Widows: Not What It Appears

Steve McQueen's Widows was not the low-budget dumb heist movie that I thought it was going to be. From the trailers, I thought I was going to see something along the lines of other 2018 female empowerment flops like Proud Mary or Peppermint.

Widows, however, is an extremely intelligent and purpose-driven movie that weaves multiple plot lines into an intricate cat's cradle that finally comes together at the end.

So what's our plot?

At the beginning of the movie, we're introduced to four men in a getaway van, intercut with shots of them interacting with their wives. Within the first five minutes, all four men are dead after the heist goes sour, and the women are left to fend for themselves.

I'm going to interrupt myself right here. Because at this point, within the first 20 minutes of the movie is where it veers away from the usual. I mean, traditionally, this is where a bad movie would have these women saying "I'm mad my husband's dead and I want revenge" and then a rag-tag group of tough girls comes together and becomes besties out of nowhere and kick a bunch of guys in the balls while saying something clever or something. But that's not what happens here.

"Just to be clear, we're not here to kick guys in the balls."

Surprisingly, it veers off in another direction entirely. We're introduced to two characters, the Manning brothers, one of whom is running for office and the other who is a vicious psychopath ensuring his victory. We're also introduced to a ton of other characters, but the main plot line here is that Veronica (Viola Davis), wife of the head thief (played by Liam Neeson, by the way), owes the Manning brothers the money that was lost in the failed heist. Bringing the other widows together and going off of her late husband's heist plan book, they try to figure out if they can pull off stealing $5 million to settle their debts and live the lives their husbands ruined.

Other plot lines include Manning's political opponent (Colin Farrell) and the idea of political dynasties, Jamette Manning (Daniel Kaluuya) being a psychopath, the lives of all the women, and a couple other things.

Good things: the movie is super interesting in the way it approaches the subject matter. I've had more than one rant about how lazy feminist cinema translates poorly in the theater (I'm looking at you Ghostbusters and Ocean's 8), but this is done with a ton of consideration. It doesn't really state that the women are particularly smart or special--they end up getting shit done because they see no other choice. In going this route, it's really a spectacular example of women's resilience and resourcefulness. Each widow is tasked with doing something that she doesn't know how to do and she figures out a way to get it done. That's cooler than kicking guys in the balls, I'm sorry.

Bad bitches, suuuuuppp

On that note, this movie takes almost no time to talk about any of the thieves besides Liam Neeson, which is interesting. It takes care not to be a revenge film, and in fact none of the widows really seem that wild about their deceased husbands anyway. One gambles away all their money, one hits his wife, one doesn't seem very attentive -- these are not men that our heroines need, and actually the reason all of them get into the heist is so that they can right the wrongs that their dead husbands dumped on them.

The movie's ending was a pleasant surprised too -- and not in the usual "I NEVER SAW THAT COMING" kind of way, but more of a "Ooooooh, that makes sense... Cool!" kind of way.

And now for the critiques: the movie drags a bit before it finds its feet. I've got to say, I found the first half to be a little disorienting. McQueen is an artist and the movie almost reads like a graphic novel in the beginning, full of little vignettes that explain actions and characters by showing pieces of their days. But frankly, for a heist movie (typically built on withholding details), all of these little vignettes can get a bit overwhelming.

Was I supposed to remember that? Is that significant? 

Who's that person? Do we need to know them?? 

Though the pay-off at the end makes everything come together neatly in an intricate braid, getting there definitely takes some patience.

7 outa 10. I love McQueen's cinematography and how he transcends the heist genre to make a female-driven movie that's really interesting. Though it might be a little slow for some, and definitely not the film it appears from its trailer!

Ocean's 8: The Problem with All-Female Casts

HA! Roped you in, didn't I? I bet you were all like "OMG SHE HATES FEMALE CASTS! FAKE NEWS! CLICK BAIT!" Well, I suppose you were sort of right about that last one...but I digress (as usual).

Let me be first to say I am 100% in favor of women-centered movies and casts. Look at masterpieces like Clueless, Bridesmaids, and Girl's Trip. Women's movies don't have to be all kumbaya to be relatable. They can be hilarious, they can be cool, they can be dramatic -- they can be all the things that every other kind of movie can be. But you know what they can't be? Inauthentic.

If you had to give me one word to describe a lot of the recent attempts at all-female cast movies it would be that word: inauthentic.

Honestly, I haven't seen a movie as bad as Ocean's 8 in a really long time. And I'm the girl who sat through Oliver Stone's 1981 horror The Hand (yes, that was terrible too, but far more entertaining).

Michael Caine plays a cartoonist haunted by his amputated, murderous hand.

Yes, this is the same director that did Wall Street.

To be fair, female relationships are really hard to capture on film in general. Women are weird. We're raised in a society that praises us for being pretty, teaches us to be suspicious of other women, and has a history of pitting us against each other. Manipulation has a tendency to run rampant in inauthentic female friendships. If you don't trust a girl, you can be nice to her face but you won't be her friend -- and most girls can almost always tell the different between being nice and being friends. Maybe that's why girl friendships are so damn special -- and why movies that are supposed to be about us always end up being so fucking shitty.

Ocean's 8 makes a lot of mistakes with its...well, existence, if I'm being frank.

First of all, there's no reason to add to the Ocean saga, so like let's not.

ALSO HOW COULD YOU KILL DANNY??

(I bet he died in a really cool way though...

like Thelma and Louise style with Brad Pitt...)

Second of all, it seems blatantly obvious that they made Ocean's 11, took out like 95% of the emotion driving the heist, made the guys into girls, and tried to swap "cool" for "glam." Or something.

Whatever kind of cool they try to make these women, though...it does not play. Guys may earn the respect of other guys by being cool, but I can't think of many girls I know who respond to "cool." Girls respond to respect. Think about what works so well in Bridesmaids: they attack the pettiness factor dead-on, they're honest about it, and in the end everyone ends up being friends because they respect each other.

Ocean's 8, Ghostbusters, and many other attempts at these female-driven, nonsensical reincarnations completely disregard depth for the chance to "change it up." The plot becomes irrelevant because the fans of the prior version are going to drive to the theater anyway. And the egregious error in disregarding characters and storyline in these movies is that they become painfully boring. I really don't give a shit whose jewels they are -- none of these characters have me believing that they're real because they put out zero emotion for the entire duration of the film. Oh they stole them? Oh cool, I have more emotional involvement in the fact that I ran out of popcorn.

Ya, it's prob made out of fucking rock candy, who cares.

While Bullock emulates Clooney as best as she can, the context doesn't work. Being betrayed by a former lover that she doesn't even really seem to have liked that much anyway doesn't give us a lot of emotional investment. Worse, it turns her heist into a classic "woman scorned" trope that seriously does no one any favors. And we don't even really get the impression that she's smart -- she had been pulling off a handful of deals at a community bingo over in Jersey, we learn at one point. Seriously? What is this, amateur hour? She goes from knocking over bingo to stealing jewelry at the MET GALA? I don't buy it.

Actually, I kind of had a hard time believing that any of these women were smart. Instead of getting insights into their backgrounds and them being people that the two mains know already, each basically gets accepted into the fold regardless. We don't learn hardly anything about them.

This lack of any investment in the outcome completely disintegrates what makes heist movies so fun. In Ocean's 11, the ending is a "WOAH" moment. In Ocean's 8, the ending is an "Oh." moment.

3 outa 10. Seriously, so disappointed by this film, even though I didn't really have high hopes. But not even entertaining in a stupid kind of way. Just mundane. Hollywood needs to do better for these ladies.

Thoughts on Three Billboards

I've been hearing about Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ever since it came out, and a lot of it didn't appeal to me. It was one I knew I wanted to see, but I didn't think I would enjoy. And honestly, there are a lot of films like that. There are a lot of stories that speak to higher truths that aren't made to delight you. But they make you think. And that's exactly what Three Billboards does.

The main plot follows Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) a grieving, enraged mother who starts to up the ante in solving her daughter's rape and murder by publicly calling out the local police for incompetence. Obviously, the police aren't thrilled with this, namely Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell). And things sort of escalate from there.

It's hard to go into the rest of the film without going into spoilers, so if you want to see it with fresh eyes, stop reading here.

From all I'd heard about the backlash about the film, I had expected it to be a bit more obvious in carrying a message that perpetuates "otherness." But after seeing it, I really need to disagree with the argument that the film makes a deliberate attempt to redeem anyone by its conclusion.

In fact, I'd argue that the entire point of the film is that people are, by nature, flawed and incapable of being either wholly good or bad. 

The movie makes no excuses for any of its characters, and it hardly condones the behavior of them. Mildred assaults several people throughout the movie, either in her own defense, or to bring attention to something she finds unjust. But this mentality of rogue vigilanteism goes in several directions. She is nearly arrested for drilling through a dentist's thumb, her son has to deal with her assaulting his schoolmates, she has to deal with the guilt of burning Officer Dixon's face.

Same with Chief Willoughby. He tries and fails to solve the case of Mildred's daughter. He spends a whole glorious day with his family, only to violently end his life and leave his wife and kids behind. Does this make him a good person or a bad person?

And the same with Officer Dixon. After projecting his own inadequacies through anger, he's confronted with the consequences of his own actions. After throwing a harmless kid out of the window, he's forced to see and experience what he's done, sharing a hospital room with him. And he even experiences a bit of an epiphany after he's shown kindness from him, in spite of how hard he beat him up. Despite this, Dixon still drives off to kill who they've defined as the suspect at the end of the film.

I find it hard to believe that this is a story of redemption. I really read it as a story of grief and justice, and circumstance and consequence. So much of what we do is privy to circumstance rather than justice, regardless of intention. Angela Hayes' murder is despicable but, as we learn, sometimes there isn't enough evidence to pull a suspect. And revenge is a powerful motivator but, as we learn, is not always an effective course of action beyond catharsis.

I think, at its core, Three Billboards highlights the duality in everyone. That being a good or bad person is in the eye of the beholder, that actions have consequences, and that we all just need to try.

8 outa 10. Extremely thought-provoking and stellar acting by the entire cast.

My Fave Movies of 2017

Ah, 2017. To be perfectly honest, most of the things that I watched last year involved old ladies (my beloved Golden Girls, and Grace and Frankie) or murder (whaddup Columbo and Poirot).

However, I did manage to make it out to the theater a few times and I liked a lot of what I chose to see. Colorful kids' movies, smart action movies, heartfelt indie dramas, and some seriously impressive horror.

That being said, here are some of my favorites of 2017, in no particular order.

Coco

Oh. My. God. Bless. This movie didn't get nearly the amount of attention it deserved. When little Miguel is forbidden to play music by his family, he takes matters into his own hands and accidentally ends up in the land of the dead. Seeking the approval of his ancestors, Miguel embarks on a journey to find his grandfather and win his blessing to pursue music. Far from scary (for those leery of a Corpse Bride, Burton-y feel), the movie is warm, bright, and colorful, with a heartfelt message and an incredibly overdue cultural perspective. Go for the songs, stay for the animation.

Lady Bird

Greta Gerwig's directorial debut Lady Bird is so relatable it almost hurts your heart. Young Lady Bird (nee Christine) is a senior in high school navigating her relationship with her mom, her dad, boys, and her best friend, and trying to decide where to go with her life. The beauty of it is its simplicity in finding humor in the normal. Lady Bird is a slightly overdramatic, hugely empathetic character who thinks she has it all figured out, only to realize time and time again that she doesn't. Saoirse Ronin and Laurie Metcalf are captivating as Lady Bird and her mother, respectively -- spending equal screen time pissing each other off and wordlessly falling into unconditional mother-daughter love when they need each other. Ugh. Worth the hype. Achingly nostalgic for anyone who was a teenager in 2003.

The Shape of Water

Another visually stunning feat from Guillermo del Toro. As always, the plot is a little unorthodox: it's the 1960s and a mute cleaning lady has fallen in love with a reptilian man from the science lab where she works. Resolving to rescue him from the hands of her evil boss, she implicates herself in a scheme that could mean the death of both her and the creature. Characters with heart and an unusual plot steer the narrative, but it's the cinematography and the coloring of each scene that really make it worthwhile.

I Don't Feel At Home in This World Anymore.

This is such a cathartic film to watch for anyone at their wit's end with shitty people. Ruth is an ordinary woman trying to live her life. She lives in an unimpressive neighborhood, and doesn't have many friends. When her house gets robbed, that's the last straw. Enlisting the help of her neighbor, she tracks down the thieves, and ends up getting mixed up with some seriously bad people. The ending absolutely makes this.

Baby Driver

Baby is a professional driver who listens to music to drive with laser-like focus. Who's he driving? Bank robbers. When things start to go south, Baby has to assess how far he's willing to go for his life of crime--or figure out how the hell he can drive out of it. You HAVE to see this for the TUNES. Barring musicals, I feel like it's hard to find a movie that so gracefully integrates music into plot. And they don't even have to break the fourth wall!??! The synchronization of the music with the action sequences is...immaculate. Highly recommend.

Thor: Ragnarok

I've gotta say, I've loved Taika Waititi since his hilarious vampire reality What We Do in the Shadows, and that sense of humor is even more present in Thor: Ragnarok. Creating a surprisingly graceful bridge between the more serious Avenger movies and the more playful Guardians of the Galaxy series, Ragnarok is one of the movies that I recommended the most this year just because it's so much fun. Balancing a very current sense of comedic timing with a touch of 80s nostalgia (LOVE that synth music!), it's a bright, fantastical romp. It was nice to see a movie that can be funny without being dumb. (Side note: Cait Blanchett as the villain. Yas.)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

I haven't wasted time seeing why the nerds didn't like this, and I don't really care -- more movies should be as fun, thoughtful, and entertaining as Star Wars: The Last Jedi. For the people knee-deep in cannon, or for those expecting something more like the originals, I'm sure that there were a lot of things that didn't line up. But as someone who appreciates the Star Wars movies as fun, sci-fi trips,  The Last Jedi provides a much-needed escape from reality, and a super satisfying peek into the upcoming capabilities of our two main characters. Party on, Luke.

Wonder Woman

I'm not usually a big super hero movie junkie, but I really enjoyed Wonder Woman. For a studio film, I was pleasantly surprised at how much of the movie stepped out of the usual formula. Or maybe it was just amazing to see a self-empowered, confident woman on screen kicking some major ass. Either way, I loved it.

The Big Sick

Just when you thought romcoms were dead, this movie comes out. Kumail is a standup comedian and first-generation Pakistani American who is dating a white girl. As things between he and his girlfriend get more serious, things reach a breaking point when she learns that he has no intention of introducing her to his strict, Pakistani parents. Things reach even more of a breaking point when she goes into a coma and he is the sole person available to take care of her -- until her parents show up. His point of view as a conflicted son and boyfriend is very plainly aired with a crisp sense of humor that's smart and understanding at the same time.

Get Out

And on the more sinister side of interracial dating, the groundbreaking Get Out. Damn. Chris is a black man going to visit his white girlfriend's parents at their country home. But when he arrives, he gets more than he bargained for -- the servants act strange, the parents throw a mysterious party, and Chris can't seem to get out of there. Smart, biting, terrifying, innovative, and pulpy. Jordan Peele's directorial debut finds an incredibly unique perspective to talk about race relations in America. Think Django: Unchained meets The Twilight Zone. Everyone should see this movie.

It

Oh man, do I loooooove me some Stephen King. The kids of Derry, Maine keep going missing and no one knows why. When a particular group of "losers" starts seeing their worst, most terrifying nightmares play out in broad daylight, the experience draws them together and they decide to confront the monster at the root of all their fears. I was pleasantly surprised at how character-driven the final product ends up being -- something that the original mini-series lacks. This version, too, goes deeper in depth to give the kids their own narrative, letting you see what scares them personally. All-around good adaptation, and props to Bill Skarsgard for making us forget Tim Curry's Pennywise in favor of something a little different.

Alien: Covenant 

After the disappointment that was Prometheus, Ridley Scott pulls it back together for Alien: Covenant. After arriving on a strange planet, a group of colonists are trying to figure out the reason for the planet's lack of wildlife. While plants thrive, animals are noticeably absent from the landscape, and when they find out the reason, they wish they'd never come. This one is not for the squeamish--in a horror-genre triumph the movie is full of every kind of scare, from jumps to core-chilling realizations about human nature and morality.

Honorable Mentions:

Ingrid Goes West
Ingrid becomes a bit too attached to a specific Instagram celebrity, and decides to move to California to become her friend. Fascinating commentary on social media stars -- and their stalkers. Examines both the superficiality of social media and the psychological problems that they can encourage.

1922
A man decides to murder his wife, enlisting his son to help him. I thought this was a fantastic atmospheric thriller and old-timey creep-fest. Available on Netflix!

Stupid Movie Sunday: Geostorm

This may very well end up being a one-time thing, but I'm a sucker for stupid movies and it's Sunday so here we are.

Typical that everyone's like "BLADERUNNER IS AWESOME" and I'm silently moonwalking into Geostorm under cover of night.

Am I ashamed? A bit.

Geostorm is basically what happens when someone who really loved Armageddon tries to recreate it in our modern reality. To its credit, Geostorm does its best to address both politics and (obviously) climate change in one fell swoop that might've worked with a better writer. But let's dive into plot, shall we?

GEOSTORM (somehow it feels more appropriate in all-caps, doesn't it?) follows two brothers: one, Jake (Gerard Butler), a scientist that has masterminded an entire satellite system to control the weather; the other, Max (Jim Sturgess), his political counterpart. When Max takes over the management of the satellite system via political orders, Jake is understandably pissed, leaving them with some bad blood. But when the satellites start acting up and targeting horrific natural disasters, it's time for the brothers to MAKE AMENDS (cue music swell) and to find the nefarious people responsible for programming the rogue satellites.

I love watching movies like this because they are so clearly churned out to serve the larger public, and so they reflect the kind of story that (the studios think) appeals to most people.

Geostorm, for all its laughable disaster effect shots, is fascinating in how different it is from movies like Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow, and even more political-minded ones like Independence Day. A key driver of the plot is the fact that the government is responsible for the satellite web, and whether we should trust them with something that affects the entire world.

Probably worth it to just keep recycling.

The plot of the movie had more twists than I would've counted on, to be honest. For something as formulaic as a disaster movie, the political plot twists keep it interesting and modern. And the technology/coding aspects serve the plot structure well--I mean, who hasn't had a buggy gadget go rogue?

To match our current distrust of government at large, unease at increasing technologies, and anxiety at global climate change, Geostorm is surprisingly topical.

Obviously the problems here lie in execution.

If you're looking for the thrilling visuals that dominate most disaster movies, you're gonna have a bad time. Geostorm's intrigue lies between both politics and space, and so the visuals that we are so accustomed to in disaster movies are a bit far and few between. There's simply too much going on to give the disasters themselves that equal screen-time.

There's also a lot of old-school tropes that are just super hokey. One of my favorite parts is when we find Jake, years after constructing a giant, global satellite to control the world's weather, living in a trailer in the middle of Florida.

...Like, sure sweetie. I'm sure your salary was peanuts. Glad to see you're still an every-man.

Jake plays like a poor man's Mel Gibson, the "tough American" trope that doesn't play as well as it used to, if we're being honest. I would love to see one of these cheapy movies where people are just smart and don't have to be assholes that are always punching people in the face. Like why are we always punching people in the face?

I digress.

There's also a hilarious amount of product placement in this thing. I counted: Coors Light, Chipotle, Chromebook, and more. Make dat money, 'Merica!

Anyway, GEOSTORM is a fun time if you're bored and looking for something with a little more substance than disaster movie counterparts from the 1990s.

4 outa 10.

What the Hell, Hollywood?

I haven't been to the movies in a while.

And I'm annoyed, because I've been in the mood to go to the movies several times, but the only things playing are one of two things:

1. A giant, obnoxious blockbuster -- possibly/probably a sequel -- that has been shoved in my face for the past several months but offers nothing beyond big, bloated effects, limited character development, and poor plot structure.

OR

2. An indie film with an unlikeable protagonist, that explores uncomfortable or painful realities of either everyday life or an incredibly niche period in time.

That and a few awful-looking horror movies. (Though I may just go see ANOTHER Annabelle movie because...I am the worst.)

Maybe I'm being pessimistic. Maybe these movies are not THAT BAD and I'm just bummed out because I've been watching too many 90s movies. Mid-range movies that hit the gap that is so clearly separating Hollywood movies from the indies.

But this is something that I've been slowly noticing over the past several years.

In a lot of ways, I think that the current gap between blockbusters and indie flicks is super reflective of our pop culture as a whole. In a world where everything you do is catered to you every preference, it's natural that more people are opting to stay inside and check out their latest Netflix recommendations rather than go out and spend a chunk of change on something that may very well prove to be more of the same.

You bastard.

Especially when it comes down to the VOLUME of shows that are at your disposal on average. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, OnDemand, and countless other services that cater to a certain taste preference are coming up with shows faster than Hollywood can keep up. So it's logical that they spend their money on the things that viewers can't get at home: 1. a giant screen, insane special effects, the draw of the spectacle; or 2. an intimate theater experience watching emotional movies that have meaning.

But even so, there's so much exasperation in looking at current movie offerings. You either need to sit in an art theater watching a bleak period piece or you need to get your ears blasted by whatever action movie looks decent enough to give a try.

Even rarer, movies with happy endings are hard to find these days, and even when they are found can feel a little thin, because we're so conditioned to expect movies to be REAL.

"Thor wouldn't have been able to fight Loki because they're brothers

and since Thor is an ENFJ it's clear that sexism has a role in his ability..."

Maybe that's our problem. Nothing can really get away with being half-real anymore -- you're either totally entrenched in fantasy or you're totally entrenched in what real life is like.

If you watch movies from the 1940s, their flavor is almost comically theatrical. Movements are exaggerated and accents are overly clipped, and everything has an air of being more dramatic. They're even scored that way.

And this isn't necessarily something that's limited to super old movies. Think about movies like The Patriot or Armageddon, that defied common sense (LET'S SEND OIL DRILLERS TO SAVE THE PLANET). Everything is soooo overdone -- they spend so much time playing on your heartstrings that by the end of the film they've got blisters. Can you imagine making movies like those today?

I DONWANNA CLOOOSE MY EEEYYYYEESSS

In a way, actually, this cheesy factor has almost come full circle. Think about avant garde comedy like Tim and Eric, or satire news sites like The Onion. And while movies, given their time frames, have a trickier time pulling these kinds of full-circle comedy pieces, they have discovered the next best thing: nostalgia.

Our culture is so entrenched in nostalgia that you have runaway successes like Disney's easy-out method of making live-action remakes of their beloved cartoons, or churned-out super hero movies based on age-old comics. We are so overwhelmed by choices that we end up reverting back to what we loved as kids. It's easy! We've already seen it! We're BOUND to love it!

And especially at a time where we're used to bingeing shows and continuing narratives, it makes sense that we would want to see more of our favorite characters. It's like we've been waiting for years for our favorite series to get revamped (which is also happening at breakneck speeds).

Don't even get me started on this bullshit.

Alright, this has been a long and complainy post. But I had to get it out of my system. I promise next one will be less grouchy.

Best of the Worst: RomComs of Yesteryear

I've been bingeing on terrible romcoms from the late 90s/early 00s, and I need to talk about how terrible-wonderful they are.

Remember those days? When you were given a heroine and a love interest and they HATED each other and then they LOVED each other and then they HATED each other again and then they MADE UP and there were some funny things that happened in between? They really don't make 'em like that anymore. The formula doesn't really work anymore. The closest thing that we've gotten in recent memory are things like Trainwreck and The Other Woman, neither of which did incredibly well. So let's go back in time to when things were formulaic and the world was a little bit simpler.

Kate and Leopold
 

The powers that be decided to take two of their ole romcom staples and shove them into another formulaic masterpiece. Said shoved actors in this case are Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman. Watching this through the lens of current movies -- in which we see the romcom becoming a dying breed because audiences now thirst for authenticity -- this movie is a riot. When Kate (Meg Ryan) discovers that her ex-boyfriend/neighbor has found a portal into 1876 and that a duke has followed him back, she doesn't believe him. But Leopold (Hugh Jackman) is a breath of fresh air in the terribly rushed, tech-obsessed (Kate can't find her Palm Pilot!!), and cigarette-fueled year of 2001. Will Kate decide to take Leopold as he is (a duke from 1876) or will she choose her demanding career as an ad exec. I'll give you one guess.

What Women Want
 

Oh, Mel. What happened? Charming-if-misogynistic Nick (Mel Gibson) is New York's hottest ad exec, but is becoming wary of the fact that he is only ever assigned ad content for men (hot women, hot cars, hot things in general). When his new boss, Darcy (Helen Hunt), not only steals his promotion but turns out to be a woman, Nick is eager to make her look like a fool. One night, in a twist of fate, he electrocutes himself and is given the gift of hearing women's thoughts. Using this talent for his own means, he invades the thoughts of his new boss to create an ad campaign that will speak to women -- and accidentally ends up falling in love with her. An interesting study in work ethics and dating policies, it is also a hilarious study in the dated polarity of perceived men's vs. women's thoughts. I mean, how could any man POSSIBLY know what a woman is thinking without having to read her thoughts!?

The Wedding Planner
 

JLo plays a career-driven wedding planner named Mary who simply does not have time for men. But all that changes when she has a brush with death and is saved by hot, young pediatrician Steve (Matthew McConaughey). Only one problem -- he's the groom in her client's wedding. As Mary and Steve's chemistry becomes more and more undeniable, will he still go through with his wedding? I think my favorite part of the Wedding Planner these days is how caught up I get in A) how incredibly horrendous JLo is as an actress and B) the color palette of this movie. I bet you think I'm kidding about the latter thing, but I dare you to find another movie where the color lavender should have its own casting credit. Seriously. Look at the trailer even. It could be a drinking game.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
 

Nobody likes a Mr. Sniffles! This film follows Andie (Kate Hudson) a journalist trying to write a piece about how to (you guessed it) lose a guy in ten days. How fortuitous, then, that her prey happens to be Ben (Matthew McConaughey), who ALSO happens to be a journalist trying to write a piece about how to make a woman fall in love with him in ten days (why they didn't land on that as the title, the world may never know). As Ben tries harder to make Andie stick around, Andie's crazy gets out of control. It's actually a pretty fun movie to be honest, if totally cringe-worthy. (You're not helping the women-aren't-crazy movement, Andie.)

He's Just Not That Into You
 

Oh my god. This is a cringe-fest of a movie that I can never turn off once I've turned it on. I don't even know why. It's like watching a car accident. Every time I watch this, I'm literally just shouting at the screen. "GIGI. WHAT ARE YOU DOING. JUST CHILL. OMG." It's like watching everyone on screen willfully make the worst relationship decisions in the book. And somehow, bafflingly, everyone ends up happy. I'm not even going to bother trying to explain the plot of this ensemble nightmare. Just watch the trailer.

Serendipity
 

Jonathon (John Cusack) and Sarah (Kate Beckinsale) meet one fated Christmas Eve when they're both shopping for gloves. After having an evening so romantic they could've hopped a plane to Vegas and gotten married, they decide, instead, to let Fate take it from there, and part ways waiting for a sign that they should see each other again. Fast forward ten years to the weekend of Jonathon's wedding, and Sarah's engagement. Both of them can't stop thinking of each other, and the film turns into their frenzied attempts to get closure before taking a lifelong plunge of commitment with other people. Because that is exactly the right time to pursue someone that you had a pretty good time with this one day, ten years ago, for eight hours.

My Best Friend's Wedding

Julianne Potter (Julia Roberts) has just received the news that her ex (Dermot Mulroney), who has been her best friend for 9 years, is marrying a 20-year-old that he met a few months before (Cameron Diaz). Trying to make every woman's nightmare into a fun romp where you're supposed to side with the "other woman" is a little...strained in this flick. And you can bet your ass that in real life things wouldn't be okay by the reception. Lawd.

Coyote Ugly

Ugh, Piper Perabo always seemed to me like a poor man's Julia Roberts. In this fun and trashy flick, Perabo plays Violet, a girl from Jersey who moves to New York City to pursue a career in songwriting. The only problem is that Violet has crippling stage fright, which she apparently hasn't considered might be a stumbling block. After getting a job at a trashy bar called Coyote Ugly, Violet meets Kevin, who gives her the confidence she needs to perform her songs in public. I just gave away the entire movie. Sorry not sorry.

Notting Hill

To be fair, I watched this after two glasses of whiskey and that made it reeeeally fun to make fun of. In a world where Hollywood actresses walk around without security and travel book stores still existed, we meet our heroes: Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) and William Something (Hugh Grant). When Anna meets William at his travel book store, it's an almost instant attraction. Making sure the audience knows that each of them are totally down to earth despite Anna's ritzy background and William's humble one, they quickly fall in love. But fate doesn't seem to be on their side at first, throwing obstacles in their way. Will Anna and William make it work? Tbh, Anna and William have like 0 chemistry and when (spoiler alert! or is it..) they end up together at the end there's a resounding question: "Why?" The story also features William's spectacularly depressing troupe of friends, his zany roommate, and his sister, who is so uncomfortably quirky that she's bordering on insane.

Someone Like You

Okay, this one isn't as terrible as it is a little bewildering. Jane (Ashley Judd) falls in love with Ray (Greg Kinear) but he soon leaves her to go back to his girlfriend. Seeking revenge for her broken heart, Jane moves in with her platonic coworker Eddie (Hugh Jackman) and dives into a harebrained scientific theory about cows and why guys have trouble being monogamous (yes, really). I will say that while the plot is kind of weird, Judd and Jackman are cute, and the movie is half light-hearted romcom and half dealing-with-heartbreak in a way that you don't typically find anymore. Good old-fashioned fluff right here kids, step right up.

Head Over Heels
 

Amanda (Monica Potter) works in art restoration, and moves in with four fashion models after discovering her fiance cheating on her. After meeting a handsome neighbor (Freddie Prinze Jr.), she's convinced that she can move on. But after spotting what looks like foul play, she's determined to get to the bottom of his life before another man can sweep her off her feet in a web of lies. You can imagine her relief when said neighbor is just a CIA agent (where are these people getting these jobs???). Serious points for creativity on this one. Also the high fashion of the early 00s is a riot.