How Do You Know

I love Paul Rudd. I love Paul Rudd so much that during my junior and senior years of college, my roommates and I had a “Rudd-a-thon” where we watched as many of his movies as possible. I love Paul Rudd so much that my top three celebrity crushes, from biggest crush to slightly less big, are Jason Segal, Paul Rudd, Jon Stewart. Yes, he edges out Jon Stewart. But despite all that Rudd love, I wasn’t particularly excited about watching How Do You Know. It just looked bad. And guess what, it was!

How Do You Know chronicles the troubles of Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) and George (Rudd) and how they are eventually brought together. Lisa, a professional softball player, has just been cut from the team, and, as a way to cope, has started dating Matty (Owen Wilson) a clueless man-whore of a professional baseball player. George, meanwhile, is in the process of being indicted by his father’s company and, consequently, finds himself without a job. Oh, and also without a girlfriend, since his chose to leave him just as his life was going bad.

I realized about 15 minutes into the movie (about the time that the lesbian softball player caricatures showed up) that I should have done another stream-of-consciousness blog, but I wasn’t going to go back and watch the beginning again. Instead, you just get a few complaints from me.

What bothered me most about How Do You Know, was how unlikeable and unrelatable the characters were. Lisa was whiney and frustrating and someone I wouldn’t want to be friends with. George was nervous and neurotic and the not-cute kind of awkward (where was the Rudd charm?). Matty, who I should have hated because of his playboy tendancies, was the only one who won me over; he just reminded me of a dumb puppy. In a chick-flick (which I think is what this movie was supposed to be), I should fall for the romantic interest (in a good one, I should fall for both guys in the love triangle). Instead, I didn’t like anyone and counted down to the movie’s end.

How Do You Know gets a 1/5. I would have rather watched this SNL sketch, this Romeo + Juliet trailer (look for Rudd at the 23-30 second point. He's the dancing astronaut), and this scene from Sesame Street 100 times (and I probably did over the course of the Rudd-a-Thon).

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Paul Rudd

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Morning Glory

I approached Morning Glory with an open mind, not because I thought it was going to be a high quality movie, but because I thought it had to be better than the crappy action flicks that have populated the Shill over the past month. Unfortunately, that hope was soon crushed—by the first scene of the movie, no less.

Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams), producer of a morning TV program in New Jersey, devotes herself entirely to her job. At the beginning of the film, Becky is on a first date that is clearly not going well. Though this date was intended to show how much Becky values her job above personal relationships—she babbles about it, can’t resist picking up phone calls from work, and doesn’t manage to keep a conversation going with her date—it ends up showing that Becky is absolutely crazy. So when she gets fired from that job and begins frantically looking for a new one, I somewhat expected her to end up in a mental hospital. (Okay, not exactly true since the previews heavily indicated that Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton were going to be news anchors in the movie, but it seemed as though Becky was destined for a breakdown). Instead, Becky gets a job producing a different morning show, where she has to deal with the drama-queen antics of anchors Mike Pomroy (Ford) and Colleen Peck (Keaton) while attempting to combat the show’s tanking ratings.

Though the idea has some limited potential, Morning Glory didn’t go anywhere with it. Becky doesn’t stop placing an incredibly high priority on work, and I can’t imagine she would have any more success with future first dates. Of course, Becky doesn’t have to worry about first dates because Adam (Patrick Wilson), a dreamy guy she meets on her first day, somehow gets over the crazy and falls in love with her. Truth be told, the character of Adam seemed shoe-horned into the movie—perhaps to try to counteract the strange sexual tension between Becky and Pomroy.

As much as I like Ford (I will always be a little bit in love with Han Solo and Indiana Jones), he sure phoned it in for Morning Glory. When he was “angry” he used a voice akin to Christian Bale’s Batman, and his heartfelt moment towards the end of the movie lacked any believable emotion, (seriously, I thought he was being sarcastic). Nothing is worthy of comment about any of the others' “acting.”

Morning Glory gets, as you may have guessed, a 1/5. Still feel like watching a movie set in a newsroom? Pick up Anchorman instead; it’ll always have a 5/5 in my book.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Harrison Ford
Yes, that’s the interview that Daily Shill correspondent Andrea Levine attended. Read her report on the experience here!

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Sex and the City 2 (Day of Reviews, Post 3)

I haven’t seen any episodes of Sex and the City. I haven’t seen Sex and the City the movie. But, I can no longer claim that I haven’t seen Sex and the City 2. And that is a sad thing.

Let me tell you, the movie is rough. It follows four rich ladies, Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and the uptight redhead (whose name I can’t remember…okay, I’ve looked it up: she’s Miranda) to Dubai, perhaps the most excessive place in the world. In it, they wear crazy clothes, ride camels, drink, have sex (and get arrested for it), buy shoes, and complain about how hard their lives are at home. It was sickening.

Perhaps I would feel differently if I had followed these characters for years, but I doubt that. A few of my friends are Sex and the City fans, and they disliked the movie as well. The movie is not funny, dialogue is not natural (though that could be blamed on the writing rather than the acting), and characters are not relatable.

The highlight of Sex and the City 2 was watching Liza Minnelli perform “Single Ladies,” but any joy from that was taken away by the stereotype-filled gay wedding where the dance took place.

As you might expect, I’m giving the movie a 1/5.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with writer and director Michael Patrick King