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Friday B-Movie Pick: A New Leaf

Friday, January 27th, 2017

A New Leaf
We’re venturing back to 1971 for this interesting twist on the RomCom genre. Walther Matthau plays a New City City socialite who finds himself in the horrible position of being poor. It’s not some evil twist of fate that caused this, he just lived beyond his means at a rapid pace. His butler suggests an alternative solution to honorable suicide, find a rich woman and marry her. Matthau’s character takes this a step further and plans to murder his wife so he go back to his life of a rich bachelor. Enter Henrietta Lowell, played by Elaine May (who also wrote and directed the movie), a very rich, and socially clueless, young woman with no living family. This film has fine acting, but May’s over the top portrayal of the nearly helpless (except in her chosen field of biology) is a comedic high point. Matthau’s character, Henry, quickly wins her heart, gets married, goes on the honeymoon, and secures his financial security. All that is left is to kill Henrietta. When moving into his new wife’s mansion and estate, Henry finds the staff has been robbing his nearsighted wife blind, all with the help of her lawyer. This offends Henry’s principles, and fires the staff (at gunpoint when needed), and replaces with with a honest and reliable staff. Shortly after that, when Henrietta is about to drown and make his dreams come true, Henry finds that he would miss his wife, who truly loves him, and saves her. A delightful comedy with really first rate acting.

Friday B-Movie Pick Archive

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Friday B-Movie Pick: Just Go With It

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Just Go With It.

Ya, it’s a romcom, but it is an Adam Sandler romcom. So expect some low brow, but damn funny humor. While swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker provides most of the eye candy in the film, Jennifer Aniston manages to slip in one bikini scene, which she handles quite well. That scene also leads to one of many great lines in the movie, “She takes spinning classes like they’re M&M’s.” Aniston holds her own with Sandler on the comedy as well. While she was hired as a pretty face on Friends, ten seasons of a TV sitcom show did give here plenty of time to hone her comedic acting skills. If you are looking for an off-beat romcom, complete with sheep CPR, check it out.

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Friday B-Movie Pick: The Wedding Date

Friday, June 5th, 2009

The Wedding Date

From supernatural action, I dive deep into the pits of RomCom. Yup, having been married for a while, I’ve seen more than my fair share of Romantic Comedies. I’m counting this one as a B-Movie, it was shot in the UK to keep the budget down. Despite that, it has a pretty good cast of Americans, including Amy Adams while she wasn’t so famous. Other yanks in the cast include Dermot Mulroney, Debra Messing and Holland Taylor. For you Disney Pirates fans, you’ll recognize Jack Davenport as well. It is a fun little film with a good cast, some great comedy. It as has one of my favorite lines in a RomCom. Holland Taylor, playing the mother asks Debra Messing’s character what is wrong. Messing delivers the come back with style, “Nothing a bottle of Jack and straight razor wouldn’t fix.”

The Friday B-Movie Archive.

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