As Jill and I were waiting for the moviehouse to empty, we happened onto a wonderful scene. Guys, as we all know, wait outside restrooms for their girlfriends to come out since, even if they both go at the same time, girls take longer. That’s the way it is the world over, and we’re prepared to live a whole lifetime of that. And so as we sat there, we saw a young woman come out, look quickly around the area, and smile as she found her young man standing in said fashion outside. They smiled to each other, and started to walk away. A flower in her hands, the respectable distance, and shy smiles belying the truth – that was a date, and probably early on in the game as well.
All of which, brought me to thinking about the main reason why there are date movies to begin with. Will a movie, say Failure to Launch, get you anywhere with your date?
And so, let’s tackle that issue, bullet point style:
- First of which is, a message to all the girl readers here. You will never meet a guy like Mathew Mcconaughey. Guys like him don’t exist.
And I’m not talking about the mid-30s guy who still lives with his parents and dates a lot. There are tons of those. I’m talking about the smooth talking, smooth walking, smooth climbing, smooth eating, smooth driving, smooth selling a boat-ing, smooth talking to chicks-ing, smooth cooking a meal-ing characters evident not just in this movie, but in Sahara, How to lose a guy in ten days, The Wedding Planner”, and any and all kinds of movies wherein he is required to act like a smooth anything.
Mcconaughey doesn’t pull it off. It might be premature to say he cannot. Maybe he can. But so far, zilch.
Consider, for example, other hunky types out there who do this for a living. Guys like Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, George Clooney (ok sorry can’t think of anyone younger. But they were still charmers when they were young though). Other than looks, these guys knew how to work it. Class, charm, a debonaire style about them that makes you feel like everything will turn out ok no matter what kind of mess they get into. No matter how bad their character’s situation gets. No matter how stupid the plot assumes you are to swallow such nonsense as a consultant who makes men feel loved so as to empower them to move out of their parent’s house (and what about after, eh??). Mathew Mcconaughey just does not have these skills.
- And since we’re on the subject of that plot, this is the part where I’m supposed to discuss that, but I think I’d rather not, because it just isn’t worth it. I have seen Sarah Jessica Parker do better, and it pains me, physically pains me, to see her have to deal with this crap.
But ok, in the idea that a movie review has to broach on plot at some point, she plays a consultant who specializes in helping parents find ways to get their overstaying, old children to move out, which up to that point is plausible. It all goes awry with her methods though, as she does by pretending to be interested in them, in theory increasing their confidence and making them want to go, which is just ridiculous, considering that at some point, they will have to have realized that they were duped, and hence create the exact opposite effect.
It’s silly to even discuss it, so much so that I’m wary I may have actually botched up the explanation, but I really don’t care.
- And what of the rest of the movie? Sadly, the main plot being unable to hold it’s end of the movie is akin somewhat to a building with a weak foundation. Anything else built on top of the flawed premise is bound to crumble, and crumble it did like sand at high tide. There were attempts at a subplot with the (at first) interesting Zooey Deschanel, and the used to death friends of the hero trying to fix him up sort of scene, but again, it’s just a pain to even try to explain.
The sad thing is, boy they sure tried, with a mockingbird scene for Deschanel that went nowhere, and some sort of ‘you are not in tune with the universe which is why animals bite you’ kind of nonsense that I’m sure, the actors themselves cringe at having to speak.
So again, will Failure To Launch get you game??
Seems to me, from the smiles, that the guy we saw (probably 16-18 years old), had it going good at that point. They were smiling at one another, the girl seemed happy, and there was excitement in the air. I sure hope he had the rest of the evening planned, like maybe a good restaurant, or a nice walk around Eastwood (that’s where we were), or maybe he’s a good conversationalist.
He had better be, and he better not talk about this movie, cause if he wants the date to work out, he better stick to talking about how pretty she is or how nice she looked that night. Otherwise, he’d just remember he just blew his P240.00 on a movie which failed to launch.
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