10 things I hate and love about How to lose a guy in 10 days

It is apparently impossible to avoid this movie. I had forgotten this movie which pairs Kate Hudson's reporter looking for a chance to not have to write puff pieces in fashion magazines with Matthew McConaughey's slick talking womanizer of Ad man until I've been blasted by late night television showing it all the time. I have 10 reasons why I hate this movie and 10 reasons why I love this movie. Let's start with the hating and end with the loving.

10 things I hate

1. The Couple- Not Matthew McConaughey or even Kate Hudson but the people they are. They never really do anything that makes me believe they would have been together had there not been a bet. That is the whole point of the movie. Without a bet, these people would have gone on being oblivious about each other, what loving someone is, or how to not be the single most vain (and the pun is intended) couple in movie history.

2. The Names- Andie Anderson and Ben Barry? Really? This is the best you could do? You didn't feel as though you had to move beyond the first two letters of the Alphabet? Lazy.

3. Kate Hudson- I can't explain why I hate this woman so much. I can't say I haven't enjoyed her work in this film. Just something about her makes me want to punch her in the face. She plays horrible people. She tries to make you love her for being so wicked but you can't. She's just genuinely unlikeable...at least to me.

4. The Cliches -  Women do make mistakes with men and men make mistakes with women but the sad overwrought cliches used in this movie are sad and unrealistic. A woman crying and torturing her boyfriend. A man who doesn't want to be tied down, loves himself and thinks he is God's gift...again it is lazy. Where are guys like me represented? Is it the douchebag "Mike" who sleeps with Andie's friend Michelle and dumped her until he missed the scent she sprayed on her pillow? Go frost yourself

5.  Michelle - As a character Michelle is amazingly one note. The woman struck down by love because she is the living embodiment of every wrong thing women do to men. I think they even throw in the tired ice cream eating...Jesus. The point of the character is to make Andie want to write the article on shallow men and how they play women while showing women what not to do in a relationship. Isn't that slightly offensive?

6. The Premise - The whole idea is that if you want a man to stick around (if they aren't involved in a bet at work that is) is to trick them into thinking you don't love them. As someone burned by this very act I can say that it isn't very fun. Guys want to be loved too. Not all guys but if you go to a club and choose the guy with the collar on his shirt turned up and the word "Playa" written underneath it, you probably don't want a serious relationship.

7. Ben's bitchy co-workers - Not only does Ben compete with two women who devilishly set him up with the one woman they know is trying to lose a guy in 10 days, Ben's own support system doesn't really offer anything to him. They just needle him into staying with Andi as she puts him through hell. What exactly they do at the ad agency is suspect as well. Ben seems to do all the work and then has his two henchmen standing behind him chuckling and say "yeah yeah...what he said."

8. The timeline - Yes I know the movie sets an arbitrary time constriction on the story but seriously when can Ben realize he has any real feelings for Andie between the massive shifts of moods and the work he has to do to land the biggest account in the history of his firm?

9. The bosses - Andie's boss played by Bebe Neuwirth is remarkably oblivious. She spills the beans to Ben, refuses to let Andie off the hook for the article when she realizes she has feelings for Ben, and then promises to let her write what she wants and when she delivers the article she adds as long as it is about shoes, makeup and fashion. Ben's boss is no less worthless. Not only does he approve of a horribly inappropriate bet for control of the account but he is a womanizer as well. That he gets to determine that Ben and Andie are in love is ridiculous.

10. The "Bullshit" Ending-  So Andie has been embarrassed and betrayed and is moving to Washington D.C. Ben races through Manhattan to find the one cab she is in and gets it to pull over, on a bridge, and then confronts Andie because she is running away. When she tries to leave and say it isn't the case, the movie calls back a good scene with Ben's family as they played the game "Bullshit" and Ben calls her on it. He never apologizes, sends the cab away without even asking Andie if she forgives him and then makes out with her on the Brooklyn Bridge. Can I sarcastically slow clap that out of my mind?

10 things I love

1. Good Andie - I know that I am supposed to love good Andie because she is the real Andie that Ben is falling in love with. And despite my aforementioned desire to punch Kate Hudson, I do. It is a talented job of making someone love a character. 

2. McConaughey - How can you not love Matty McConaughey. He is a ultra likeable person and playing yet another version of himself, you root for him to figure it out. Yes he is a womanizer but he does it with so much class and wit.

3. The Love Fern - The Love Fern is the symbol "Bad" Andie gives Ben to nurture and love like their relationship. It is a good metaphor and when you see how dried out and dead the plant is by the end you realize that neither one of them should be in charge of anything.

4. Ben and Andie's Photoshopped Family - Egads! How did they create these photos? Did they mix a Bigfoot and Kate Hudson's punchable face? These are two of the ugliest kids I've ever seen. It is like they mixed Ben Savage (TV's Boy Meets World) and Krull the Love Dog...eek. How Ben didn't run from that, I do not know.

5. Ben's Real Family - Ben and Andie visit Ben's family for a day and it is the moment when Andie really starts falling for Ben. Over a game of "Bullshit" ,  Ben and Andie connect on a real level and offer the movie a little bit of authentic love story. How Ben at the beginning of the movie came from these genuinely nice people is a mystery. Even Uncle Arthur (who farts like a Howitzer) is a character you like and I wish they had spent more time there than with crazy Andie and the bewildered Ben.

6. The Chemistry - Again, I want to punch Kate Hudson but damnit if her and Matthew McConaughey don't have chemistry that smolders onscreen. I may not believe that Andie Anderson and Ben Barry could get together but the couple has chemistry.

7. Princess Sophia- Perhaps the most hilarious thing that Andie does to Ben is to deflate his manhood by naming it Princess Sophia. No man wants his peep to be named like it is a hush (vagina). I don't get nicknaming someone else's private area. It seems like it would just lead to issues. If you want to do that to someone, keep it to yourself.

8. Michelle - I know she appeared up top as something I hated but I love her too. She is the type of idealistic woman that you want to meet and fall in love with. Whereas Andie and even Ben are sad and a little pathetic as characters, Michelle is a beacon of hope in a movie with very little. She loves wholly and completely and isn't ashamed to tell her man that. 

9. The Shower Scene - There is a moment in the movie where both Ben and Andie let their guard down for a moment and really connect. Ben and Andie return to Ben's Family's house and he starts the shower for her. They turn and are close, really talking for maybe the first time in the movie. It ends with them showering together and the camera pans away from the nookie. It is the hope of love that you all look for in a romantic comedy and you can just see it.

10. That fucking "Bullshit" Ending - I know I seem wishy washy and this movie makes me feel that way. As Ben stands on the bridge and asks Andie to love him, in the only way he knows how, it is touching. They kiss and the movie pulls back as the soundtrack fades up and we can all squeal and giggle and stamp our feet. It is what a romantic comedy should do. 

***

I know that some of the reasons I hate it are then the reasons I love it. I think any movie that can make you feel anything is gonna have some moments that you love and hate. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is a movie I would recommend to someone who likes a schmaltzy romantic comedy. It is also a movie I would crack wise about if it came on with someone who hated that type of movie. I think it can be summed up best as a movie that you hate that you love or a movie you love that you hate it. Either way, I haven't stopped watching it after 10 years and it still touches the 14 year old girl inside me in an innocent way. Who knows, it may touch you too...

Netflix Instant Watch: Punch Drunk Love

Punch Drunk Love

    Adam Sandler has made several movies I would consider "good". From Happy Gilmore to  Grown Ups (the first one which had a little more story and heart than Grown Ups 2), the typical Sandler movie is heavy on jokes and light on drama. People call his movies lazy and uninspired and I think that is why they are so successful. Not every movie needs to be a think piece in the vein of 12 Years A Slave. That movie has it's place and the point I am trying to make is that so do Adam Sandler movies. They offer the moviegoer a chance at relaxing, laughing and not thinking about all the ills and pressures of their everyday life. There are a few good stories in there too. 50 First Dates is probably one of the most underrated movies he's made. The Wedding Singer is a smart, romantic, and fun movie. Even The Waterboy has something to offer to the public...even if it is Kathy Bates tackling what can only be a slightly mentally challenged man at her son's wedding.
    Paul Thomas Anderson on the other hand has made some truly great movies.  He's also drawn out some great performances from actors you may not have expected. Tom Cruise in Magnolia, Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights, and an Oscar winning performance from the always great Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood. The "I drink your milkshake" scene is perhaps one of my favorite moments in movie history. I think what makes him great as a filmmaker is that he makes movies about small moments in our lives that forever alter our existence.  I can't say he has a voice that reaches everyone but he speaks to me, and I don't think that I am so far above you guys to think you'd be utterly lost watching his movies. Which brings me to a movie I found on Netflix Instant Watch the other night. Punch Drunk Love is a short, intelligent movie about love and a lonely man pushed to extremes by 7 sisters, an incompetent staff at his business and a phone sex operator that refuses to go away. It is also a movie like Stranger than Fiction which takes a actor that has been put into a box and helps them show the depth and talent inside them.
    Barry Egan (Sandler) is a quiet lonely man whose only claim to fame is figuring out how to scam free airfare from American Airlines by buying pudding. He spends his time at his business (working out of a warehouse), dinners with his nagging sisters and his house where his only choice for a companion comes from a phone sex service that scams perverted men out of money. The truth is, Barry doesn't even want sexual release with these women, he just wants companionship and to know how their day was. Enter Lena (played by Emily Watson) who works with one of Barry's sister. She seems to see Barry in a different way, enjoys his odd ways and his obsessions. She doesn't care that he threw a hammer through a plate glass window or that he never knows the perfect thing to say. He loves her, completely and wholly and that empowers Barry to stand up to the people in his life and become a better man.
    Love, as I've always believed, empowers. You feel stronger, better, and all the dark parts of yourself that you hide goes into the background of your mind. You become lighter, easier to laugh. It is a delight to see someone in love because even in bad times, they have something in them that pushes them through. For people like me, the loveless, we envy that in people. We watch in horror as we get older and time shortens for us. Late nights aren't spent laughing and canoodling in bed, it is spent up, trying desperately to make a connection. Scared out of our minds that no one will see in us what makes us special. One moment in Punch Drunk Love sticks out to me. Barry flies to Hawaii to be with Lena and they end up in bed. As they lay over each other they have the following exchange:

Barry: I'm lookin' at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna fuckin' smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty.
Lena: I want to chew your face, and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them and chew them and suck on them.
[pause]
Barry: OK. This is funny. This is nice.

    You don't get it. I don't get it. This is not the type of conversation I would have with the woman I love. Barry and Lena get it. Barry and Lena understand what they are saying to each other. Barry and Lena see what they want in each other. They love each other. I had that for a moment and I know how good it feels. I've been chasing that high since she cut and ran. All I want, all I needed was there and now without her, I am powerless. Paul Thomas Anderson gets that feeling better than anyone I've ever seen. I've had friends watch this over the years and some of them can't finish it. Most of them have been in long fulfilling relationships and it makes me wonder that if they've never felt the loneliness and pain of a Barry Egan or your humble movie reviewer that you may not get what PT Anderson was trying to say. I do get it and I'd recommend that if you watch it, think back to a moment (and we all had them) when you thought you'd be alone forever. Maybe then, Barry and Lena's story will seem a little more relatable and you can understand how very lucky you really are.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Punch Drunk Love is an acquired taste. The story of how Barry Egan and Lena Leonard found each other is messy, dirty, sad, weird and just a little disturbing but it doesn't make it any less sweet or worthy.