Here are three reasons why She’s Out of My League is a successful romantic comedy:
1. The awkward, geeky-looking lead is played by someone who really is awkward and geeky-looking.
Remember in Can’t Buy Me Love when they dressed up Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey as an astronomy-loving lost cause? They hid his hotness under a bad hairstyle and stupid glasses, so when the bitchy, spoiled, popular girl came along to give him a makeover, voilà! He was a hunk and she was a miracle worker. Barf. (See also: She’s All That.) The star of She’s Out of My League, though, Kirk (played by Jay Baruchel), really is a dork. Even when Baruchel tries to look Hollywood-hot in real life, he just looks like a scrawny nerd in fancy clothes with gel in his hair. But he’s hilarious and endearingly goofy, so it’s also completely plausible that chicks would love him. Which brings us to…
2. The hot, successful love interest is not unlikable.
Usually, I would hate watching a woman with huge boobs, flawless skin, and a paycheck five times bigger than mine get it on with the kind of dude I might have a chance with (read: geek). But Molly (Alice Eve) is pretty funny. She likes to fuck with people, especially Kirk’s stupid family, so she’s okay by me.
3. It’s 30 percent romantic and 70 percent comedy.
Romantic comedies, no matter how romantic, need to be funny. Sandra Bullock rolling around on the floor, naked and wet, with Ryan Reynolds is not funny. It’s slapstick bullshit. Sure, She’s Out of My League used every rom-com stereotype in the book (the bitchy ex-girlfriend, the bullying older brother, a few smart-ass best friends for the guy, and a bitchy cock-blocking best friend for the woman), but it actually had jokes—funny jokes. Also: dude-on-dude ball-shaving scene. 
Here are three reasons why the film section needs to change.
1. You’re so awkward and geeky about the worst movies.
2. Your unsuccessful reviews are far from likable
3. The section is 30% ignorant 70% just plain stupid.
Step off, oldmanandthesea. This is exactly the sort of review that this movie needs.
1. Ms. Seling is by her own admission awkward and geeky. Many people are. A lot of awkward geeky people like movies in which awkward geeky protagonists are portrayed sympathetically. If you don’t, then now you’ve been told, and you know not to see this movie. That’s what reviews are for.
2. Says you. Perhaps reviews, like movies, are a matter of taste?
3. And your comment is 30% ignorant, 70% just plain dickish.
Yup! All anyone in any movie has to do to be hot is to simply take off their glasses! I guess if the characters weren’t so dumb they would have figured it out before. It’s like their thought process is: “Well, here I am, I wear glasses so that means I’m a dork! I can bench press 250lbs, I’m 6’1″, full head of thick, curly hair, square jaw, six-pack abs, straight-A student, but I wear glasses so no one will ever date me. Darn the luck.” And then along comes someone who says, ‘hey, get some contacts’ (zomg, contacts, who knew?) and as the audience, I don’t feel insulted at all.
Jesus, oldmanandthesea, who peed in your cornflakes this morning?
Dickish I agree, but frankly this section used to be about cinema and good criticism. Now it resembles a shitty blog. Its one thing to write this for slog, its another thing to waste valuable ink on it. If I’ve got to be a dick to let the fucking shit hole of a paper know how much I’ve stopped appreciating their rather childish approach to journalism/criticism than so be it.
I kind of actually want to see this, but just for the Baruchel (and probably not in theaters).
cos even though it was no “Freaks and Geeks,” I still have a tv-crush on “Undeclared.”
oldmanandthesea, if you’re going to criticize people over the quality of their writing and analysis, please use proper punctuation and spelling.
The contraction of “it is” is “it’s.” As in:
“It’s not ‘than so be it,’ dude, it’s ‘then so be it.'”
So lay off Megan, man. If you’re looking for A.O. Scott or J. Hoberman, you know where to find them. This is The Stranger, and I like it just fine, thanks.
I suppose I’m a huge Jay Baruchel fan after his remarkable performance in Million Dollar Baby. You know how hard it is to play (and write) genuinely tender and sweet? I remember thinking, “This kid’s going places.”
oldmanandthesea is right that this is not a column about a film, it’s essentially a blog piece. As long as Megan is kept to writing about date movies (and away from writing about actual films and music), this is soemwhat acceptable.
The makeover is my favorite rom-com trope <3
An ugly guy can get a beautiful chick with either:
1. Personality
2. Money.
An ugly chick on the other hand is just an ugly chick.
An ugly guy can get a beautiful chick with either:
1. Personality
2. Money.
An ugly chick on the other hand is just an ugly chick.
re: notfloats
By no means am I claiming to be a journalist. Nor do I have the luxury of having an editor to crrect my poor grammar and spelling. Want a job?
However, my point stands. J. Hoberman and A.O. Scott might be good for New York, but the film section in The Stranger is BAD BAD BAD for Seattle. That’s my issue and I ain’t going to shut up about it until this paper fixes what I believe to be an embarrassment.
Hey #12 and I guess #13…
An ugly chick is still a CHICK! So guess what? She’s already “equipped” with all she needs to get plenty of attention from men, who, are at a disadvantage if they don’t have money. Personality is NOT required.
“An ugly chick is still a CHICK”
Sure, but an ugly one.
” She’s already “equipped” with all she needs to get plenty of attention from men”
Well I guess if an ugly chick is easy she can get attention. But that just makes her an ugly tart, something neither money nor personality can help.
Sean Nelson writes beautifully about the highbrow stuff.
Jay Baruchel was “Kevin” in Tropic Thunder. YUM!!!!
Yeah, I saw this last night. If Mudede wrote this piece, it would be about the city of Pittsburgh. For that was the real star of the film. We saw the non-football sporting teams of Pittsburgh, the skyline, the revival of culture and art, even the juxtaposition of blue-state liberalism against red-state idiocracy.
What a weird thing to be passionate about. I never knew that movie reviews were supposed to be such profound works of literature.
I think it was a fine movie review: it’s a basic description of the movie and its strong points compared to other movies in its genre. The only flaw is that she left out where its weak points might be and didn’t give us too many details on the acting; other than that, it does what a movie review needs to.
She didn’t give us any profound philosophical insights on life, but maybe that has something to do with the fact that SHE IS WRITING A REVIEW OF A ROMANTIC COMEDY, not a goddamn manifesto of her worldview.
Really, who are these people who expect romantic comedy reviews to be spiritually enlightening? What next; are you going to go troll the classified section and accuse people’s “car for sale” ads of being shallow and intellectually vacant?
haha@20 right on target! buddy’s attempt at intellectual elitism….FAIL although he did a fine job of making this movie review all about him. I bet he has a habit of that type of behaviour.
I don’t agree with being such a dick to Megan, but oldmanandthesea does have a point. The Stranger’s movie reviews used to critique movies on their quality (Quality being relative of course but always described in detail in the review)…
The reviews didn’t just state that this movie is a good movie for it’s genre.
I used to be able to judge from Stranger reviews whether or not I would like to see a film. Now, I have no idea. From this review I don’t know if the “funny jokes” are actually funny or 15-yr-old-sexist-dork-funny. And I could already tell from the commercial preview that the dork was genuinely dorky. Mildly interesting but not helpful information.
I want to see a LEGITIMATELY plain or ugly female end up with the uber-hot, nice, sweet, rich male. Not this Hollywood Ugly bullshit. Underattractive females never get any lead roles.
@23
I on the other hand watch movies bc I like to beautiful people playing make believe. All I need to do to watch the rest of us do the same is to go outside… or to the mall.
bleh, *watch. Obviously I’m barely literate today, as usual.
“I want to see a LEGITIMATELY plain or ugly female end up with the uber-hot, nice, sweet, rich male”
So you want pure fantasy?
News flash: The Stranger isn’t a serious newspaper. It never will be. And that’s why I (and probably a lot of people) like it.
While I don’t share his passion, I have to agree with oldmanandthesea. I don’t expect an in depth study of a romantic comedy, but this read more like a Facebook entry than an actual review. It failed to be informative in that regard.
While I don’t share his passion, I have to agree with oldmanandthesea. I don’t expect an in depth study of a romantic comedy, but this read more like a Facebook entry than an actual review. It failed to be informative in that regard.
While I don’t share his passion, I have to agree with oldmanandthesea. I don’t expect an in depth study of a romantic comedy, but this read more like a Facebook entry than an actual review. It failed to be informative in that regard.
@20 Reminds me when the South Park movie came out and my local newspaper’s movie page did a serious review. It was wrong and out of place.
If this movie is legitimately funny, then the previews sure hide it well.
Seriously, every time I see a preview for this movie I feel like barfing. Even down to the title, it looks like dorky-guy-meets-hot-girl distilled down to its purest, intelligence-insulting form.
Gonna get on my feminism-soapbox for a second here: where are the movies about hot guys that fall for ugly girls? Oh, yeah, Hollywood doesn’t make them because they’re afraid that men will lose interest in a movie if they have to go without a perfect rack for more than ten minutes.
And this may just be me, but the premise doesn’t work as far as I can tell because Jay Baruchel is hot!
That said, if this review is correct and the previews are trying to disguise a decent movie as derivative tripe, then I might give it a chance.
I really don’t get the venom these movie reviews seem to attract. Megan and Lindsey are the best movie reviewers I’ve ever read, because they talk about movies in the way that I do. They don’t pass pretentious judgments and try to determine whether this is “one of the films of the year”. They assess the films on their own merits. Kids films as kids films. Romcoms as romcoms. What more could you want?
(Charles Mudede is also a great reviewer, because he talks about movies in a way that no-one else ever could.)
But even if you completely disagree with me, WTF are you doing here complaining? There are bylines. Read them.
I have been reading the Stranger film section for a long time and I think it has never been better. Lindy West, Megan Seling and Mudede are some of my favorite writers at the paper. I even find myself reading reviews of the movies that I could care less about.