How far has romantic comedy sunk? To what depths has this once noble genre of films reached? Once we had great leading men. Charming, funny, handsome, brimming with charisma. Cary Grant. Clark Gable. Spencer Tracy. Fred Astaire. Tony Curtis.And now… Matthew McConaughey. Yes he's good looking and some think he has charm but magnetic? Star quality? Funny? Sorry. I just don't see it. It's as if Andy Griffith had looks. He opens this weekend in yet another formula romcom, FOOL’S GOLD (has there ever been a more appropriate title?).
And once we had classy romantic heroines. Carole Lombard, Kate Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, Ginger Rodgers, Barbara Stanwyck.
Now...Paris fucking Hilton. Yes, that tramp actually stars in a movie -- THE HOTTIE & THE NOTTIE that also opened this weekend.
It's time to officially retire the genre. If there's one rule about romantic comedies it's this: they don't work if you're rooting for the couple to each end up alone. Or in the case of Paris Hilton, if you're rooting for the love interest to be killed.
"Or in the case of Paris Hilton, if you're rooting for the love interest to be killed."
ReplyDeleteoof Ken, get off the fence tell us how you really feel!
Too true, and it's not just nostalgia talking. There are plenty of genres that are as good or better today; romantic comedy is not one of them.
ReplyDeleteOne way to look at this is to think of the status of directors who make romantic comedies. It used to be that comedy directors were some of the most acclaimed and respected people in Hollywood. Preston Sturges, Ernst Lubitsch, Frank Capra, Leo McCarey, and so on. Howard Hawks and Billy Wilder and others were just as acclaimed for their romantic comedies as for any other kind of film they made. Even Ingmar Bergman had a huge success with a romantic comedy that got made into a successful Broadway musical (Smiles of a Summer Night).
What happened to turn romantic comedy from something that was a respectable genre for superstar directors into, well, what it is today, when most of the great directors wouldn't go anywhere near a boy-meets-girl comedy? That's not a rhetorical question; I really don't know.
One day soon, the romcom to reignite the spark will come along - and one of us might write it!
ReplyDeleteParis' movie so far rates a 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is about 9 points higher than I expected.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, the "positive" reviews contain language like "the movie isn't quite as awful as you might expect ... given the premise, it could have been much MUCH worse", so in this case "Fresh" is more of a backhanded compliment.
And according to TMZ it made an average of $76 in every single one of the screens it opened in on Friday. Which is just about scraping into double figure audiences. The people who do the maths make it eleven.
ReplyDeleteOn the island of Tonga, the film is entitled, "The Slut and the What"
ReplyDeleteYou also had leading men like Ronald Reagan, and leading women like Katherine Alexander. Don't compare the worst of today with the best of yesterday and expect today to do all that well.
ReplyDeletewhos the best of today david?...
ReplyDeletethey really dont do more then one or two today then try to make it bigger with more serious roles...
I am reminded of when I saw that hilarious laff-riot SID & NANCY with Gary Oldman. It was the first movie I ever saw where, at the end, the young lovers have both died ghastly, degrading deaths, and it was a HAPPY ending, and turned it into a feel-good romp.
ReplyDeleteBut HOUSE OF WAX has already proved that just killing off Paris Hilton in a film isn't enough. The audience is turned off by the fakery. To please an audience, they need to kill Paris for real. THAT'S entertainment!
Ken, I guess they felt McConaughey belonged in "sophisticated" comedies because he’s from East Texas. I agree with your assessment, but also think we’re beginning to sound a little, “in my day, we walked five miles to school in the snow-ish.” And that was in Santa Monica.
ReplyDeleteHottie/Nottie had it’s actual premiere here in Dallas Jan. 22, two weeks before the “premiere” at the Egyptian in LA. Tell you anything? (OK the film’s distributor Regency Releasing is an arm of Regent Entertainment here – but still.)
Or to quote from the press release: “In addition to North American rights, Regent Releasing has also secured distribution for Central America, the Caribbean and Greenland.” Guess that ice sheet can’t melt fast enough for some people? Actually Steve Jarchow who owns Regent is a pretty smart and successful guy. My guess? Double feature with the sex video.
Here are photos from the Dallas Morning News. Click on the video at the bottom
http://www.guidelive.com/entertainment/video/index.html?nvid=210831
Remember she’s still just a kid. Thought she did OK. We on the other hand…
Oh, Paris’ great uncle, the late Nicky Hilton (Liz Taylor’s first) was also born right here in Big-D. And of course I will never, ever forget the sage advice of his father Conrad Hilton, “Always, always try to keep the shower curtain on the inside of the tub."
The standard line on the decline of the romantic comedy is that post-sexual revolution, it's harder to come up with satisfying reasons to keep the couple apart until the final scene. Also, even though we often groan at the formulaic nature of the genre, it's almost impossible to make one work without said formula.
ReplyDeleteMany writers ideally suited to the sparkling dialogue and clever plotting of the classic rom-com ended up in TV (Cheers, Frasier, you get the idea).
Personally, I think there's still life in the genre. Knocked Up may not be Wilder or Lubitsch, but Apatow's improv-centered style is not that far away from Leo McCarey's (except for the R-rated content and stoner pacing, of course). The Break-Up was an interesting attempt at an anti-romantic comedy, picking up where most of them leave off. Enchanted found a fresh approach, and I've heard good things about the upcoming Definitely, Maybe.
Don't get me wrong: the heyday of the genre is over, and it ain't coming back. But a few good writers will always find a way to breath new life into it here and there. (And then the studio will develop the hell out of it, killing anything original until it looks like all the other crap. But still...)
se of Paris Hilton, the movie doesn't work if you're rooting for her to be killed. Graphically. Painfully. Permanently. A "snuff film." Is there a better argument against capitalism and inherited wealth on the frickin' planet???
ReplyDeleteMatthew McConaughey: how does this loser keep getting movies greenlighted? He's the biological equivalent of looking at a Hummer and thinking the designer and any of the buyers ever understood "taste."
I might be in the minority here, but I actually don't mind Matthew McConaughey. Of course, I realized that the last movie I saw him in was Amistad more than ten years ago. That might also be the last movie he made that was even remotely worth watching.
ReplyDeleteAs for romantic comedies, I don't really think the formula is getting stale (is it any more stale than it was 20 years ago?), in as much as it is the stories are trying too hard to be gimmicky. When Harry Met Sally was a great film, as well as a great romantic comedy, and there's really not much of a gimmick to it. It's simply about two people who take a while to realize they belong together. Today, they would add a whole bunch of situations and crazy hijinx instead of focusing on the actual characters, who are the ones who make the thing funny.
Romantic comedies today? Forget it. They have vanished much like the love song has vanished. By the way, when was the last beautiful love song written? Long time ago. Gee, can't wait for the Grammy's, where we can watch a bunch of talentless screamers yell out unintelligible so-called lyrics and make gazillions of dollars from knuckle-dragging drooling mutants who believe that music begins and ends with the American Idol winners.
ReplyDeleteIt's the end of the world kids.
True, a good Romantic Comedy is hard to find, but this was always the case. As my film history books tell me, in the 30's and 40's movies were cranked out at a rapid pace; for every Philadelphia Story there had to be seventy-five other movies (all co-starring an exhausted Jack Carson) that no one bothered to restore.
ReplyDeletekudos, mr. hollywood, for your dead-on parody of everybody who has lived at least ten years past the heyday of "their" music, which was of course the greatest ever made. Were you perhaps quoting Sinatra on rock 'n' roll? Actually, it's all been downhill since Mozart started using "too many notes." :)
ReplyDeleteOf course plenty of beautiful love songs are written every year. The random snippets you hear on your car radio or while channel surfing TV do not represent the entirety of our musical culture. The wheat has always had to be separated from the chaff, even if that's harder to do now because of the greater diversity of choices we have.
If your prediction about the end of the world comes true soon, however, I'll stand corrected.
Don't go dissing Andy Griffith by comparing him to Matthew McCona... McConhag... however you spell his last name.
ReplyDeleteGriffith was outstanding in "No Time For Sergeants" and flat-out amazing starring in "A Face In The Crowd." He was even quite good in last year's "Waitress." And his charm sustained one of TV's classic sitcoms. Plus he can sing.
Matthew McWhatever doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Andy Griffith.
I actually paid money to see "Fool's Gold" yesterday. My husband is an out of work grip (one of his first jobs was on "AfterMASH", Ken) and he wanted to see something funny and light. I wanted to see "There Will Be Blood" because that's the way I am feeling after 13 weeks of strike. I lost the toss, and it was off to Kate and Matthew Land. My review? The scenery is pretty.
ReplyDeleteMeg
"whos the best of today david?..."
ReplyDeleteRead the headline of the post, and you'll see the name of at least one.
I, too, miss romcoms. But then, I also miss good sitcoms. There's a dearth of those, too, nowadays. (And on both sides of the pond, it seems.)
ReplyDeleteOne could also say that there's a real dearth of leading men, the kind who have the magnetism and the talent that can elevate whatever they're in (a la Michael Caine).
I guess I could be carping because I'm an old fogey, but on the other hand, even 10 years ago I recollect seeing good romcoms, with real stars. Starting with the 30's, I can't think of a decade of filmmaking which has had romcoms as threadbare and stale as the 00's. Oh, the movies are technically competent, but as lame as a made-for-tv movie.
According to Vanity Fair, here is where Cary Grant has gone...
ReplyDeletehttp://img106.imagevenue.com/view.php?image=93501_ht23_122_639lo.jpg
No need to actually write anything funny, just have pratfall after pratfall after pratfall...hahahah
ReplyDeleteSIGH
I like to think there are potential Cary Grants, Carole Lombards, William Powells and Myrna Loys somewhere...but given the way the movie business is run these days, it's next to impossible to find them. Especially since studios and production companies today don't want writers to emulate the Ben Hechts, Norman Krasnas and Robert Riskins. They want special effects and crassness for the targeted demographic group, whatever it may be (teens/young women/blacks), not subtlety or wit.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Jack Carson, I just saw STRAWBERRY BLONDE on TCM a couple of weeks ago during the January James Cagney month. It starred Cagney, Carson, Rita Hayworth, and Olivia de Havilland. It was a wonderful romantic comedy directed by Raoul Walsh. Cagney could do anything: gangster films, musicals, comedy, romantic comedy. A week before that TCM showed BOY MEETS GIRL with Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Ralph Bellamy, and Marie Wilson. Cagney and O'Brien play screenwriters whose basic winning formula is: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. I they their characters are based on Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Ronald Reagan has a small part as a radio announcer during a premiere.
ReplyDeleteBuck Short:
ReplyDeleteSo far I thought I'd had only two things in common with Matthew McConaughey: I'm a UT graduate and I live in Austin. Now it turns out we also have East Texas origins in common. I'm still trying to decide whether that adds or subtracts...
"I guess they felt McConaughey belonged in "sophisticated" comedies because he’s from East Texas." had me rolling! Maybe you actually have to befrom East Texas to realize just how damn funny that is.
I saw Fool's Gold at a preview. It was lightweight and the opening scene had the best gag in the entire film. So the high point occurred before Kate Hudson even showed up.
ReplyDeleteMy son loved it and he didn't even notice the skin shot, thank heavens!
I completely agree with Tim W. The romcom is dying bc the characters are not all that compelling.
ReplyDeleteI'm a 38 y.o. woman. I don't identify with these annoying or bland female characters at all (and, btw, I disliked Meg Ryan's neurotic, cutesy females as well. Say what you will about Barbara Stanwyck, Rosalind Russell or Claudette Colbert, neurotic they were not. Can you writers please please write a female character with a brain and a sense of humor?
I also don't pine for the male romantic interest and it's not about looks. Nowadays the guys in these flicks are overgrown adolescents, a category not known for being scintillating company. I like real men. No one writes them anymore. Sigh.
"It's simply about two people who take a while to realize they belong together."
Again, Tim W. is right. This still happens nowadays in spite of the sexual revolution and the pill and the ease of falling into bed. People are still as prone to being blind about true love as they have ever been. If anything, people are BLINDER about it; women think they're not lovable unless they're gorgeous and ever-youthful and men think they're a catch only if they have six-pack abs and make lots of $$. People with these philosophies are nearly always shallow--and deadly dull.
I guess I'm going to have to write the men and women I find interesting.
Surely the nadir of recent romcoms is 2005's The Wedding Date. Did anyone actually root for the childish neurotic (Debra Messing) and the male whore (Dermot Mulroney) to end up together? On the contrary, we should pity anyone who ended up with either. No matter that Mulroney (who seems to be suffering a bout of constipation throughout) is presented as the most sensitive and charming man-whore ever (every girl's dream, except for the man-whore part). And no matter that he seems to find Messing delightfully frazzled, as opposed to almost metaphysically annoying.
ReplyDeleteBartkid sez,
ReplyDeleteWhat? No love for Lou Grant?