Oh come on, no one is surprised I went to see this movie. Alone. On Valentine's Day. I consider it one of my responsibilities to meet expectations. Now, back to the review...Hey look, another romantic comedy featuring a huge ensemble cast of pretty people! How could this possibly go wrong? The thing about these large ensemble cast movies is trying juggle all the various stories and often being left with the feeling that you never really get enough time with any of them. So I was relatively pleased to find myself fairly satisfied by the movie in terms of getting around to everyone. Of course, the deal here is that everyone is connected in some way. They're friends or coworkers or parents or whatever... As the movie progresses you are able to pick out who hasn't had their connections yet and fit them in to the proper slots, so not so much a mystery, but still fun. In the end, the bad people get their due and the good people find happiness and everything is right with world. I'm not complaining. With regard to the movie, anyway.
Leap Year is another fairly typical romantic comedy utilizing the "fish-out-of-water" scenario. Boston upper-middle-class woman travels to Ireland on a quest to propose to her boyfriend of four years who has yet to propose to her. Unfortunately, instead of landing in Dublin, the plane is diverted to England, and she is forced to work her way across sea and land to find love and ends up discovering it in the one place she would never have expected. You know you're in well-trod territory when the female lead is trying to walk in stiletto heals on dirt roads. Still, I enjoyed the movie for what it was and found the actors charming and the resolution fairly satisfying.
I don't think I have ever seen such creative and artistic ways to conduct mass slaughter with blades. There was slaughter in rain. Slaughter in fire. Slaughter on the highway. Slaughter in an old castle. Slaughter in darkened apartments. Slaughter in warehouses. Slaughter in a bar. I can't remember exactly, but I think that's pretty much it. On the downside, and not unexpectedly, the plot was weak. But hey, did I mention there's lots of slaughter?
Basically, go watch director Shane Acker's 
Post Grad follows a fairly predictable trajectory as recent college graduate Ryden (Alexis Bledel) discovers that life after school isn't so much under her control. When she fails to get her dream job and is forced to live at home with her perfectly normal abnormal family, her confidence in herself and her dreams begins to waver. Most of this is handled well and convincingly, though I kind of felt like Michael Keaton as Ryden's Dad was attracting way too much attention to himself. What really attracted me to the movie, though, was the romantic sub-plot between Ryden and her best (and as far as we can tell, only) friend Adam, who has clearly been in love with Ryden for years and clearly dealt with her "just friends" response for just as long. There were some really good juicy slivers of romance in there, but it rarely got as intense as it was suggesting it might. So while I was finally choked up a little at the end, I still felt like some really great potential was squandered on less interesting sub-sub-plots involving Dad.
When I saw the trailer for this movie my initial thoughts were "Now there is a good romantic movie sure to twist and manipulate my heartstrings. I can't wait!" I hate being disappointed by something that seems so easy (seriously, commercials make me cry). I think I actually did get choked up once, but I don't remember what it was about and it definitely wasn't anything central to the story. Anyway, the basic premise is, guy travels back and forth within his own lifetime (yes, just like Quantum Leap and Journeyman). That's pretty much it. This traveling means he knows who he's going to marry and how he's going to die and what his daughter's name will be, etc. The key idea here is what it means to know one's destiny. That should introduce all sorts of interesting questions and ponderings, but TTTW just doesn't care. They'd rather whine about how much it sucks that he travels and that he can't control it, which really emphasizes how stupid it is to whine about. 
I heard an interview on NPR earlier in the week with two of the three leads of Paper Heart, Charlyne Yi and Jake Johnson, which included several clips from the movie and commentary from these two on what the interviews meant to them and, well, let me explain what's going on... Paper Heart is a faux documentary in which Charlyne is searching for love. Both what love is and maybe to find love herself or at least discover whether she is capable of love. The scenes between Charlyne, Jake (as Nick) and Michael Cera are all scripted. Seriously. These real actors are playing characters similar to themselves, but still not themselves. Everything else, all of the interviews with celebrities and "real" people across America are completely real.
Oh look, another Judd Apatow movie. This time, instead of foul-mouthed teenagers we have foul-mouthed comedians (who are kind of like teenagers, I guess). The movie is set up to be a fairly straightforward "seize the day" idea wherein Adam Sandler's character is pushed close to death by a rare disease. But, in a miraculous turn, the experimental Canadian drugs work and he's gunna live! No mystery there, it's all in the trailer. Also in the trailer is Sandler's growing relationship with an old ex, 
