- 28 Days directed by Betty Thomas (2000)
[5/10]
"You don't see any remarkable performances or go through any emotional highs or lows, but you do end up with a warm-fuzzy feeling, hoping for the best as Gwen starts her sober life."
- Break-Up, The directed by Peyton Reed (2006)
[5/10]
"The utter lack of romantic chemistry between Vaughn and Aniston dooms The Break-Up, since the audience really doesn't care if the couple gets back together or not, and the few meager laughs don't really merit spending any time or money at the theater on this film."
- Bridges of Madison County, The by Robert James Waller (1992)
[5/10]
"Waller creates some of the best romantic writing I have seen, unfortunately the story line of the book ends long before he ran out of words."
- Brokeback Mountain directed by Ang Lee (2005)
[10/10]
"All the elements of Brokeback Mountain come together to create a transcendent experience that lingers in your mind for days after you watch the film."
- City of Angels directed by Brad Silberling (1998)
[7/10]
"Although constructed almost entirely of cliches, City of Angels rallys its cliches synergistically to produce a pleasing, though predictable, story."
- Cooler Climate, A directed by Susan Seidelman (1999)
[6/10]
"A Cooler Climate promotes the standard American dream: with the right combination of attitude, determination, and skill you can achieve just about anything. Too bad so many of the characters had to explore immoral options before coming about."
- Corrina, Corrina directed by Jessie Nelson (1994)
[7/10]
"Corrina, Corrina takes a tender and careful look at death, loss, and healing from the point of view of a seven-year-old girl Molly (Tina Majorino) in the 1950s."
- Curtain Call directed by Peter Yates (1999)
[5/10]
"Unless Spader can soon find a role where he does not play a bungling but gifted character, his career will soon slip until he'll be lucky to get roles like his in Curtain Call."
- Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (2007)
[6/10]
"Of the three books in the Twilight series so far, I found Eclipse the least interesting. All the physical action takes place off stage, and we spend all our time inside Bella's mixed up head."
- Elizabethtown directed by Cameron Crowe (2005)
[7/10]
"I found Elizabethtown an enjoyable, pleasant, interesting, and funny study of Drew's developing character."
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind directed by Michel Gondry (2004)
[7/10]
"Aside from the medical and ethical questions, Eternal Sunshine explores the nature of attraction and the development of relationships. It asks whether a natural attraction exists between two people. Clearly, the writers believe so, since Joel and Clementine feel drawn to each other repeatedly."
- Girl Next Door, The directed by Luke Greenfield (2004)
[6/10]
"Director Luke Greenfield has created a well constructed teen comedy with a bit of a plot twist at the end."
- Golden Child, The directed by Michael Ritchie (1986)
[5/10]
"Generally funny, but not riotously so."
- Grosse Pointe Blank directed by George Armitage (1997)
[9/10]
"The story combines hit men, romance, fights, explosions, and comedy. And all this accompanied by well chosen music from the 1980s."
- Hamlet directed by Michael Almereyda (2000)
[7/10]
"I don't think that this version with its modern setting brings too many young people to an appreciation of Shakespeare, but for those of us who have liked Shakespeare all along, it gives us some new ways of looking at a classic."
- High School Musical directed by Kenny Ortega (2006)
[5/10]
"It can happen -- a made for TV movie from Disney that doesn't suck. In fact High School Musical does a pretty good job at providing snappy songs, occasionally interesting choreography, and a less than lame plot."
- Horse Whisperer, The directed by Robert Redford (1998)
[5/10]
"In order to enjoy The Horse Whisperer, you must meet at least five of the following six criteria: you like horses or movies about horses, you like to look at Robert Redford, you like movies with panoramic scenes of the American West, you like semi-tragic romance movies, and you are a woman. If you meet these criteria, then you will not even notice that 160 minutes passed by while watching The Horse Whisperer."
- Juno directed by Jason Reitman (2007)
[8/10]
"Juno does a good job at portraying a particular girl's experience with teen pregnancy, although I don't think you can extend this portrait much beyond Juno's character since she has more self-confidence and personal determination than most adults."
- Lake House, The directed by Alejandro Agresti (2006)
[6/10]
"Alas, we have only drab locations for a common love story with a cute, but unimaginative, gimmick."
- Little Manhattan directed by Mark Levin (2005)
[9/10]
"Little Manhattan handles the themes of first love and lost love with sensitivity and uncommon depth."
- Loverboy directed by Kevin Bacon (2006)
[5/10]
"I'm not sure what message director Kevin Bacon wanted me to take away from his film. As a moral tale, Loverboy shows that both neglect and over-protectiveness create dysfunctional relationships. We don't really see any contrasting non-dysfunctional relationships, so we don't have a counter-example to know what Bacon thinks a good relationship looks like."
- Miss Congeniality directed by Denald Petrie (2000)
[5/10]
"Put a hard nosed, glamour neutral, female FBI agent undercover as a contestant in a major beauty pageant (under threat of terrorist attack) and you could get a lot of laughs. But the writers of Miss Congeniality didn't write an all-out gut-busting comedy."
- Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day directed by Bharat Nalluri (2008)
[7/10]
"Really you can't say much more than Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day presents charming characters in a well crafted love polygon. The humor comes easily, the plot never gets too heavy, and you get a double warm-fuzzy feeling as the two leads find true love emerging out of the chaos that swirls around them."
- My Super Ex-Girlfriend directed by Ivan Reitman (2006)
[5/10]
"The script does a good job at thinking through a lot of the situations for superhero-human relationships, but spends a bit too much time developing the sexual characteristics of such relationships."
- New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (2006)
[6/10]
"At the end, you feel like you have just ridden a roller coaster -- a long, slow, boring ride up the hill and a brief thrill as you run the course. The excitement happens so fast, that you really want more and wish that Meyer hadn't spent so much time letting Bella mope about."
- Notting Hill directed by Roger Mitchell (1999)
[6/10]
"Can the boy love the girl and live happily ever after, even though the girl is a movie star? Of course, they have one last chance to reunite and make up and to leave the audience with the requisite warm-fuzzy feeling."
- Painted Veil, The directed by John Curran (2006)
[8/10]
"The Painted Veil makes a methodical study of a couple that starts out with a marriage of convenience, deal with adultery, and come to love each other more deeply than they every expected."
- Return to Me directed by Bonnie Hunt (2000)
[6/10]
"Return to Me doesn't contain any Oscar-winning performances, but leaves you happy. Duchovny does a good job not bringing any of Fox Mulder into the role, and the rest of the cast do a good job at creating a warm family feeling around grace."
- Romancing the Stone directed by Robert Zemeckis (1984)
[7/10]
"The overall plot is fairly predictable, but the romantic and comedic elements mesh together well and create a light and funny story with just enough suspense to keep the story interesting."
- Shaun of the Dead directed by Edgar Wright (2004)
[8/10]
"If you like British comedy, than you should find Shaun of the Dead riotously funny, and the humor comes from the characters' interactions and not just from bashing zombies with a cricket bat or trying to decapitate zombies with flying vinyl LPs -- and we get some of that too, but not overly much."
- Solaris directed by Steven Soderbergh (2002)
[6/10]
"Tarkovsky's characters often deliver their lines in a flat tone, as if the characters not only believe the glass is half empty, but that it's filled with poison as well. In that sense, Soderbergh has made a 'happy' version of Tarkovsky's Solaris."
- Step Up directed by Anne Fletcher (2006)
[5/10]
"When you watch a movie like Step Up, you wish the producers had just left out the lame, connect-the-scenes plot and just given us twice as much dancing."
- Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (2005)
[8/10]
"Meyer does an excellent job at building the tension to a nerve-splitting peak, and her exposition about her vampires never gets boring or preachy."
- Witness directed by Peter Weir (1985)
[7/10]
"Witness creates good suspense and shows the contrasting culture of the Amish without making any judgements. The script lays on the religious symbolism quite thick: John (an apostle of Christ), Book (a synonym for the Bible), and John knows carpentry (Christ was the son of a carpenter). With this setup, you must expect that John Book will function as some sort of savior figure, but that savior figure also has romantic inclinations."
Average score: 6.44
