Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from December, 2011

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, OR WHY ARE ROMANTIC COMEDIES SO BAD?

  Warning: possible spoilers for all 5 of you who have not seen the following but intend to someday: The Shop Around The Corner, In The Good Old Summer Time, You’ve Got Mail , the play She Loves Me, the play Parfumerie, and all the others who have ripped off that plot. Every year, Hollywood throws together a few haphazard romantic comedies in a way that suggests they think it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. Just throw together two good-looking actors, have them fall over once or twice, maybe a supporting role for an up-and-coming comic, and voila! You are done.  Oh nonononono. This is why, if I say I like romantic comedies, I might as well be saying I like Hummel figurines or velvet paintings of crying eagles. I only like good ones, OK! Of which only a handful have been released since the end of Hollywood’s golden age. Romantic comedies are actually the hardest genre to get right. A good romantic comedy is a delicate machine of many intricate parts. Rem