I was very surprised by When in Rome. Surprised I saw it. I wasn’t expecting to watch it this year. When in Rome’s poster is just dumb looking. Why’s Kristen Bell biting her finger with that silly look on her face? Why is Rome colored taxi cab yellow? The preview didn’t help. It made When in Rome come across like a not-so-great romantic comedy that I’d end up catching on TBS one lazy Sunday afternoon.
It was my brother’s fiancé’s pick at the Red Box on this particular rainy Cape Cod evening, which caused When in Rome to move up dramatically in my lifetime movie watching queue. Sorry TBS. Sorry lazy Sunday afternoon.
Out of the two romantic comedies that take place in Italy that I’ve seen this year, When in Rome wins over Letters to Juliet. When in Rome’s main strength over Letters to Juliet is that Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel have infinitely more chemistry than Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Egan (Any chemistry is infinitely more than no chemistry, right? I know at least one math teacher reads this blog. Can you check my work?).
When in Rome is also funnier than Letters to Juliet. Even considering Letters to Juliet’s unintentionally hilarious Grandma-likes-to-watch scene, When in Rome still wins. This is mainly because of Will Arnett and John Heder, who are very funny as two of Kristen Bell’s mystically-motivated suitors.
Now that I’ve seen When in Rome, I kind of want to watch Leap Year. I don’t know why these two movies are linked together in my mind. Maybe it’s because both When in Rome and Leap Year came out around the same time this year, have very blah-yet-eerily-similar posters and feature pretty American girls heading to Europe for love. Hopefully Leap Year is more When in Rome and less Letters to Juliet.
When in Rome gets a thumbs up from me, but I still can’t figure out why Kristen Bell is biting her finger like that on the poster.
chemistry > !chemistry
KBell > ASeyfried
(both stars of Veronica Mars, interesting choice of comparison…)
DShepard < 0 (WhenInRome – KBell + AAdams) * blue = LeapYear Both the math *and* the colors seem to work out. You could also say: if (star == KBell)
cout << "I will see your movie" << endl;
else if (star == DShepard)
cout << "No way in hell" << endl;
else if (star = ASeyfried”)
cout << "Hmm...maybe..." << endl;
else
cout << "Let me think about it." << endl;
Bryan, you were great with the c++ programming language. What is the output?
Romantic Letters
Just started watching this on Netflix Instant Watch — and it begins with a Jason Mraz song…that is perfect.
We’ll see if it’s bad enough that I live-blog it in the comments of your two-month-old blog post…
(ooh! Kate from Garfunkel & Oates! [that is, Ted’s ukulele-playing girlfriend on Scrubs] Excellent start!)
(The Piemaker! This is the best movie ever!)
Did you make it to the end? Or did you pause on The Piemaker’s face and find yourself unable to unpause?
When the movie ended I didn’t have time to come back and post, but:
Not a very good movie. I was listening more than watching, so maybe I missed some of the funny, but I didn’t notice any chemistry here. And the whole running gag about Fergie’s husband bumping into things and getting hit by lightning? Meh.
I guess that would be the best way to rate this movie: Two Mehs Down.
I thought that your love for Kristen Bell would have caused you to rate this at least two and a half meh.
Solely because I love Amy Adams, and despite how horrible it looked, I decided to see Leap Year. From the start, they looked even more similar than you noted here: event planner vs. interior decorator, trip to foreign country, “who woulda guessed?” [everybody] love interest with absolutely no chemistry or reason for them to get together…
But Leap Year never even hints at getting better. It’s just a bunch of “wacky” (but not actually funny, or interesting) set pieces that block the heroine’s journey with a bunch of “awkwardly-funny” (but not actually funny) obstructions. It starts with a bad premise, then fails to live up to it.