby adaptations nor any other Farrely rom-coms (think pseudo Shallow Hal & There’s Something About Mary), wins out due to Fallon’s honest potrayal of a man who refuses to grow up and leave his childhood obsession.

As a side note, I believe Nick Hornby’s familiar subject matter of the Peter Pan complex (immature adult men who just refuse to grow up) could have been executed better under a different director (like About A Boy’s Chris & Paul Weitz). In the hands of the Farrely brothers, it seems lost. They don’t know whether to make it as slapstick funny as Mary or maybe a lighter tone like Shallow Hal. In the end, you just get a tame rom-com that covers regular Nick Hornby territory yet not as funny as regular Farrely movies.

In summary, Fever Pitch wins out because despite Kirsten Dunst’s cuteness, Paul Bettany drops the ball here and they just don’t sizzle enough on screen for my liking. Jimmy Fallon’s geeky fanaticism wins out in the end as he follows the Peter Pan-complex footsteps laid out originally by John Cusack (High Fidelity) and Hugh Grant (About A Boy).