I think about a world to come where the books were found by the golden ones, written in pain, written in awe by a puzzled man who questioned, "What are we here for?" All the strangers came today and it looks as though they're here to stay.

-David Bowie "Oh! You Pretty Things"

Saturday, April 17, 2010

A Guide To Tolerable Chick Flicks: Ryan Reynolds

I have nothing against the chick flick genre. Like any genre there are good examples of a chick flick and bad examples of a chick flick. The trouble is that it's just the easiest genre to manipulate for markets, and as a result there are quite a few cookie-cutter movies, movies lacking in substance but which people want to see anyways.

A friend of mine, who shall remain anonymous for the sake of his current relationship, admitted that he had been dragged to quite a few terrible films simply because of this strange siren's call that certain masses of women feel associated with any chick flick. After speaking with him, he suggested that I should publish a sort of guide that helps men to choose the good chick flicks rather than have to suffer through the bad.

This is the first installation of that guide.

The first rule of picking out a chick flick with substance is: Look for Ryan Reynolds. I don't know what it is about this guy, but he breathes life into the genre. Everyone tries to be quirky in a romantic comedy, but when it's Ryan Reynolds it works. He even made Blade: Trinity (2004) tolerable. Blade: Trinity! He was the only redeeming quality of X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). This man is a miracle worker.

Here are a few chick flicks that were made tolerable by Ryan Reynolds: Just Friends (2005) - let's remember, though, that he had the help of Anna Faris in this film; Definitely, Maybe (2008) - best romantic comedy I've seen in years; Adventureland (2009) - sure he's not the lead, but Reynolds helps this movie not turn into a sad, sad, sad, sad, sad attempt at a movie like Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist (2008); The Proposal (2009) - in three days I saw three movies, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Public Enemies (2009), and The Proposal - The Proposal was easily the best of the three, even though it starred Sandra Bullock.


If you're writing this down, remember this:

Rule #1: Look for Ryan Reynolds.

No comments:

Post a Comment