On The Couch #31: When in Rome

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.

You want to watch a movie named When in Rome, but you’re not a fan of Kristen Bell? The Olsen twins have the solution!

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?).

Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel are clearly excited that I liked When in Rome better than Letters to Juliet.

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.

Dax Shepard’s funniest scene (shown here) is in the deleted scenes.

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.

Going solely by posters, you might think Leap Year is the same movie as When in Rome, only greener.

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.

On The Couch #14: Couples Retreat

Couples Retreat was the second movie I saw in a four movies over four days binge. If you asked me at the start if I thought Couples Retreat was going to be the best of the bunch, I would have laughed. But compared to Remember Me, Greenberg and Bruno, Couples Retreat seems like comedic gold.

I don’t want to go overboard with my praise for Couple Retreat. At best, I could sum up the movie as “meh.” It’s the kind of movie that comes on TBS on a random Sunday afternoon and you keep it on because you’ve got no better options and it’s not that bad. Think of it like Milk Money, but with more bikinis.

Looking at the cover, you might think that Couples Retreat is Forgetting Sarah Marshall for old people. Don’t make that mistake. Sure, both take place at gorgeous, tropical locales and both have Kristen Bell, but Forgetting Sarah Marshall is so much funnier. You would probably enjoy watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall a second time instead of watching Couples Retreat.

This picture of Kristen Bell is here mainly to keep frequent commenter Bryan coming back to the blog.

I have to hand it to Kristen Bell. That girl is smart when it comes to getting cast. Sure, this movie isn’t all that great, but as an actress she spent most of her time filming this in Hawaii. I’m surprised her other colleagues from Forgetting Sarah Marshall haven’t come to the same conclusion of “must get cast on all Hawaii shoots.” I’m also surprised Bell didn’t do everything she could to get in on the last season of Lost. “Come on, I’ve got sci-fi experience,” she’d say, “I could be your geologist. You don’t need the Tina Fey look-a-like.” But maybe her time in Heroes has caused her to meet so enough con-freaks to scare here away from anything sci-fi, even if it is filmed in paradise.

The three reasons to watch Couples Retreat.

If you’re a guy and your girlfriend insists on watching Couples Retreat together*, don’t complain too much. You get to watch Kristen Bell, Kristen Davis and Malin Akerman spend most of their time in bikinis. And ladies, you not only get to see a shirtless Jon Favreau, but also a shirtless Faizon Love. Hmm, maybe after reading that last line, your girlfriend won’t insist on watching this movie after all. Fellas, feel free to send me gift cards to movie theaters as tokens of your thanks.

*Note: Watching Couples Retreat wasn’t my girlfriend’s idea.

WARNING: Watching Couples Retreat will result in seeing Faizon Love shirtless!

If you do watch it though, watch the deleted scenes afterwards. Most of the deleted scenes were deleted with good cause and can be skipped, but there’s one that is rather funny and even plays into an unanswered question regarding the plot, namely what happens if the guys ignore the warning about going left on the trail in their quest to get to Eden East. That one deleted scene also more funny homoerotic jokes than all of Bruno.

This Guitar Hero battle is reason #4 to watch Couples Retreat.

On its own, Couples Retreat gets a “You’re not missing anything.” Standing next to everything else I watched from Thursday through Sunday, I’m glad Couples Retreat is the movie someone I know owns instead of any of the others.