Bad Romance Podcast

This week we tried to tackle 2005's The Family Stone. It really is the romantic comedy holiday movie TO THE EXTREME. See also: Love Actually (which we'll cover eventually, maybe). We've got familial conflict, romantic conflict, culture clashing and a sick relative! The Stone family is a liberal with a capital L, everyone hates Sarah Jessica Parker for some reason and Dermot Mulroney is the secret villain. This is one you have to see, folks.

Oh and, this is our first episode with a theme song! Enjoy "58008" by Clutch Douglass!

This week we finally dipped our toe into the Mary-Kate and Ashley Empire with 1998's Billboard Dad. Surprise! It's actually a plausible romantic story for adults trapped inside a movie for kids! The leads are attractive, look good together and mesh well as a couple. The main thing lacking in the film is... Mary-Kate and Ashley. It pains us to have to say this... but we wanted more adults in this movie. Not the fake British guy, though. We could have done without him.

This week we took it easy with one of Hilary Duff's more forgettable vehicles-- 2005's The Perfect Man. It's a weird movie where a teenage girl makes up a fake dream man for her very beautiful and shockingly desperate mother. Chris Noth looks bored and lost post-Sex and the City. Heather Locklear has to pretend she isn't gorgeous. It's all strange. But at least Ben Feldman is in it, and he's very cute.

This week we tried to tackle 1999's Simply Irresistible. This sort-of musical and sort-of romance stars Sarah Michelle Gellar at the height of her power and that one guy from The Boondock Saints. It occurs in a mirror universe where Patricia Clarkson would lust after Dylan Baker, Sarah Michelle Gellar would be jealous of thin blondness of Amanda Peet and anyone would care this much about a giant forehead wearing a suit. Cooking romcoms are a strange subgenre.

This week we tackled a new release: I Feel Pretty. I know our listeners probably expected us to hate it... but that's not actually the case. It's really naive and broad--but pure of heart. And we really appreciated that. The script is mediocre, but the performances are great. Michelle Williams BROUGHT IT. And the romance we discuss is actually... good and healthy? On this show?! It's wild times, truly.

This week we try to make sense of The Heart Specialist, a film that premiered at the Boston Film Festival in 2006 but didn't hit theaters until 2011 (to capitalize on Zoe Saldana's rise to stardom in Avatar). It's unfocused, disjointed, oddly-edited and yet... it made us laugh? We're probably both going mad, and this is probably the worst film we've done so far, but we actually didn't hate this very, very weird ride.

Jenny's Wedding is ALLEGEDLY a lesbian romantic dramedy from 2015, and is APPARENTLY on Netflix, and SOMEHOW has a cast that includes Tom Wilkinson, Katherine Heigl, Grace Gummer and Alexis Bledel. It's also been told to us that it does in fact take place on planet Earth, but it's tough to confirm these speculations.

Somehow, someway, Macklemore is to blame for this

Wow, just wow. This is a rare case on the show where a film lived up to its expectations. It's really just as bad as everyone says it is, and all the dragging that's gone on through the years is entirely justified. Kelly Clarkson doesn't want to be there. Justin has very little screen presence, despite being a better actor than her. Anika Noni Rose is the only actor in this that comes out unscathed. She deserves better. I want justice!

This week on the pod we talked about the sexism that holds Life or Something Like It back from being a good film. Angelina Jolie plays a delightful human being who everyone seems to hate because she's... thin, blonde and goal-oriented. That's it. She's not a secret racist or anything. Just an evil blonde. Hiss! Edward Burns plays the "love interest" who negs her into losing her confidence. Swoon!

This week we decided to go back to the early 90s with 1992's The Cutting Edge, starring the very strange pairing of Moira Kelly and D.B. Sweeney. As a film, it's pretty okay. But as a romance, it doesn't work at all. This film is a great example of how a male director and male screenwriter can put their heads together and still not understand women to save their lives. Moira Kelly deserved better. D.B. deserved exactly this, though.