{"id":1678,"date":"2008-02-05T12:19:12","date_gmt":"2008-02-05T12:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/ao-scott-loses-faith-in-movie.html"},"modified":"2008-02-05T12:19:12","modified_gmt":"2008-02-05T12:19:12","slug":"ao-scott-loses-faith-in-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/ao-scott-loses-faith-in-movie.html","title":{"rendered":"Losing Faith in (Movie) Romance?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"foolsgold.jpg\"I\u2019m an unabashed devotee of the Religion of Romance, but I must admit, the last year\u2019s cinema offerings (or lack of them) left me a bit spiritually starved. As far as straight-up romance goes, I can\u2019t think of a single picture in 2007 that wowed me or that sticks in my memory as a must-see-again. I hated \u201cP.S. I Love You<\/a>\u201d (and have no idea why people seemed to like it so much). Steve Carell\u2019s \u201cDan in Real Life<\/a>\u201d was cute, actually. And hmmm. No other picture springs to mind as memorable in this genre, unfortunately, save \u201cWaitress<\/a>\u201d which, though it doesn\u2019t exactly have a romantic relationship happy ending, shows off both Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion as fantastic, charismatic, and funny as romantic leads, and makes my top 10 favorite movies of all time (so it counts a bit, I suppose.)
\nNew York Times movie critic A.O. Scott agrees that the romance movie genre has seriously suffered of late, and contemplates the latest offerings in comparison to old school gems like \u201cBringing up Baby\u201d and \u201cHis Girl Friday,\u201d in his article \u201cA Fine Romance, My Friend, This Is<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n“How did this genre fall so far, from one that reliably deployed the talents of the movie industry\u2019s best writers, top directors and biggest stars to a source of lazy commercial fodder?” Scott wonders.
\nApparently, the February 8th release of the Matthew McConaughey\/Kate Hudson romance \u201cFool\u2019s Gold<\/a>\u201d inspired (or required) Scott’s ruminations about romance\u2019s downfall. His sarcasm about the movie’s premise–an about-to-divorce married couple find buried treasure and fall back in love–is palpable. (And why wouldn’t it be?)
\nOverall, Scott diagnoses that there is no real tension between romantic leads these days, accounting for at least one of the problems plagueing the genre.<\/p>\n

The actresses are spunky and sweet, but lacking in the vinegar that made Barbara Stanwyck in \u201cThe Lady Eve\u201d or Claudette Colbert in \u201cIt Happened One Night\u201d so definitively sexy. Those ladies were not always nice, and neither were their gentleman counterparts, who could be sarcastic, brutish and domineering when the mood struck. By contrast, the romantic comedy leading men of today are the kind of nice guy \u2014 the Ralph Bellamy type \u2014 whom these earlier heroines would have triumphed by rejecting. The vision of love they embraced was not comfort and affirmation but a kind of grand, spirited struggle, what used to be called the battle of the sexes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Scott even trashes the recent “27 Dresses<\/a>,” which I know is formulaic, but I still liked it. It was better than most of what we’ve been given lately.
\n(And OK, I will confess that 2007 wasn\u2019t all a wash either. January 2007\u2019s “The Lake House” has grown on me in its many weekend airings on cable that I catch now and again. It\u2019s embarrassing, but I think I\u2019ve grown to love it, in all its cheesy Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves goodness. In the mean time I\u2019ve also survived on the 2005 Keira Knightley remake of “Pride and Prejudice<\/a>” and the always wonderful Meg Ryan\/Tom Hanks combo in “You\u2019ve Got Mail<\/a>” which top my most-watched romantic comedy Sunday worship list, and are sure-to-make-you-sigh-with-happiness for my fellow romantic believers who are finding themselves lacking in the movie-romance department these days.)
\nAnd though \u201cFool\u2019s Gold\u201d looks rather silly and dreadful, I will be there for Friday afternoon cinema-services come its release February 8th, since I need to get my fix somehow, however spiritually unfulfilling. At least it\u2019s better than nothing, right? Then again…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m an unabashed devotee of the Religion of Romance, but I must admit, the last year\u2019s cinema offerings (or lack of them) left me a bit spiritually starved. As far as straight-up romance goes, I can\u2019t think of a single picture in 2007 that wowed me or that sticks in my memory as a must-see-again.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies"],"yoast_head":"\nLosing Faith in (Movie) Romance?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/ao-scott-loses-faith-in-movie.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Losing Faith in (Movie) Romance?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m an unabashed devotee of the Religion of Romance, but I must admit, the last year\u2019s cinema offerings (or lack of them) left me a bit spiritually starved. 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