A couple films deal with racial/cultural conflict. Fools Rush In, which honestly is an enjoyable rom com although not particularly good, kind of deals with racial tensions (white and hispanic) and some class issues. The story itself, this insane couple getting married after a one night stand than having a baby in the…

That’s the same thing I keep coming back too: the people who write, produce and direct rom-coms keep letting the wish fulfillment of the plot interfere with actual, honest-to-goodness dramatic tension. And as a result, we get a weird example of the tragedy of the commons.

There was an interesting, ostensible rom-com called Little Black Book, starring Brittany Murphy and Ron Livingston. It had all of the hallmarks of those awful rom-coms like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days...such as the supposed protagonists doing hateful things to each other for contrived reasons.

I remember watching an episode of the Flintstones when I was like 9 and realizing that every plot involved Fred lying about something until the last five minutes when he had to come clean, at which point everything worked out for him just fine. I never watched another episode of the show and have had little fondness…

This is one of my major film/TV criticisms: WRITERS, TRY HARDER. Conflict happens in real life ALL THE TIME when all parties involved make smart decisions. Not all characters have to make silly/inconsistent decisions for the purposes of pushing the plot forward.

Ultimately that’s what wrecks so many rom-coms. Characters either act in completely inexplicable ways or the central conflict is dependent entirely upon a misunderstanding that could be rectified in ten seconds if anyone involved just talked about it. The handful that work aren’t dependent upon such devices. When…

The movie was based on an utterly repellent book by a British author. I mention the nationality because Brit “chick-lit” authors revel in infidelity and narcissists posing as the love-lorn. There is not a single likeable person in the book. But it works because you get the fullness of each person and some background…

I like a good rom com, but a lot of rom coms just suck. Like, for example, I don’t like action movies, but a lot of people I know do, and it seems like the biggest thing behind an action movie being enjoyable or not is the action sequences and fight scenes. I don’t know what the equivalent of that is for rom-coms,…

A more skillful movie could use the dual cheating to show that this relationship really wasn’t working, while also not letting the best friend off the hook for her behavior. This...is not that movie.

If the end of your rom-com movie is the woman picking up any man’s dry-cleaning, it’s time to dig deeper on just exactly whose wish is being fulfilled here. “Co-written by June Diane Raphael and Casey Wilson?” Unlikely. “Original script by Greg DePaul?” Ah, now there’s our suspect.

I don’t know about you, but I love rooting for protagonists who sleep with their best friend’s fiance, and for secondary protagonists who sleep with their fiancee’s best friend. As such, I was so happy to find out Darcy was cheating too, which completely justified the other two’s awful behavior despite the fact that…

Bride Wars only makes sense if Hathaway’s and Hudson’s characters are secretly in love with each other and can’t acknowledge it.

I actually saw Bride Wars in theaters with some friends, and we spent most of it joking about the homoerotic subtext. Towards the end when they both flop down to lie next to each other in their strapless wedding dresses looking like two people who had just finished fucking and had the sheets pulled up over their…

Disagree, the best solution is to subvert the rom-com genre altogether and in the middle of the film, suddenly they’re random victims in a “Silence of the Lambs” style crime thriller.

This is well-argued but I just don’t think I can accept a 2011 movie about people cheating on each other being the best superhero film of 1994.

“From the moment I saw the trailer I couldn’t for life of me understand why two Oscar nominated people agreed to do this.”

I remember watching that (no idea why, maybe with someone else who had suggested it) and being so baffled that I was clearly supposed to root for this relationship. I’ve rarely seen a movie so blithly oblvious about its own upsetting implications.

Hardy is 40, Capone died at 48. How much older an actor do you want to cast?

Jesus, sorry to taint the sacrosanct image of demented Al Capone.

He looks like Werner Herzog.