27 Dresses - The Movie Review

She's always a bridesmaid and never a bride, dreaming of finding a guy to sweep her off her feet and give her the storybook romance she's longed for most of her life. He's a cynic, announcing he doesn't believe in love but secretly hiding a deep-seated optimism that true love is out there somewhere. Can they get past their external differences and discover they're meant to be together? Every bit of 27 Dresses is formula, from the characters and their arcs to the plot that brings in complications up until its final act where everyone lives happily ever after.

It's as predictable as the answer to that question, and yet, I'm recommending it. The reason is simple: The cast makes it work. There's no way to be surprised by what happens in the film or even how it all happens, but what is surprising is the level of ease with which these actors manage to help us forget for a large chunk of the movie's running time that they are playing basic character types, set up solely as tools of a formula script. That the script doesn't overdo the complications helps, too, and it somehow works.

Ever since attending her first wedding at the age of eight where she helped the bride fix a torn dress, Jane (Katherine Heigl) has known that helping people at their weddings is what she wants to do, and all the while, she "couldn't wait for [her] own special day." Now in her late twenties, Jane is still helping friends and family with their weddings, up to attending two weddings as a bridesmaid in one night. While partying at one of those weddings, Kevin (James Marsden), a wedding writer for a New York newspaper, notices Jane occasionally ducking out, and when Jane is knocked down and out in the scuffle for the bouquet, he helps her out.

While sharing a cab, he discovers her two-wedding shuffle, and they learn they are polar opposites when it comes to their feelings on love and marriage. Jane accidentally leaves her schedule in the taxi, and Kevin, being the nosy reporter he is, takes a gander through it, finding out she has a string of weddings she's attended. At work, Jane has a major crush on her boss George (Edward Burns) but hasn't said anything to him. After all, she is his assistant.

To complicate matters for our already lonely heroine, Jane's sister Tess (Malin Akerman) arrives in town and starts a whirlwind romance with George under false pretenses based on information Jane gave her baby sister about her crush. Meanwhile, Kevin sees Jane as the potential subject for a legitimate story�a piece that could jump-start his career. There's nothing new to this story, but screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna does take enough time setting up Jane's perpetual romantic misery, her willingness to do anything for a friend (let alone a sister), and her hope for a love to call her own to make her a sympathetic character.

Katherine Heigl is endearing in the role, and while every move of her character's arc is based on the necessities and complications of the plot, she manages to make us care enough about Jane to ignore it. Take the scene in which she watches as Tess and George start their relationship. She's just gotten up the courage to talk to him at a club (after thinking he sent her flowers), and as she approaches, she watches in devastated acceptance as Tess and George meet (after which she learns it was the dry cleaning bill he left on Jane's desk).

Heigl is solid here, but so is James Marsden as the determined but charming Kevin, who, of course, has a secret to hide about his romantic history to explain his misogamy. Malin Akerman is cute, difficult, and then surprisingly vulnerable as Tess has to live up to her sister's example only to find herself falling incredibly short, and Edward Burns is confident without being cocky. Even Judy Greer manages to pull off what is the most obvious formula character�that of the heroine's snarky, sex-loving friend. A story like this is usually full of complications up until the ultimate get-together of the leads, but McKenna's script is thankfully underwritten, allowing the initial obstacles to serve as the basis for Jane's own personal troubles.

The article that Kevin is writing hangs over the script as a potential, forced relationship-destroyer, and while the film's final act certainly follows through on that promise for a clich�d and strained footfall in Jane and Kevin's relationship, beforehand, we get an enjoyable scene of the two drunkenly trying to figure out the lyrics to "Bennie and the Jets" ("She's got electric boobs?"). Kevin also helps Jane grow a spine, and after everything hits the fan, she might have grown too much of one.

The movie is an undemanding romantic comedy, and I am not suggesting it's anything more or less than that. I wasn't bothered by its over-reliance on formula until after it was over, and the actors make the transparent examples forgivable. 27 Dresses does what it needs to do and is enjoyable in the process; there's not much else for which to ask.

Stupidest things to do!!!

As you probably already know, the Darwin awards are awarded annually

for the most extreme act of (occasionally terminal) stupidity - these
were for 2003.

RUNNER-UP The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat
cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim
to his insurance company. The company, suspecting negligence, sent out
one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine out
and lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.

RUNNER-UP A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for
his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find
a woman had taken the space for her car. Understandably, he shot her.

RUNNER-UP After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean
bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be
transporting from Harare to Beltway had escaped. Not wanting to admit
his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered
everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers
to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very
excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't
discovered for 3 days.

RUNNER-UP An American teenager was in the hospital yesterday
recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train.
When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he
was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving
train before he was hit.

RUNNER-UP A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on
the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash
drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the
register, which he clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from
the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total
amount of cash he got from the drawer? $15. (If someone points a gun
at you and gives you money, was a crime committed?)

RUNNER-UP Seems this Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He
decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store
window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and
heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back
and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious.
Seems the liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event
was caught on videotape.

RUNNER-UP As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store; a
man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and
the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the
snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They
put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then
taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To
which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole
the purse from."

RUNNER-UP The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked
into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun,
and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he
couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man
ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for
breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.

RUNNER-UP Kentucky Two men tried to pull the front off a cash machine
by running a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup
truck. Instead of pulling the front panel off the machine, though,
they pulled the bumper off their truck. Scared, they left the scene
and drove home. With the chain still attached to the machine. With
their bumper still attached to the chain. With their vehicle's license
plate still attached to the bumper. They were quickly arrested.


DARWIN WINNER, 2003. When his .38-caliber Revolver failed to fire at
his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California,
would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire
wonder: He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This
time it worked.

Wall E - The Movie

What if mankind had to leave Earth, and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off? After hundreds of lonely years of doing what he was built for, WALL*E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) discovers a new purpose in life (besides collecting knick-knacks) when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL*E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, and races back to space to report her findings to the humans (who have been eagerly awaiting word that it is safe to return home). Meanwhile, WALL*E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets an adventure into motion. Joining WALL*E on his journey across the universe is a cast of characters including a pet cockroach and a heroic team of malfunctioning misfit robots.

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