Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day

Ever since Robert Altman filmed a series of Raymond Carver's stories as Short Cuts in 1993, Hollywood has harbored a curious fascination with the ensemble movie. Efforts have ranged from the highbrow (Magnolia, Gosford Park) to the thrilling (Sin City, Ocean's Eleven), but it seems that producers love nothing more than an A-list cast that stretches to infinity and beyond.

In that respect Valentine's Day is an outstanding success, enlisting the talents of so many household names that they struggled to fit them all on one poster. From Julia Roberts to Patrick Dempsey, this is a movie that wears its stars - whether they be A-list, B-list or C-list - proudly on its sleeve.

Unfortunately the cast list is all the producers of Valentine's Day can be proud of, as the film itself is a sorry mess of romantic cliches and truly muddled storytelling. They're so busy trying to cram every actor and acting wannabe into the movie (Taylor Swift? QPR midfielder Nigel Quashie??) that they forgot to include a narrative along the way - and a series of Valentine's-themed sketches really doesn't make for a satisfying movie.

There's an attempt to tie the various stories together through Ashton Kutcher's florist, but the coincidences wear thin so quickly that you'd be forgiven for thinking L.A. has a population of only a couple of hundred people. As Kutcher rushes across town attempting to hold both his business and his engagement together (and surely if you were a florist you'd think twice about proposing on the busiest day of the year...), he runs into almost every major character, and some minor ones, in a flurry of ridiculously improbable odds.

Forget six degrees of separation - in L.A. you'd be lucky to get beyond two or three.

There are a few notable high points, including Julia Roberts' burgeoning friendship with Bradley Cooper and Hector Elizondo's charming partnership with Shirley MacLaine, but these are given so little screen time that each feels barely longer than a trailer. If they ever made them into features then these are certainly movies that we'd pay to see - but Valentine's Day is about as engaging as the pre-movie show.

Kathy Bates, Queen Latifah, Anne Hathaway, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, and the Jessicas Alba and Biel are all wasted on roles that range from the barely-there to the barely-coherent, as the screenwriters try to force both the narrative and the laughs into their pre-fabricated mould. The end result is about as convincing as Benny Hill, and considerably less funny.

Mind you, those wily producers clearly knew they'd have an audience at least once a year for the next twenty years. Expect to see Valentine's Day on a TV screen near you next February.

2/5

Valentine's Day

Starring:  Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Emma Roberts, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Jennifer Garner, Jamie Foxx, Ashton Kutcher...to name a few.
Romantic Comedy, 2010
A series of interwoven stories plays out on Valentine's Day.  This day means something different to everyone.  There are affairs, new love, lonely hearts, and broken hearts as everyone attempts to find their way on Valentine's Day.

• This is a classic case of a movie that tried way too hard to be good. 
• I'm not going to say it was bad but it really just didn't "Do" anything for me.  The characters were mostly shallow and one dimensional.  I found that I really didn't connect or care all too much about what happened to any of them.
• I did like the way the stories wove together in unexpected ways but other then that this movie just sort of fell flat for me.  I can't quite put my finger on it.  There was just something missing.
• You certainly can't criticize the cast.  That's for sure.  With an all star cast of a huge variety of established and new actors there was likely a favorite in there for everyone.
• It was nice to see Taylor Swift take her first stab at acting.  She played the ditz and I don't know if was because the movie itself was so flat to me but her acting kind of felt that way too. 

3/5 Stars

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Just Me

Valentine's Day un film de Garry Marshall

Valentine's Day is the new movie  from the director who made the refreshing Pretty Woman in 1990, Runaway  Bride and the two Princess  Diaries. Well, not a talented firector but a veteran. He should  be armed to make an efficient movie and entertain his public.

With  his last movie, Valentine's Day he fails to make an entertaining and  efficient. Since the succes of Love  Actually we've seen many attempt to recreate the same multi  stories based on different kinds of love, for example last year's He's Just Not That Into You was a  complete failure and can be one of the worsts of 2009.

For Valentine' s Day it's pretty much the  same, a cast of many big names, many stories that touch many  characters. The too many stories set in Valentine's Day diluate their  quality. Because there is not a single story that goes very far and the  film has no deepness in it. They fell into clichés of melodrama. The  characters are so sterortyped that they could have drew them with a big  black marker.

So stories had potential but they all felt fake and  unvanished. I think if the script had been reworked and some stories  thrown out this could have make an entertaining and efficient film.

On  the appreciation side, if I can had something to what has been said  before, well I dislike the kind of movie where the producers thinks that  people are stupid and that they will buy whatever story just because  it's Valentine's Day in L.A.. Now I can't wait for the holidays to  rewatch Love Actually and see  an entertaining and efficient film!

A Movie Review by Michael Parent

http://cinephiliaque.blogspot.com/2010/03/valentines-day-un-film-de-garry.html

Recommendations: Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Duel

Valentine's Day

You know you're in romantic comedy trouble when the two hottest guys in the movie are (*spoiler-alert*) secretly gay and the most mature feelings of love belong to a ten year old.

One Word Movie Review: DESPERATE

Valentine's Day is a love bouquet of pretty Hollywood stars artfully arranged by a veteran Hollywood director to deliver a box office hit. Yes, flowers are the core of this film which takes place during the busiest day of artificially-sweetened affection of the year: Valentine's Day. More flowers and phone
sex minutes are bought on this day than any other. Now we can add movie tickets as well, by innocent optimists lured into theaters by the slick trailers and TV ads featuring beautiful people in love.

The reality is far different, with most everyone in Valentine's Day either depressed, jilted, cheating or hopelessly naive. The expected "happy" endings require the connect-the-dots improbability of one degree of separation between characters we thought were scattered across the giant city of Los Angeles.  No, apparently they all frequent the same social circles, restaurants and flower shops, even family bonds. One
character shares her real life with a younger movie version of herself, acting as backdrop to her present marital conflicts.

The reason to see this movie is to watch the stars at play, and there are many on show here, some with more clothes than others but all damn attractive and doing their best to make something funny happen while we're watching. In fact, stay to the very end for the outtakes mixed in with the credits because there was one that made me laugh, which was more than I could say for the actual movie. As for the spoiler alert on the gay guys, you don't know until near the end so be careful who you're rooting to get hitched up because there are a few cheap reversals in the third act.

The Story

Valentine's Day is about one day in LA, starting with the usual shots of morning sun on the beach piers, freeway traffic slogging down the valleys, gardeners parking their trucks in Beverly Hills' driveways and joggers pushing baby strollers around Hollywood. Then we meet all the characters, either in bed or on the job or at school or in a plane. They all drip with cuteness as they propose, compose or dispose of each other. As Ashton Kutcher (playing his usual character, the casual cool dude with the sensitive inner core) ramps up his flower business, Patrick Dempsey is leaving his mistress for his wife and Jamie Foxx is arguing his demotion from local TV sports reporter to fluff on-the-street interviews about love.

The women are equally fascinating, with Jennifer Garner teaching school, Julia Roberts sleeping on a plane in her Army uniform and Jessica Alba doing something career-wise although it's not really clear but it's damn important. Add in an old couple, two teenage couples, a young boy with a teacher crush, two talent agency mail/reception flunkies, one star football quarterback and one publicist and you have the machinery in motion for hilarity and heartfelt sentimentality.

If only that were true.

Instead, we get the gears of this plot slipping and grinding on the "inklings" we hide from each other (I didn't know you wanted me to tell you the truth), the urges we suppress (I think we should wait to have sex, now that I've said it out loud) and the grand message that the best love starts out as friendship (I'm about to kiss my best friend!). Add in an order of chopped, crushed testicles, offers of make-up sex and rebound sex, dirty phone sex talk and the aforementioned plot coincidences that tie up all the loose ends and we have the obligatory happy ending with a kiss and those three words you always end Valentine's Day with, whether in real life or in a movie: "let's get naked!"

Fade out to credits and those great outtakes. Obviously, the cast had fun making the movie. More fun than we had watching it.

The Genre

The romantic comedy genre is all about formula, where boy meets girl, boy loses girl and then boy gets girl again, fade out on a kiss. This has worked from the early movies to now, when done well. With Valentine's Day, the producers figured they should multiply the boys and girls in the above formula and it would make a better movie. Why have only two stars meeting, separating and falling back together again? Why not two, or three or four?

Why not? Well, because we don't get enough story with every character to really care about each one and we will not like all of them. Have you ever been at a party and enjoyed the company of everyone you met? No, the odds of liking everyone is very low. This hold true for movies as well. The more characters we're asked to follow, the more chance we'll hate them, especially if they're a known star playing against their screen image. Who wants to see Star XYZ as a gay? Or Star ABC as a self-centered career woman? (I don't name them so you'll enjoy figuring it out yourself if you decide to watch this movie - it is enough of a spoiler to mention that two of the lead men are gay.)

Romantic comedies are "light" movies, fluff for couples looking for a diversion before their own real-life romantic comedy. As such, expectations for this genre are low and, unfortunately, falling lower with the rise of R-rated films dominating the comedy hit list. One character states she likes things simple, as the poor guy waves the band away from the doorway. Simple works, if it makes sense. However, another character states sarcastically, "Guys love surprises". In movies, we all like something to surprise us. Oh well, we got stars and sunshine instead of the holy trinity of love as another character states: smart, sensitive and sexy. Hey, that's a formula that works. You see, they knew what they needed to do. They just didn't deliver.

The Overall Quality

Having Taylor Swift stand out as one of the best actors in the movie, in her first role and being herself and you have some idea of what the other actors are doing. There isn't a sparkling performance to be seen by anyone, which is partly the material they have to work with and partly the fragmented style of the movie itself.

The locations are all familiar Los Angeles spots, from Venice to Malibu and the usual spots in between. The soundtrack is forgettable, in fact one doesn't notice the music until the very end, when a few montages demand a feature song. The movie is one long monotone.

They used to make war movies with a cast of stars, and lots of stuff got blown up, even if the performances were mediocre. In this all-star film, nothing blows up. There is no war. No desperation. No life or death struggle for top billing above the title. Just flowers.

Movie/Market Analysis

MarketBOB’s sentiment indicators, the GQS (Genre, Quality, Story) rate Valentine's Day an emotional BEAR. This is a desperate movie, desperate for box office business by packing in the stars while ignoring the script and visual storytelling to engage an audience. A waste of a lot of talent and effort and beautiful people. Oh, and a few dogs too.

Craig Forgrave (MarketBOB)

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Last updated: 2010-03-26 14:36:04 by user08

Valentine's Day: Movie Review

Another Valentine's Day is fast-approaching and we all know how hectic and strenuous (especially for the guys) that day is all the time - reservations for a romantic dinner, a bouquet of flowers is almost a must, a box of chocolates may already do for some and that is only the tip of the iceberg. But what is most important in celebrating Valentine's Day is that we must remember that it is all about love and no dinner or any object can ever replace one's love for another. Just wondering, anyone with a unique Valentine's Day story to share? Anyway, a literally star-studded film, aptly named "Valentine's Day", is attempting to make waves on the day of hearts by showing it in a unique light we don't normally see on the big screen - Valentine's Day and love in particular with its imperfections; warts and all. Read on to know if they succeeded or not.

"Valentine's Day" showcases the lives of different people as they individually cope with the day of hearts. The film starts off with Reed (Ashton Kutcher) as he proposes to his girlfriend Morley (Jessica Alba). Sad to say, her initial reaction is lukewarm. There is also Julia (Jennifer Garner), Reed's bestfriend, who is currently going out with a divorced heart surgeon, Harrison (Patrick Dempsey). Question is, is he telling the truth to Reed? We also meet Liz and Toper. Can Toper accept Liz's biggest secret from him? Julia's mother, Estelle (Shirley MacLaine) must reveal an affair from long ago to her husband, Edgar (Hector Elizondo). Will he accept her after this revelation? Their granddaughter (Emma Roberts) on the other hand is planning to have sex with her boyfriend during Valentine's Day to make the day really special for the both of them. Meanwhile, a publicist named Kara (Jessica Biel) and Kelvin (Jamie Foxx) both hate Valentine's Day. Can they discover what the day truly means for everyone else?

We can surmise that "Valentine's Day" is a must-watch - even after the high of Valentine's Day subsides. The film's magic, in our opinion, is on how it showed the imperfections of love and relationships and how people struggle to live through it (even playing dumb sometimes). What sets this apart is the feeling that the situations presented are down-to-earth, practical and real. These things happen and can even happen to us! Now was that too heavy? Ironically, the film was not slow or heavy at all. It was serious but had bouts of injected comedy from time to time that kept the overall mood light. The star-studded cast was outstanding and just seeing the who's who of Hollywood in one film is a sight to behold in its own right. The only flaw we see is that some characters were left out due to the nature of the film having so many story lines to develop. We also think some minor characters could have been cut and it would not have made any difference to the overall story or quality of the movie. We have a feeling that they just include some actors just to get more people to watch the film. The intertwined characters were also a bit too over-the-top for us - it was not cool at all and it made the movie somewhat predictable. Overall though, we highly-recommend this.

Rating: 4 and half reels 

Why you should watch it:
- a practical, no nonsense story on what love (and Valentine's Day) in reality is
- the movie was really, really funny

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- we felt that some characters lacked airtime (or the film could have lived without them)
- we did not like the overall theme of the characters being interconnected with each other in some small way /</igscript type="text/javascript"/>/ig</script>

Recommendations:

Last updated: 2010-03-11 19:33:01 by user06

Valentine's Day: It's not just hearts & flowers

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See you at the movies, The Movie Slut

Last updated: 2010-02-23 20:47:59 by user04

Valentine's Day

When William Randolph Hearst learned that Orson Welles' new movie, "Citizen Kane," was a thinly-veiled and unflattering biopic of the media mogul, he offered RKO Pictures eight hundred thousand dollars to destroy all copies of the film, including the negative, so that it might never be seen by anyone.

I've never understood how someone could feel that much unbridled rage toward a motion picture.

Until now.

"Valentine's Day," a romantic comedy ensemble featuring a dozen different plots, approaches the concept of love from every angle: the stupid, the superficial AND the inane.

You know what this movie's like. Ashton Kutcher plays a florist who is interviewed by reporter Jamie Fox, who ends up at a high school track meet where he interviews Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner, lovebirds who are friends with a couple planning to have sex for the first time, etc. etc. etc.

By the time the mouth of the snake reaches its tail, the movie has produced almost the entire roster of Hollywood stars, each of whom is connected to every other in a six degrees sort of way.

Thus "Valentine's Day" models itself after the underrated quasi-masterpiece "Love Actually" except that it is really, really bad.

Kutcher gets things off to a terrible start by being his hokey, cheesy self. He opens the movie by proposing in awkward fashion to his girlfriend, Jessica Alba, then throwing open the front door and bellowing in his best frat boy voice, "She said yes!" And with that we know we have just stepped into the first circle of hell.

At heart, the problem is all those plots. With so many characters and so many stories, you have to cut right to the chase, so characters have to say things like "I care more about my job than my personal life" and MEAN it because they only have forty-five seconds of screen time before we're zipping off to our next plot thread.

And if the bad story makes for bad writing, the bad writing makes for terrible acting. In a perverse way it's kind of gripping to watch all these Hollywood actors -- who get paid MILLIONS of dollars to act -- act so badly.

It's kind of gripping. But mostly embarrassing and uncomfortable.

The worst among them is Taylor Swift. The girl can't act. She can't really sing either, but she really, really can't act. I implore her agent to back off the Hollywood route. It can only hurt her brand. (See Carey, Mariah.)

Also horrendously false is Jennifer Garner and the aforementioned Ashton Kutcher.

The only actors to survive with images intact are newly-ascendant Bradley Cooper and Hollywood Royal Julia Roberts. Bizarrely they chose to play their scenes as if they were from the planet Earth. 

It helps that their little subplot was the only one with any genuine emotion in it.


I should probably mention the casual, clearly unintentional racism -- Bulgarians with "wacky accents" and Indians with a "wacky culture" take most of the punishment -- and the equally condescending attitude toward homosexuals. When one character emerges unexpectedly from the closet, the movie trumpets "it's okay to be gay!" while in other sections, ridiculous gay stereotypes are played for cheap laughs.

The last impression "Valentine's Day" leaves is how very much it wants to be liked. It is jam-packed with puppies, cute kids, flowers and all those attractive stars mugging for laughs and "awwwwwwww's."

But like a romantic partner who is too eager to please, the movie makes you suspect a terrible truth:

You can do better.

Lots, lots, lots, lots better.

SCORE:

How Accomplished: 24/100

How Much I Enjoyed: 12/100

Valentine's Day

I think it was an anomaly that I enjoyed this movie. Since I actually screened it on Valentine's Day, maybe I was just in the right mood for something to celebrate the holiday with. It doesn't really embody the meaning of the holiday that it snags its title from very well but it satisfies on a superficial level and that seemed to have been enough to work for me.
 
Most formulaic romantic comedies tend to have only a handful of interesting peaks to create the skeleton that furthers the story, with the meat, more often than not, tending to be nothing but puny fluff. But what makes Valentine's Day interesting, is that it has about a dozen storylines going on at once, so there really is no time for moments of pure fluff. Almost every scene is forced to serve a purpose or else there won't be a chance for the story to play out. It's as if 8 or 10 different films are combined into one digestible whole to spare us the gruesome filler of wannabe comedy.
 
That's not to say that any or all of the plots are even all that interesting. The cleverest and most charming would be the one with Anne Hathaway and Topher Grace (there are way too many well-known actors in this movie to bother citing character names... in fact the characters probably should have just been named after the actors) as a couple only 2 weeks into their relationship. The most hollow would be the one with Emma Roberts and Carter Jenkins as a teenage couple planning to give up their virginity during lunch hour on a school day. Surprise: mishaps occur and it doesn't work out so they decide to hold off. The consolation: "At least we can make out."
 
There are plenty of cliche moments, some slightly more deserved than others, but some of the dialogue plays out fairly decently. The smartest thing that writer Kathrine Fugate did was intertwine these stories in as many possible places to the point that I think it kept me distracted enough to avoid cynical developments. I was too busy piecing together the stories in my head. But the scenes are organized intuitively enough. Quite often I found myself trying to remember what was going on in the storyline of a character related to one on display when all of a sudden, there they were in the next scene! Also, the transitions between plotlines were fairly smooth and allowed for things to progress relatively well. On an interesting note, Taylor Swift showed some promising acting chops as a ditzy high school blonde.
 
I'll probably never watch this movie again. There is nothing to gain from ever watching it again. None of the many stories are very well developed to sustain me another time through. But it worked well the first time. Valentine's Day seems to have been made simply to provide couples a holiday-relevant option at the movie theatre and the chance to go "Ohh, it's *insert celebrity*!" on more occasions in one sitting than ever before. But if you are seeing it post-February 14th, then do not necessarily count on a favorable experience.

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Not in love with Valentine\'s Day

*no spoilers*
I was hoping to find love while watching Valentine\\\'s Day but instead I had to settle for just warm feelings.
Valentine\\\'s Day is the latest romantic comedy capturing the intertwining of pretty people in Los Angeles as they break-up, hook up, and make-up because of the pressures of Valentine\\\'s Day. Directed by \\\'Rom-Com\\\' veteran Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Princess Diaries), this film comes out at the perfect time of the year with the perfect title. Even though it was panned by critics, the myriad of V-Day couples just couldn\\\'t resist judging by the huge performance at the box office at $52 million this past weekend.

Valentine\\\'s Day is directed in a multi-vignettes style similar to other Rom-Coms like Love Actually and He\\\'s Just Not Into You. To say there was an ensemble cast would be a bit of an understatement, it was more like an army. I would list the actors starring in this but it might be easier to list who is not in the line up. It pretty much has anyone who is hot, sexy, popular, or personally connected with Garry Marshall (multiple actors have done several past movies with him).



In general, I like ensemble movies, especially when a bunch of A-listers are willing to share the spotlight. However, the challenge with these types of movies is trying to figure out how many characters and storylines can be introduced without turning into a convoluted mess. While Valentine\\\'s Day wasn\\\'t pure pandemonium I did feel I suffered from a little whiplash by the end. Each scene lasted for a mere few minutes and dialogue was often rushed to get to the next story. It was frustrating when you couldn\\\'t enjoy more time with characters you liked and just as annoying when enduring the rest.



Don\\\'t get me wrong, there were some enjoyable and sweet moments, but instead of feeling like I was watching a real movie, the fragmented momentum felt more like I was reading a newsletter. Valentine\\\'s Day was more of a \\\'what are they doing now\\\' type movie as it shows off its mighty cast. I have to admit, in the first 30 minutes it was a little starstruck when introduced to Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Ashton Kutcher, Julia Roberts, Taylor Swift and more (yes there were more). However, after the next 1 1/2 hours, it left me feeling like I just skimmed through a copy of People Magazine. I was mildly entertained but left feeling a little hollow.  



On a positive note, there were a few minor twists at the end which helps its largely predictable story line. For a movie launched on the most romantic day of the year, Valentine\\\'s Day doesn\\\'t live up to its namesake. It will serve it\\\'s purpose for a few weeks as it entertains the young lovers out there but after that it will be forgotten. It\\\'s unfortunate with such a talented cast and experienced director that this could have been the best romantic experience of the decade- instead of a likeable 2 hour distraction.

If you like People Magazine then check this out. If not, watch a stronger film like Love Actually for a better romantic comedy montage experience.

Check out our other reviews at BabbleOn5.com

Valentine's Day

Despite seeing the movie yesterday, I thought it would only be appropriate to publish a review today for obvious reasons. The two main problems I had with the film were the script, which was poorly written for everyone except Julia Roberts- and the length of the film. Even while watching the movie I pinpointed certain cast members whom were not needed for the film. With a smaller cast, more time may have been devoted to writing each part with hardly any flaws. However, when faced with an all-star cast the script more times than not, is lacking that spark. The film was filled with two hours of bad jokes and cheesy situations which made it even more of a drag. The only parts I enjoyed were those with Julia Roberts and Bradley Cooper. Their chemistry made the film what it attempted to turn out to be. Ashton Kutcher also did a good job. He is a talented actor that is usually handed an awful script. For his next film, Garry Marshall should try cutting down the size of the cast and focus on a few actors' scripts. 1 and a half out of 4 stars.

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Valentine's Day: Not just hearts and flowers

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"Valentine's Day" has a star-studded cast. Everyone from Ashton Kutcher to Anne Hathaway, from Jennifer Garner, to Jamie Fox, from Julia Robers to Shirley MacLaine appears on the screen. But don't hold that against it. And its subject is far from profound. Don't hold that against it either. In fact, while this flick may not be more than the sum of its parts — oh, those parts.
"Valentine's Day" has been compared — negatively — to the brilliant 2003 British film, "Love Actually," which also boasts an ensemble cast. But the Movie Slut believes the real yin to its yang is "Crash," the 2005 movie, which also takes place in L.A.and presents a series of stories that interlock every which way.

Think of "Valentine's Day" as "Crash" on a sugar high.

While "Crash" revolved around racism and violence, this movie focuses on what fools we mortals turn into on the "most romantic day of the year."
The Movie Slut was expecting a predictable pastiche of syrupy vignettes. How wrong she was. There are surprises in this film and some really funny jabs at the insanity of a holiday that only Hallmark can love.

See you at the movies, The Movie Slut

Valentine's Day

And so it went on and on. Put it this way, if you found He's Just Not That Into You to be a misunderstood masterpiece then this will be right up your alley. This basically remakes that film, but relocates it to Valentine's Day and throws in a little less cynicism (if that is possible) and a little more Ashton Kutcher. Speaking of which, when you've got Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Anne Hathaway and countless others in your cast. Why is Ashton Kutcher the god damn lead. Why? I will stop typing while somebody explains it to me. Seriously. Jesting aside, this is a horrible, horrible film. So falsely twee it hurts sometimes, and the portmanteau of it basically laves you watching ten bad romantic comedies fr the price of one. Score.

Fuck describing the plot. I don't care, mostly because they don't care either. Its just a series of weak ass cutesy cliches. Old couple still love each other. Pre-pubescent lovestruck kid. Best friends who really belong with each other. Julia Roberts playing a marine. The usual romantic comedy stuff. There are some good actors here, so in spite of the cack put in front of them they manage to maintain dignity. I'd say Anne Hathaway, Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx and Topher Grace get a pass. Grace is increasingly becoming one of those actors I kind of like with no real grounding and as I'm sat here I can't name you a great Topher Grace performance. But I guess I like the dude anyway. How generous am I? Also, I won't go so far as to say she has acting ability, but teen country pop singer had an amiable lack of precociousness. She made light of herself and even did a pretty solid pratfall. The worst of it is Kutcher obviously, Garner who can be a good actress, as she drastically proved in Juno, but not here. And pretty much everyone else.

If you want to see a movie to justify your hatred for the world, this is it. Its exactly what it said it was going to be, a hallmark gift card of a movie. So superficial and falsely sweet it actually makes you angry. Plus it literally goes on forever. I have no definitive timing but I'd say this film is a safe two and a half hours. Enjoy.

Rating: 4/10

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Just the thing!

So, the Valentine's Day is just a week away and so is the release date for the movie of the same title. However, I had the opportunity to see it at a press release. I tell you! It was just the thing I was looking for. It might be a combination of several things that fell together on that day and made me feel about the movie the way I do. I love it! It is so funny and romantic! It is hilarious even. It is just the thing. If you have nothing spacial to do on the 14th of February do go see this movie. It will bring you the spirit of the Valentine's. It is perfect for everybody - lovers and haters, romantics and not so much. First of all, the movie has a bunch of well-known and really good actors staring. I say, there was hardly anyone that I couldn't name or point out a film he or she had been seen in. That is a real delight! Second thing is the really good humor. It is not just a cheesy, romantic movie. It has good quality jokes which combined with the sweet stories of people of different ages makes for a good entertainment. So, as I said before, it is perfect for this day of love. It sets the mood. Even if you are alone and have no Valentine of your own, it will set the mood and you will feel the love that is in the air at this time of year.

So have a great Valentine's Day!!! :D

Vincent Snavely