you DIDN'T like it?

The definition of insanity is seeing one Robin Williams movie, then seeing another, hoping it will be better.

...the male friend who is a better match in these things is usually not rich and successful. On the contrary, the rich and successful guy is usually the villain who loses to the earnest hero of the romantic comedy.

The director's name is Ken Kwapis, not Kwapi.

God, somebody please put a moratorium on Robin Williams. The reason he's still making movies is that, regrettably, everything he touches does good box office (so much for taste). And this is the guy who for years tried to live down his Mork & Mindy days. I'd take "Mork the Movie" any day over the crap he's done for the past 20 years.

...from the billboard I see every morning when I walk to work.

On this billboard, the three main characters are in bed, with only the middle character not under the covers. The male protag is looking beleaguered in that "awwwwwwwwww I get no nookie AMIRITE GUYS" kind of way that Ray Romano killed two seasons into his semi-eponymous sitcom and then flogged for seven more.

Good ol' Rev. Frank is in the middle, with the smile of the über-meddler. I won't even get to how far Robin Williams has fallen; let's just say that I think the problem started when he started playing humans.

The female protag (who once, to her credit, apologized to her fans for her pop career. How long before she apologizes for this?) looks almost twice her twenty-three years with her face screwed up into something resembling the "disgusted shrew" that we see on way too many females in sitcoms these days.

This morning, I said to myself, "Joseph, don't worry. When it does $3 million in its first week, it'll be bounced out, and you won't have to see that again." Of course, that was quickly followed by a guffaw that I think is still resonating on my streets.

How long will it be before the layer of lipstick on the pig known as the summer movie starts to cast its own shadow?

Mrs. Grumpus decided that we were going to this stinker last night. So incredibly lame that we actually walked out. Something that I've never done before. How do I get my $22.00 back?

Of course, I was only 14, but Robin Williams seemed to work a little better as a cartoon.

Which made me think of something: the animated celebrity cameo--mostly a repulsive idea. Dreamworks keeps cranking out these computer-animated movies with the main characters voiced by, and sometimes actually looking like celebrities, and I hate it, but has anyone noticed that certain actors and actresses actually seem to work better like that?

Take Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers' animated efforts versus their contemporaneous live-action flicks. Shrek may have had it's flaws, but it was a pretty fun movie. Compare that to the "Nutty Professor" line of work, or "Cat in the Hat," the creepiest movie ever made.

The theory: these guys all grew up watching cartoons. Their first, and therefore most primal, lessons in humor were from Bugs Bunny. Maybe when they plan their jokes, their mental picture of themselves is a cartoon. Their live-action attempts at humor are clumsy, because they are out of their element, like a seal walking on land.

I know it's silly. Please don't accuse me of pop psychology, though. This is pop sociology.

It's just a typo.

...for acting.

Eddie Murphy and What's-her-face (fiona) are terrible! Even as voice-over talent they are just embarrassing.

The animation really helps though.

I thought Patch Adams was really good though.

KIDDING! JUST KIDDING!!!

Hey, don't diss voice-over work as inferior to acting. It's *different*. With acting you can rely on body gestures and such for nuance... no such thing for voice-overs. And voice actors not only have to cram as much emotion and meaning into their words as possible, but they have to create suitable voices for their characters, and they have to do different voices for their roles or else people will complain that character A in this cartoon sounds exactly the same as character B in that cartoon.

If anything, the push to hire name actors for voice-over work leads to shoddiness such as... Will Smith playing a fish who looks and acts like Will Smith.

Not that it can't work out. Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy were good in Shrek. But Cameron Diaz played Cameron Diaz. Bleh.

The film's director's name is "Ken Kwapis," not "Ken Kwapi."

It's the one where the ditzy homespun girl wants a perfect wedding replete with insane customs, insane relatives and borderline sadism

If you loved me you'd jump off that bridge

If you loved me you'd stab yourself in the eye

If you loved me you'd loose your job, family and friends in a humorously criminal misadventure

You'd maim yourself

You would willingly make yourself less than me, less than human

But it's my dream since I was a widdle girl......!

Ken Crapi

>It's the one where the ditzy homespun girl wants a perfect wedding replete with insane customs, insane relatives and borderline sadism.<

...which is presented as eminently admirable in the movie's lights. (Though one could ask why on earth groom doesn't stand up for himself and put the kibosh on this nonsense?) Flicks like this give rom-coms a bad name; female characters like this do worse...

Hollywood has managed to take one of its great inventions, the Romantic Comedy, and mangle it beyond recognition. The stock characters and the repeated pranks have created a genre that is a way below in stature than the laugh track sit com. As television gets better, the Hollywood formulaic industrialized movie is the most dispicable of genres. Take Diane Keaton depicting the ditsy 60+, sex starved mom over and over again. Gads, give us a break. The slapstick idiocy in every movie is beyond redemption. Packaging includes some gimmick with the same story line and slapstick over and over again.

Who would have thought that this genre shares the same name as It Happened One Night, My Man Godfrey, Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back, Annie Hall and Love Actually, one of the only good recent Romantic Comedies. If you see Jenifer Aniston, Diane Keaton, Robyn Williams, etc, you know its the kiss of death. These actors are pataking in the junk movie industry that replicates the porn movie model.

I say lets start a black list of actors, writers( are they writers or just movie execs) directors, etc. and shame them into never making another one of those dogs. Or just watch TMC and enjoy the ample supply of old ones.