Living the Romantic Comedy

The Devil We Know

Oh happy day! The miracle-worker has come to Hollywood and solved all our problems. With his help, it’s only hits and blockbusters from now on, according to the New York Times, and the only issue is: Can we afford this guy? Quick, get your hammer and head for your piggy bank!

The article Solving Equation of a Hit Film Script, With Data profiles the success of one “chain-smoking former statistics professor named Vinny Bruzzese,” who is providing “script evaluation for as much as $20,000 per script” to producers in town gullible enough to believe he can analyze their projects into becoming win-win propositions.

“Demons in horror movies can target people or be summoned,” Mr. Bruzzese said in a gravelly voice, by way of example. “If it’s a targeting demon, you are likely to have much higher opening-weekend sales than if it’s summoned. So get rid of that Ouija Board scene.”

Given that name, that voice, and the other personal details that emerge from the piece by journalist Brooks Barnes, Vinny sounds like a character right out of a movie, i.e. if he didn’t exist, someone would have to make him up (my favorite bit: "He bills himself as a distant relative of Einstein's, a claim that is unverifiable but never fails to impress studio executives"). And come to think of it, the last time I encountered someone with a line of horse manure this well-crafted, he was wearing a straw boater and being played by Robert Preston, in a show called The Music Man.

If you’re the age of the average movie executive, you’re probably too young to have seen or even heard of The Music Man (recently a fellow reader giving notes to a studio exec on a sci-fi project realized that the exec had never seen Star Wars: true story). So this may account for Mr. Bruzzese’s success. What was that quote again – people who skip history class are doomed to keep taking make-up classes? – something like that.

The Onion’s version of the Times article would likely be titled, Hollywood Still Largely Populated by Idiots. But you really must read it. If it makes you laugh, as opposed to making your head explode (literally!), that’s a good sign. It shows that you’ve been around the block at least once or twice. If you’re reaching for the phone to get hold of Vinny, however, you deserve the resulting hole you’ll soon find in your pocket.

I’ve always thought that the famous William Goldman dictum about the industry – “Nobody knows anything” – while a great quote and a good argument-ender, isn’t entirely accurate. In my experience, Nobody knows everything. There are some people in Hollywood (many of them deservedly at the top of the heap) who do know some things. The savvy chairman of a major studio was recently heard to say, “People like to see dogs in movies.”

Well, yes. This is inarguable, and I’ve got the data to back it up (in my desk drawer with the paperclips and bong-filters). But what I’m saying is: There are some knowns about storytelling and movie audiences that can be known. So chances are, Mr. Bruzzese’s “20-30 page reports” do contain insights that aren’t 100 % bullshit, or – I’m sorry – focus group-informed conjecture. So the hapless rube who’s paid through his nose for the report figures hey, it’s all good!... and Vinny departs with another suitcase full of moolah. Nice work if you can get it, bro.

It’s too bad, however, that those poor misguided amateurs Spielberg and Lucas didn’t have Vinny on hand when they were making Raiders of the Lost Arc – you know, the movie that featured the climactic scene (“Don’t open that ark!”) with all the summoned demons who spectacularly melted the Nazi villains into goo? Not a targeting demon in sight, yet the scene stayed in the picture, which probably accounts for that little project’s ignominious failure.

And we could continue in this vein, but why bother? The con-men and their latest gizmos have been with us since Biblical times, and will surely be there in centuries to come. As one Hollywood writer once said (he’s got a movie opening this week, years after his untimely death):

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

To Kick or Not to Kick?

You may have been following the latest Kickstarter controversy, which is already feeling a bit, well, moot: Not surprisingly, Zach Braff has successfully kickstarted his new movie, not long after Veronica Mars and co. got theirs into gear.

Personally? I think celebrity use of Kickstarter subtly undermines the ethos of the thing. There's an edge of entitlement that defeats the fun in such a campaign, especially when the celeb is self-promoting, as opposed to raising awareness for someone else's creative project or cause. I prefer kickstarting the unheard-ofs and heretofore unseen. I'll be curious to hear how you folks think about this.

At any rate, it's possible that we are seeing the start of a paradigm shift in how movies get crowd-sourced. And why should the romantic comedy lag behind such a trend? I just received my first invitation to help kickstart a rom-com, from enterprising filmmaker Greg Bowyer, who would like us to help him get his funny love story off the ground.

I know Greg not, though he says nice things about me, so I can't vouch for the quality of his project, beyond noting that its premise is at least... unusual. But if someone's asking Living the RomCom for a kickstart, we all may be in for a lot, lot more of this sort of thing. Apres Greg, le deluge?

Henry's Questions

Really, I just wanted to post the picture. Henry Bromell died nearly a week ago, and this is what he was like, as a writer and a guy: you can kind of get it, in the photo. I was friendly with him for many years, though I wouldn't presume to say we were close, but he made you feel close to him - it was part of his charm. He didn't have a barrier, was the way a mutual friend of ours put it.

He did, of course, have barriers. There was a palpable darkness at the core of his writing, and this wasn't a side of Henry that surfaced in social encounters. No, and what you saw - in the outpourings of love and appreciation that came on Facebook, in tweets, and in the press after his death - was a mirror of the generosity, the kindness, the good-humored openness of spirit in Henry. He was the quintessence of mensch.

He's most well known these days for his work on Homeland, but before that, there was Homicide, and further back, Northern Exposure, a unique show that was very Henry in its bemused and loving take on the peculiarities of human interaction. His darker side was evidenced in the novel he wrote, Little America, and his quite good, unjustly overlooked feature, Panic.

My favorite work of Henry's has yet to be produced: Fellini Black & White, a marvelous evocation of the great Italian director's 1957 visit to America with his lovelorn wife. There are images and poignant, funny moments in that screenplay that have stayed with me for years: an inopportune attempt to put the top down on a speeding vintage convertible, and the wind ripping the top loose, the canvas flapping and tumbling backwards into the night; Fellini watching the bobbing dark shapes of California surfers in the rising sun. Thank you, Henry, for putting these moments in my head and my heart.

When I talked about Henry with my friend the editor Cindy Mollo, she characterized her months working on Panic as a kind of private film school graduate course. Henry was a natural teacher. I brought him to one of my classes as a guest speaker, and he regaled the students with stories and insights that kept them rapt for an hour and a half. When his alloted time was up, I couldn't resist one more query: Hey, Henry - What makes a good scene? 

Henry seemed briefly stymied, as if no one had put this question to him before. Then on the spot, he came up with what he called his "Big Five" questions regarding a scene. I scrawled them on the back of a postcard (Union City Drive-In, 1993, Photograph by Hiroshi Sugimoto), and I've been using them in classes ever since. This is not due to their unique profundity - this is 101 stuff, for sure - but because they're so simple and useful. And really, over time, I haven't come up with a sixth. 

Henry Bromell's "Big 5" Questions to Ask of a Scene:

Have we seen this scene before?

Is there a conflict?

Is there a subtext?

Does it go from A to B (have a shape)?

Is the language and tone interesting?

I've found that asking these questions of any scene one writes is a tonic, especially when something isn't working, or when one senses that the scene could be stronger. There's clear thinking in the Big Five, and they've proven to be an effective gateway to other explorations and discoveries. The first, for example, instantly causes the writer to step back from the page and think wider, deeper, for implied in the question is a provocative subtext, i.e. If we have seen this scene, what are you doing to make your version of it memorable?

I pass Henry's questions along to you as another tool for your toolbox, and in homage to a man whose job it was to create good and great scenes, and who did it so, so well, over a rich and vibrant career. I'm happy that I got to know the guy, and I'm happy to think that those of you who didn't, can get to know him though his work. It's already living on.

Cinematic Valentines

[A holiday reprise from the archives] 

Declarations

Love is too weak a word for what I feel... I lurve you.  Y'know, I loove you, I, I luff you.  There are two f's.  I have to invent...  Of course I love you.   (Woody Allen in Annie Hall, Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman)

I really, truly, madly, passionately, remarkably, deliciously... juicily love you.   (Alan Rickman inTruly Madly Deeply, Anthony Minghella)

I love how you get cold when it's seventy-one degrees out.  I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich.  I love that you get a little crinkle right there when you're looking at me like I'm nuts.  I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes.  And I love that you're the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night.  And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve.  I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.  (Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally, Nora Ephron)

He:  I'm looking at you and I just... your face is so beautiful I just wanna smash it, just smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it... you're so pretty.

She: I know, I know.  I know.  I just wanna chew your face and scoop out your beautiful, beautiful eyes with an ice cream scooper and eat 'em and chew 'em and suck on 'em.  (Adam Sandler and Emily Watson in Punch-Drunk Love, Paul Thomas Anderson)

He: This is a really stupid question... but I wondered if by any chance--I mean, obviously not, because I am some git who's only slept with nine people, but I just wondered--I really feel... ahm... In short, to recap in a slightly clearer version--in the words of David Cassidy, in fact, while he was still with the Partridge Family--'I think I love you,' and I just wondered whether by any chance you wouldn't like to... No, no, of course not--I'm an idiot, he's not.  Excellent.  Excellent.  Fantastic.  Lovely to see you.  Sorry to disturb--better get on... Fuck.

She: That was very romantic.

He: Well, I thought it over a lot, you know, I wanted to get it just right.  (Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Richard Curtis)

The Reasons Why

There's not much meat on her, but what's there is choice.  (Spencer Tracy in Pat and Mike, Ruth Gordan and Garson Kanin)

I think you're the most attractive of all my parents' friends.  (Dustin Hoffman to Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, Buck Henry and Calder Willingham)

I need him like the axe needs the turkey.  (Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, Preston Sturges)

You know what you are? You're God's answer to Job, y'know? You would have ended all argument between them.  I mean, He would have pointed to you and said, 'I do a lot of terrible things, but I can still make one of these.'  You know?  And then Job would have said,  'Yeah, well, you win.'  (Woody Allen in Manhattan, Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman)

Ninotchka, it's midnight.  One half of Paris is making love to the other half.  (Melvyn Douglas in Ninotchka, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder)

You make me want to be a better man.  (Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets, James Brooks)

She: Do you know what's wrong with you?

He: No, what?

She: Nothing!  (Audrey Hepburn to Cary Grant in Charade, Peter Stone)

Best Pick-up Line (In Theory)

You know, I could lay a big line on you and we could do a lot of role-playing, but the simple truth is, is that I find you very interesting and I'd really like to make love to you.  (Dustin Hoffman to Jessica Lange, who responds by throwing a drink in his face, in Tootsie, Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal)

Proposals

He: Do you think... after we've dried off, after we've spent lots of time together, you might agree... not to marry me?  And do you think not being married to me might maybe be something you could consider doing for the rest of your life?  Do you?

She: I do.  (Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings, Richard Curtis)

Philosophy

Love don't make things nice, it ruins everything, it breaks your heart, it makes things a mess.  We aren't here to make things perfect.  Snowflakes are perfect.  The stars are perfect.  Not us.  Not us!  We are here to ruin ourselves and, to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die!  I mean, the storybooks are bullshit!  Now I want you to come upstairs with me, and get in my bed!  (Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck, John Patrick Shanley)

I believe in long, slow, deep, soft wet kisses that last for three days.  (Kevin Costner inBull Durham, Ron Shelton)

You have to have a little faith in people.  (Mariel Hemingway saying goodbye to Woody Allen at the end of Manhattan, Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman)

 

Bumps Along the Way

It isn't that I don't like you, Susan, because after all, in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you -- but, well, there haven't been any quiet moments.  (Cary Grant inBringing Up Baby, Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde)

I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen.  (John Cusack in Say Anything, Cameron Crowe)

He: I'm in love with you.

She: (slaps him, twice)  Snap out of it! (Nicholas Cage and Cher in Moonstruck, John Patrick Shanley)

Happy Endings

She: Baby, you are going to miss that plane.

He: (smiling) I know.  (Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in Before Sunset, Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke)

He: Love means never having to say you're sorry.

She: That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.  (Ryan O'Neal and Barbara Streisand inWhat's Up Doc, Buck Henry, David Newman and Robert Benton)

Jerry: Damn it, Osgood... I'm a man!

Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.  (Jack Lemmon and Joe E. Brown in Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder and I.A. Diamond)

...and a Classic Apropos Non-Rom-Com Exchange:

Wyatt Earp: Mac, you ever been in love?

Mac:  No, I've been a bartender all my life.  (Henry Fonda and J. Farrell MacDonald in My Darling Clementine, Samuel G. Engel and Winston Miller)

The Hidden Heroine

It's that time of the year again.  Romantic comedy lovers, lovers comedic or serious -- all humans with beating hearts know that as soon as February rolls around, there's a major holiday to be reckoned with, one that's come to symbolize the meaning of love and romance for America, if not the world.

I'm speaking, of course, about Groundhog Day.

Granted, there was a time, long ago (i.e. before 1993), when this holiday lacked the romantic associations since bestowed on it, due to the efforts of Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis and Bill Murray. But ever since the writer, director and star, respectively of Groundhog Day created what's now generally acknowledged as one of the great American movies of all time, February 2nd has become synonymous with romance and comedy.  In fact, when people ask me to name a couple of my favorite romantic comedies, this one invariably comes to mind.

What, you've never thought of this cinematic classic as a romantic comedy?  For shame.  I have it on unassailable authority that the film qualifies. For starters, it says so right on the DVD box's cover ("A romantic comedy fantasy that is Bill Murray's best screen performance" --  Gene Shalit). But look up the definition of romantic comedy in the definitive text on same, and you'll find (p.12) that "a romantic comedy is a comedy whose central plot is embodied in a romantic relationship" and that (p.13) "the central question posed by a romantic comedy is: 'Will these two individuals become a couple?'"

As you well know, when TV weatherman Phil Connors (Murray) gets inexplicably trapped in the same repeating February 2nd, his sole recourse to getting out of it becomes the object of his affections, producer Rita (Andie MacDowell); his salvation lies in the answer to their coupling question. (Screenwriting theorist sticklers may point out that the story's central question is really, Will Phil ever get out of February 2nd? To this I say, also true, because the movie is a rom-com hybrid --ibid, pp.21-28 -- a romantic comedy/high concept fantasy, and thus the couple/escape conflicts are intertwined. But let's stop boring our civilian readers, shall we? Thanks.)

Strange but true, there still exist deprived people who have not seen the movie Groundhog Day. If you are one of those poor souls, what better opportunity to improve the quality of your life, than to view it on the official Day itself? And even if you're one of the many enriched individuals who's seen it, Groundhog Day is a movie that you can watch over and over, and over, and over...

If you're a major Groundhog Day fan, you might even consider journeying to the scene of the crime: the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is having its annual celebration, and it promises to be quite a hoot. Such a trip was actually enjoyed byDay's writer and star before the movie was made, and therein lies a tale that speaks, I believe, to the true spirit of romance, or as we might say, what love's got to do with it.

Danny Rubin recounts the following in his illuminating interview accompanying an early draft of the screenplay in Scenario(Spring '95 issue, regrettably out of print). He talks of having been hired, fired and re-hired to work on the script, and when he, his wife Louise and kids were preparing to move from Los Angeles to New Mexico, getting a call from Bill Murray:

He says, "Do you realize that the day after tomorrow is Groundhog Day?"--"Yep."--"And do you realize that between the director, the producer, the star and the writer of this film, nobody has been to the festival at Punxsutawney?  Doesn't that seem wrong to you?"  And I said, "Absolutely.  And I think you should go, I think that will be a great thing."  And he said, "I think we should go."  And I said, "Bill, that's a really nice offer, sounds like fun, but I'm moving, I'm moving my family, we're up to our necks in boxes, I can't just abandon them and go off to Punxsutawney."  And he said, "Well, think about it and call me back.  Here's my number."  When I got off the phone, Louise asked who it was.  "Bill Murray," I said.  "He wants me to go to Punxsutawney tomorrow."  And she said, "Cool."  And I said I'd told him I couldn't do it.  She said, "Are you nuts?"  So I talked to [the studio] and they said, "We'll pay for the move, we'll get someone to help pack, we'll fly out a friend of your wife's to help her move in so you don't have to be there."

This level of support was very nice, and I embarked on the most surreal adventure of my professional life.  All of a sudden I'm flying in a private plane from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with Bill Murray and we're talking about the script.  We landed somewhere near Punxsutawney at 2:00 in the morning.  And there were fans out there waiting for him--it was supposed to be a secret...

Rubin goes on to say that he used a lot of what he saw there in the script. He'd originally spoken to the town's Chamber of Commerce and looked at their literature, but:

After we actually saw it, there was a whole different feel to it than we had imagined.  It was delightful, really delightful--a wonderful civic event.  We incorporated a lot of that into the movie...  Everyone there knew it was a goofy ritual--it was almost sophisticated in its hickyness.  What was so much fun about the festival is, it's the middle of the night, zero degrees, they've got bonfires going--and they're playing Beach Boys music.

Sometimes I read this excerpt to a screenwriting class when I'm talking about the inestimable value of research, to illustrate how really being there can make all the difference in writing a given project. But I quote it now in this pre-Valentine's Day context to highlight my favorite moment in Rubin's story, which is when Louise says, "Are you nuts?"

I just love that! Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling every time, because it seems to me that Danny Rubin's wife is the hidden heroine of the Groundhog Day saga. Love doesn't mean never having to say you're sorry.  It means having someone be able to say "Are you nuts?!" to you at a crucial moment. Love is sometimes about saving loved ones from themselves -- which come to think of it, is kind of at the core of what the movie ended up being about, don't you think? 

Go watch it again, again, and see if you agree.

Spending my days believing in impossible things and chasing them towards an inner truth, now that's a pretty good gig.

--Danny Rubin

(photograph at post's top by sabine)

Is Dating Dated?

Or is it that journalists are desperate for material? Either way, there's been a spate of urgent verbiage lately both online and in hard copy, about how 20-somethings (because really, who cares about the rest of us) aren't dating the way we all used to.

I know - Stop the presses (No, really: stop them!). But things are different for young people here in the 21st century, right? Actually, even this premise has been thoughtfully questioned in a recent New Yorker piece by Nathan Heller, but anyway: The New York Times just announced "The End of Courtship", and this comes right on the heels of an Atlantic article positing that committed relationships, or whatever may be left of them, have been just about totalled by the prevalence of online dating sites and social media.

There are already some great pithy rebuttals to these pieces online. But I'm bringing all of this up in the context of yet another pundit informing us that the romantic comedy is on life support. Hogwash (as I pointed out a few weeks ago). Are you writing a romantic comedy? Then boy, is your glass half-full.

Because Dan Slater's piece (the Atlantic link, above) about how online romance is threatening monogamy is loaded with potential story ideas. Say... What happens when a guy with dating ADD, due to the constant flow of Availables already lined up on his iPhone, finally meets his match - but she has the same issue? Or in Alex Williams' "Courtship" piece, say she's a girl from the "dating" crowd, and he's a guy from the "hookup" group, and high jinks ensue when they cross those boundaries to...

You get the idea. Girls doesn't have to be the only show that's presently mining the ostensible confusion that's reigning on the contemporary dating front. Or rather, just because the small screen seems to have a monopoly on this material (see New Girl, and Girls with Curls Who Hurl, et al) doesn't mean you can't take advantage of what feels like a cultural WTF? moment for your rom-com feature-in-progress.

Gone are the days when a viable rom-com spec could plug in a "bad date montage" and consider itself relevant. We're in new territory now. What all these journalists are poking at is a sense that the age-old paradigm of date, marry and mate is no longer a universal given that involves traditional modes of behavior. Which means that the alert rom-com writer has a number of intriguing new wrinkles to unravel.

What is contemporary, in a romantic comedy? Well, a few lines from Silver Lining Playbook (congrats on the Globe, J-Law!) can serve as one example. Here's an exchange between Him and Her on their first date that's not your grandparents' banter:

Tiffany: What meds are you on?

Pat: I used to be on Lithium and Seroquel and Abilify, but I don't take them anymore, no. They make me foggy and they also make me bloated.

Tiffany: Yeah, I was on Xanax and Effexor, but I agree, I wasn't as sharp, so I stopped.

Pat: You ever take Klonopin?

Tiffany: Klonopin? (Chuckling) Yeah.

Pat: Right?

Tiffany: Jesus.

Meanwhile, there's definitely a Tempest in Teapot vibe to the prevalent punditry. After all, not long ago the New York Times felt compelled to publish an article on what contemporary non-married spouses supposedly call each other. So there may not be anything genuinely zeitgeist-shifting about these supposed disturbances in the romantic force.

But if you are working on a romantic comedy spec right now, you might want to lift your head out of your draft and see what's going on like, out there. Because even if it's in a great big circle, the culture is moving, and it's your job to keep up with the curve.

The 8th Annual Asta Awards

The Best in Romantic Comedy 2012

2012 was either a godawful year for the genre or an inspiring, watershed year for it, depending upon how you define the term "romantic comedy." In this regard, 2012's Astas serve as a response to the article by Vulture (New York magazine) writer Claude Brodessor-Akner, Can the Romantic Comedy Be Saved?, which despite its dire-sounding title is required reading for anyone interested in the form.

Brodessor-Akner's thesis, in its essentials, is that "the romantic comedy" - i.e. the kind of studio-produced rom-com programmer vehicle for two stars that reached its contemporary peak popularity before the turn of the century - is on its last legs, if not over, as a viable moneymaking proposition for Hollywood. Look at Brodessor-Akner's box office numbers, and by his definition, the premise is hard to argue with. And the reasons for this palpable decline, from sociological (e.g. the end of the traditional nuclear family) to star-centric (e.g. Where's the new Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts?) make sense.

But from Living the Romantic Comedy's point of view, this is a glass half-full situation. Do I care that such brain-dead zombie rom-coms as this year's This Means War and this month's tanker Playing For Keeps have failed to find an audience? In fact, I'm cheered. I've long argued that this beast must die. The genre needs to evolve to survive - as it's been doing, subversively, for years. And this calls for, in part, a change in perception on the part of studios, critics, and the audience.

What Brodesor-Akner is calling romantic comedy conflates a certain kind of conservative, formulaic chick flick (its typical plot: Career Girl Chases Alpha Guy) with a love story that's comedic. Which is why his article - one that I admire, given that he's making many of the same points I've been making on this blog for the past near-eight years - omits mention of the Best Romantic Comedy of 2012: David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook, an Oscar contender that many people don't even think of as being a romantic comedy.

But Manohla Dargis nailed it, in her acutely observed NY Times review: What starts out feeling like a dysfunctional family dramedy is actually an obvious heir to the screwball comedies of the genre's golden age, complete with two "crazy" protagonists who turn out to be the sanest people in a world of the even crazier. The film features 2012's Best Rom-Com Female Lead - a strong, sexy, marvelously complicated Jennifer Lawrence - as well as a Best Rom-Com Supporting Role in Robert DeNiro, thankfully not phoning it in, this time. And if you're not getting that this is romantic comedy... as DeNiro says in a pivotal scene, you "gotta rethink this whole thing."

Romantic comedy by my definition is a largely comedic story that asks the question, Will these two people become a couple? If answering this question is the movie's primary preoccupation, it's a rom-com. Which is why 2012's Best Rom-Com Screenplay goes to Wes Anderson, for his magical coming-of-age/rom-com hybrid Moonrise Kingdom.

You may say "twee," and I say "moved to tears," since I found this delectably crafted evocation of the world of adolescence to be one for the ages. This, I should note, is what the Astas are about: not what made the most money in a given year as the ultimate arbiter of significance, but which romantic comedies are most likely to endure beyond the moment.

2012's Best Rom-Com Male Lead goes to obsessed newcomer Jared Gilman. Moonrise also ties, in 2012's Best Rom-Com Ensemble category (it included Bruce Willis's best work in years, among other pleasures) with what I'll call the year's Most Underrated Romantic Comedy: writer-director-star Jennifer Westfeldt's Friends With Kids. This was a room-splitter of a movie, but I loved the rhythms of its dialogue and the stinging sharpness of its observations, with a memorably entertaining cast that included Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig. Stars Westfeldt and Adam Scott were also 2012's Most Credible Couple, and the movie is as filled with resonantly provocative moments as a certain great talent's latest is not.

2012's Most Popular Romantic Comedy was Think Like a Man, by box office standards, unless you'd like to include the hilarious Ted (which I see more as a bromantic comedy about a man and his best friend teddy bear, with a rom-com subplot involving the human Mila Kunis).

Honorable Mentions: The lightly likable Celeste and Jesse Forever, the fatally flawed Ruby Sparks, and the quirky indies Safety Not Guaranteed and Your Sister's Sister. But if you want to take a look at the romantic comedy's main event in 2012, you need to turn to the smaller screen.

Again, a matter of perception. From my point of view, this was a fantastic year for the genre because the best, most genuinely fresh, progressive romantic comedy work could be seen in all its jaw-dropping glory on two great season-runs of television: Season 3 of Louie and Season 1 of Girls.

As it is with the character-driven drama (from Breaking Bad to Mad Men, et al), TV is where the action is. While Newsroom worked a clunky and contrived Old School story line with its two leads, network shows like Community, The Mindy Project, Parks and Recreation, New Girl (in its back end), and even Happy Endings kept the How We're Dating and Mating Now ethos alive and kicking in 2012.

But hands down, 2012's Future of Romantic Comedy Asta Award goes to Louie C.K. and Lena Dunham, who between them have done more to push the genre envelope than anything that's been seen at the multiplexes to date. Both Louie's third season and Girls' first, if viewed as serial long-form features, delivered the year's funniest, saddest, deepest and most truly contemporary takes on the anxiety, confusion, and conflictedness found in today's romantic relations.  I look forward to whatever these two auteurs do next, in whatever form it may take.

For while its formulaic products may be flatlining, the form itself is evolving. Is the "romantic comedy" dead? Perhaps. But long live romantic comedy.

Me or Us?

We're in that season now.  Some think of it as the holidays, and others, as the six week stretch when most of the year's decent movies finally come out (i.e. Oscar contender time).  In fact, so many movies worth seeing come out at once, that people who write about movies tend to bunch a bunch of them together in their reviews, and in some cases, develop Deep Thoughts about what these movies do or don't have in common.

Guilty as self-charged.  I recently saw three movies, two with a lock on Best Actor nominations and a third dark horse, all of them featuring compelling male protagonists: Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln, Denzel Washington as pilot Whip Whitacker (Flight), and Richard Gere as hedge fund magnate Robert Miller (Arbitrage).  What struck me was how all three movies focused on a moral dilemma which, however timeless, seems particularly timely in our current historical moment.

In Arbitrage, the Gere character has embezzled funds, ostensibly to save his company, his family, and his wealthy lifestyle.  The tension in the story arises from what happens when he commits another crime that threatens to expose the first.

Flight is about how airliner pilot Denzel heroically turns what could have been a total crash disaster into much less of one, saving most of the lives (referred to in the movie, tellingly, as "souls") onboard.  Problem is, Denzel is an alcoholic who happened to be drunk at the time.

Lincoln focuses on a key moment in this beloved historical figure's life: his fight to get the 13th amendment, constitutionally abolishing slavery, passed - which may involve his having to keep the Civil War going, as opposed to ending it.

At their cores, each of these movies hinges on the same particular conflict, which could simply be stated as: Me or them?

Arbitrage's Gere, in ways too spoiler to elucidate, ends up having to choose between owning up to what he's done, or selling someone close to him down the river.  In truth, while he claims company and family as his rationale, his dilemma is really about maintaining his own power.

The alcoholism of Denzel in Flight creates a similar dichotomy: obviously Whip's disease threatens the lives of everyone he encounters on his job, and ultimately he, too, finds that his only way out of what could be a hefty prison sentence is to sell out someone near and dear.

Lincoln is a bit of a special case.  As President, the "them" Lincoln is dealing with is the nation he's been chosen to lead.  Nonetheless, he's ultimately faced with either compromising his own beliefs and principles in order to serve "their" immediate needs (i.e. by ending the bloodshed), or answering to what he believes is, besides his own legacy, the higher call of history.

The pattern's obvious, but it struck me that, in the context of our recent election and its consequences, this particular conflict - caring about the betterment of others vs. what's best for oneself - is with us now, more than ever.  It framed the philosophies behind the presidential race's politics, and it's the framework of where we are in the current tax dispute.  Are we willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, or is it going to be every man for himself?

Most of us aren't millionaire financial execs, ace airline pilots, or Daniel Day Lewis (he is Lincoln now, don't you know).  But this particular struggle - which we could more accurately define as "me or us?" - is apparently really saying hello to the audience now, even in what's usually our hallowed hall of escapism.  

Maybe I'm only reaching, and pissing on my head, as an old musician friend used to put it, so I'm curious to hear from those of you who've seen some of the other high profile end-of-2012 releases.  Is this focus actually a trend?  Living RomCom wants to know.

The Tweet Master of 1906

They twisted my arm, honest: a friend talked me into getting on Twitter, and while I've been having great fun there (Where else can you eavesdrop on Steve Martin trading quips with Albert Brooks, or read Chris Hedges thinking out loud?) it is a total time suck.  

When it comes to doing your own tweets, the pressure to be pithy in 140 characters can be overwhelming.  And the "has it come to this?!" feel of writing for your fellow tweeters' inherent attention deficit disorders (I skim tweets, and often abandon one after a few words) can seem like the end of the literary world as we know it.

So it's comforting, in a way, to remember that over a hundred years ago, someone had already perfected a form of this form, and moved on.  And somehow the "long form" survived.  

Felix Fénéon, a mysterious critic, Dadaist dandy and possible anarchist, wrote for the French newspaper Le Matin anonymously in 1906, providing the paper with daily news items remarkable in their wit and economy (They've been collected, with an introduction by Luc Sante, in a volume entitled Novels in Three Lines). 

Since his brief reportage appeared as part of the daily news, the events covered by Fénéon tend towards murder, suicide, sexual crimes and general mayhem.   Death is a constant, be it natural or not.  What's most impressive is how the whole of a story is neatly folded into a few declarative statements.  Here he applies a deadpan delivery to the tragi-comedy of an accidental demise:

Catherine Rosello of Toulon, mother of four, got out of the way of a freight train.  She was then run over by a passenger train.

He's a sardonic parodist of romantic comedy:

M.O. Calestroupat met, in Parliament, a lady without airs.  After a passionate night, a sodden awakening: she took him for 11,250 francs.

In Onynnax, Mlle. Cotet, 18, threw acid in the face of M. Besnard, 25.  Love, obviously.

Impressive is his witheringly ironic understatement in the face of what a modern-day tabloid would likely turn into screaming headlines and an outraged full-page spread:

Three is the age of Odette Hautoy, of Roissy.  Nevertheless, L. Marc, who is 30, did not consider her too young.

These "novels" are mordant little 20th century tweets, reflective of their author's bracingly modern sensibility.  In a NY Times book review, writer Marilyn Johnson (she of an inestimable book on the art of the obituary, The Dead Beat) refers to the three-liners as "Haiku Journalism" and asks:

Who was Fénéon? Part of the first modernist wave and a culturalbricoleur, he worked on the backstage of literature. He translated, published and even discovered many of the enduring names from the late 19th and early 20th centuries — Proust, Apollinaire, Rimbaud, Seurat, Gide, Joyce — but rarely affixed his own to any work. As Sante puts it, “he kept himself to himself.” During an employment lull, Fénéon took a newspaper job for the Paris daily Le Matin. It lasted barely half a year, but proved an absorbing playground for an anarchist who was also a Symbolist with a sense of humor and a very sharp pen. Fortunately, Fénéon’s mistress clipped the anonymously published miniatures and saved them in a scrapbook. 

Bomb-builder perhaps, he was certainly a unique brand of short story writer.  Witness the neatly telescoped saga, a kind of pre-Raymond Carver minimalism-francaise, contained here:

Eugenie Perichot, of Pailles, neat Saint-Maixent, entertained at his home Mme Lemartrier.  Eugenie Dupuis came to fetch her.  They killed him.  Love.

His social commentary gets slipped in as a low-key gag:

A dishwasher from Nancy, Vital Frerotte, who had just come back from Lourdes cured forever of tuberculosis, died Sunday by mistake.

The cinema of Fénéon is character-driven:

Swimming teacher Renard, whose pupils porpoised in the Marne at Charenton, got into the water himself; he drowned.

And the imagery can be positively Hitchcockian:

The schoolchildren of Niort were being crowned.  The chandelier fell, and the laurels of three among them were spotted with a little blood.

On the bowling lawn a stroke leveled M. Andre, 75, of Levallois.  While his ball was still rolling he was no more.

There are enough stories in the universe of Fénéon to seed at least a hundred movies, which is one reason I occasionally pore over these faits divers at leisure.  That, and when I run out of original tweet material of my own.  

Yup, I'm not proud - just  last night, I was down the Twitter rabbit hole without an idea, and I felt like being funny and relevant, and topical.  So I tweeted a novel of Fénéon's.

Romney-antic Comedy

"A straight-talking billionaire says exactly what a group of lined-pocket supporters want to hear, but what he doesn’t know is that the other 47% of the country is listening."

You gotta love the sly brilliance of this site, Rom Com 2012, which replays the current Romney campaign as variations on familiar rom-com paradigms ("A man.  His country... apparently meant for each other, but kept apart by some complicating circumstances").

No need to add anything to this deft analysis by Think Progress blogger Alyssa Rosenberg.  We await further photo-shopped poster fun, as more high jinks will undoubtedly ensue in the increasingly comedic days to come.

"An indecisive billionaire can’t quite figure out the right way to introduce himself to a group of people called 'America.'”