For many movie fans in relationships, Valentine’s Day will probably involve enduring a crappy romantic comedy with your Significant Other. I say “crappy” because, frankly, the vast majority of rom-coms are soul-crushingly awful movies. In today’s Roundtable, we highlight some of the worst of this genre we’ve suffered through.
\n<\/p>\n
Shannon Nutt<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n This is a tricky topic this week, as I’d like to think I’ve managed to avoid most of the truly horrible rom-coms that have come down the pike in the last couple of decades. However, one that I got sucked (or is that “suckered”?) into seeing was 2009’s godawful ‘Bride Wars<\/a>‘ – a movie I was interested in thanks to my then (but no more) love of all-things, Anne Hathaway. This one features Anne and co-star Kate Hudson as two girls who schedule their weddings on the same day at the same location. Hijinks ensue. Humor does not.<\/p>\n Mike Attebery<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Before he returned to TV to host ‘Late Night’, Jimmy Fallon went the route of so many ‘SNL’ alumni before him \u2013 he made terrible movies. In the case of ‘Fever Pitch<\/a>‘, he teamed with my least favorite filmmaking brothers, the Farrellys, to adapt a book by one of my favorite authors, Nick Hornby. Hornby’s books have been transferred to America beautifully<\/a> in the past, and even here, changing the love story of a fanatical football (soccer) fan to that of a fanatical baseball fan was all well and good. But the needless Farrelly gags, the complete lack of chemistry between Fallon and Drew Barrymore, and Fallon’s hopelessness as an actor all made this film flat-out bad.<\/p>\n M. Enois Duarte<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n One of the most painful rom-coms I’ve had to watch was ‘Mr. Wrong<\/a>‘. As talented as Ellen DeGeneres may be, she is not in any way, shape or form a convincing romantic lead. Playing opposite her is Bill Pullman, whose character starts off as the man of her dreams but quickly turns into a nightmare. The only things of interest in this are that the movie was directed by Nick Castle (famous for being “The Shape” in the original ‘Halloween’), and that the movie is a rare mix of rom-com and very dark comedy. The story is ultimately an unfunny series of cruel, humiliating events, and DeGeneres is always at the receiving end of the punishment. The whole film leaves a nasty taste in my mouth and is just about the worst thing you could watch on Valentine’s Day.<\/p>\n Brian Hoss<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n This topic brought to mind one of the worst movies that I’ve ever seen, and in the theater no less. It should be a given that ‘Good Luck Chuck<\/a>‘ is neither funny nor romantic, but the movie goes to another level wherein the cast must be crippled by shame anytime someone reminds them that they starred in this. Dane Cook plays a hard-luck dentist, and Jessica Alba is a so-clumsy-it-hurts marine biologist. They slog through one painful scene after another. With plenty of visible boom mics, the movie trudges along, insulting both good and bad relationships. All the while, Dan Fogler somehow manages to make the movie worse in each of his scenes. Frankly, I felt bad writing about ‘Good Luck Chuck’, as it’s only notable at all as a cautionary tale of how badly a romantic comedy can go off the rails.<\/p>\n Luke Hickman<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n This topic is hard because there are so many examples to choose from. The easy answer would be to go with any given Nicholas Sparks adaptation, but I have to pick the movie named after this holiday: ‘Valentine’s Day<\/a>‘. What an utter waste. It had the potential to be an Americanized version of ‘Love Actually’, but is instead wasted with clich\u00e9, horribly one-dimensional characters and sappy manipulation.<\/p>\n Let’s see what I can remember from it: The man that we think soldier Julia Roberts is shooting Bradley Cooper down for is actually her son (ahhhhhh); Jessica Alba wants to divorce Ashton Kutcher when she realizes that he’s the douche from all the camera commercials; Jessica Biel has something to do with sports; Bradley Cooper plays a gay character; two old people watch a movie together in a cemetery; Taylors Swift and Lautner play a nerdy on-screen couple (a la Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez); and Emma Roberts wants to lose her virginity. Muddled and congested, nothing works. A movie about one of these individual storylines may have worked (emphasis on “may”), but none of them come together in this amateurish screenplay.<\/p>\n