How Do You Know (2010)

Meh. So little payoff, so much talent, with James Brooks writing and directing, and stars Reese Witherspoon overly perky, Owen Wilson trying too hard, Jack Nicholson mugging, and Paul Rudd giving it his best shot. Brooks (won Oscars for directing, writing, and producing Terms of Endearment (1983); nominated for directing and writing both Broadcast News (1987) and As Good As It Gets (1997); multiple Emmy winner for directing, writing, and producing various episodes of The Simpsons, The Tracy Ullman Show, Taxi, Lou Grant, The Mary Tyler Moore Show; and I loved the other two movies he directed: I'll Do Anything (1994) and Spanglish (2004)), especially, should be ashamed of himself for the script and the end result, which is neither cute nor particularly heartwarming. Maybe I was in a bad mood because I had walked into a 5:00 screening of The Fighter at 5:01 and it had already started and Jack wasn't there yet. He arrived as I was getting a refund and we had to drive to another theatre to see this at 5:25.

The puns are in abundance, and my favorite is "How do you know when not to spend $11.00 for a movie?" Domineck Lombardozzi, who played Vince's loose-cannon friend Dom on Entourage, must be happy that his one scene with his one line, where he plays a baseball player advising Owen Wilson on love, made it into the trailer. Also getting props for her impassioned performance as the pregnant secretary is Kathryn Hahn.

If you feel like a romantic comedy this week, see Love and Other Drugs instead, which, I discovered after I wrote the above blog post, David Denby of The New Yorker quite liked (spoiler alert: Denby always gives away a lot in his reviews and this one is combined with Black Swan. Just wait until you've seen both to read the link).