The Ugly Truth
A fake orgasm never looked so fake…
In this romcom, Katherine Heigl plays Abby, an uptight TV producer forced to confront her rules about love and dating when she begins to produce “The Ugly Truth,” a show for women hosted by a misogynistic and disgusting playboy named Mike (Gerard Butler.) When Abby becomes interested in her new neighbor, Mike promises that if she follows his rules, she will have Colin eating out of the palm of her hand. These rules include sexing up Abby’s wardrobe and eating “phallic” shaped objects. (Errm…ok…) In the end, Abby does get Colin, a seemingly stereotypically nice guy with a fake tan and cheek bones I highly suspect have been surgically enhanced, but then realizes she’s lost herself.
Being an advocate of modesty in dress, I found the film’s approach to the topic to be full of mistakes at best. Mike explains to Abby that men are visual and therefore she needs to dress much sexier to garner the attention of men. OK, but then later on in the film he tells her she needs to keep some of her mystery to keep a guy’s attention. Well which is it Mike? Mystery or boobs on display?
The storyline continues with this battle of the sexes, and in the end the message of the film is a little fuzzy…which of course is a social commentary on dating in and of itself.
500 Days of Summer
The plot of this film can be surmised with the phrase, “the guy who wasted his time on the girl who just wanted to have fun.”
500 Days of Summer is the story of Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who is your typical average Joe—he works in an office, lives in a grungy studio apartment, goes to bars with his friends on the weekends, etc. When Tom meets Summer (Zooey Deschanel) he is convinced that she is “The One”…despite her clear statement that she isn’t looking for anything serious. (I think the audience heard it and Tom just missed it. Poor thing…) Director Mark Webb then takes us on jumps through time to see the various stages of the couple’s relationship. Signals get crossed, sex ensues, break ups and drunken karaoke songs abound…
Critics keep ranting and raving about this one, but quite honestly I found it boring most of the time. This was due large in part to the lack of character development in Summer. We spend most of the film on an emotional roller coaster with Tom, but the film never really shows the audience why we should be so in love with Summer too, only that Tom sees something phenomenal within her. Admittedly she’s got great fashion sense, but other than that, I didn’t really get it. I sat with my apathy for a while and determined that perhaps this confusion is what Webb wanted?
I found the third act of the film to be the most satisfying. The plot twist elicited a general WTF? from the entire audience. Though it wasn’t an exhilarating ride through horrible dialogue and bomb detonations, I would recommend this one.
Paper Heart
In a pseudo-documentary that isn’t (or perhaps is…or something…) Charlene Yi (played by herself) embarks on a cross-country quest to make a documentary about the definition love and she does not believe in love. Through her trek, Charlene meets Michael Cera (played by himself) and the two fall in love…or do they?
Pressured by the camera crew that now wants to include her dating life in the film, Charlene must continue to confront her pessimism about love while simultaneously falling for the quirky nice guy.
Although I have been looking forward to seeing this film since the beginning of year, I was surprised by how much I liked it. I was literally holding my stomach laughing in some areas, and can I just say I’m glad to see a film in which a normal girl gets the guy?
As a filmmaker myself, part of what I found so hilarious was the ongoing behind-the-scenes comedy within the film crew—standing in the rain, running around in grocery stores—hey it’s all for the integrity of the film man!
Charlene’s interviews of random couples were also incredibly heart-warming and gave a reality check on love and marriage not often seen in films. What is love? Is it a feeling or a decision? Charlene seems to take the opinion of the former as she doesn’t think she could ever “feel” so strongly about someone, but the stories of the couples seem to support the latter. (Duh!)
All that being said, the ending was awful…like…God-awful…and I say that because I don’t think it had enough substance for the subject matter the film was trying to undertake. Despite this, I still recommend you go check this movie out.
BTW, Charlene Yi is the co-writer of the film and only two years older than me…quite inspiring for the soon-to-be senior in film school.
