Note to St. Valentine: the media says love is dead

By Mika Rekai - Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 12:08 PM - 0 Comments

Bored now/Flickr

It’s Valentine’s Day again, and what better way to celebrate then by reading dozens of articles about why love is probably dead. The reason, according to silver-haired columnists around the world, is because of today’s youth and their unholy reliance on technology. Why is there so much texting, they all ask, and so little staring into the soulful abysses of your lover’s eyes?

In 2009, David Brooks at the New York Times may have well started the trend for curmudgeonly Valentine’s griping when he wrote this article. According to Brooks, Facebook, Twitter, online dating–even cellphones themselves–are to blame for sucking all the rose-tinted, candle-lit romance out of life and leaving only the cold, tasteless husks of a casual relationship in their place. Brooks suggests a return to the “Happy Days era” when “courtship was governed by a set of guardrails”. While Brooks seems to appreciate that Happy Days is a fictional television show set in a pre-feminist era, he still thinks it’s better than whatever young people are up to now: instagraming their love into oblivion, probably.

Continue…

Love, Actually voted most romantic movie

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 11:45 AM - 0 Comments

Opening Weekend: 'Valentine's Day'

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 6:54 PM - 3 Comments

Jennifer Garner and Ashton Kutcher in 'Valentine's Day'

I had to make a tough choice this week, between The Wolfman and Valentine’s Day—between gore and candy. There was just one advance screening for each film (usually not a good sign), and both were playing the same night. Although I try to approach this job with an open mind, I scouted the trailers, and the advance buzz. Neither picture looked hugely promising. Finally I chose Valentine’s Day—partly in the spirit of the season and partly because, if it did turn out to be mediocre, it has such an insanely star-rich cast that I figured it might be mediocre in an interesting way.

Building a movie around Valentine’s Day, the non-holiday everyone loves to hate, is a bit like building a restaurant menu around it. There’s no escaping the contrivance, or the pandering to cheap sentiment, no matter how you package it. The studio promo for Valentine’s Day boasts: “an all-star ensemble cast comes together.” But it doesn’t really. “All-star ensemble” is a usually an oxymoron. And this cast is more like an all-star assortment—a rom-com box of chocolates—because there’s not much ensemblin’ going on. If my arithmetic is correct, the plot has at at least nine couples in play, and that’s a load of romantic business to take care of. The female stars alone include: Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Taylor Swift, Kathy Bates, Queen Latifah and Shirley MacLaine. And they’re all so cute and frisky, as if every actor is on a mission to be adorable. There’s a lot of love flying around, but it’s largely between the stars and the camera—this valentine unfolds like a red-carpet collection of  expanded cameos.

The movie is not unentertaining. But it is unsatisfying. Garry Marshall, the sitcom veteran whose confections range from Pretty Woman to  Runaway Bride, wraps every scene with candied visuals and keeps the romantic traffic briskly moving.  If you don’t buy this little love affair, there’s another one just around the corner. The director is busier than a florist on Valentine’s Day—which, incidentally, is the role played by Ashton Kutcher, who anchors the narrative. With his casual charm and puppy-dog air of unaffected modesty,  Kutcher is actually one of the more likable things about the movie. His character kicks off the story as he prematurely pops the question to his sleepy-head girlfriend (Jessica Alba).  He then discovers that his best friend (Jennifer Garner), a school teacher, is being two-timed by a heartless heart surgeon (Patrick Dempsey), who is sending flowers to both her and his wife. That intrigue is the long-stemmed heart of the narrative. But surrounding it is a lavish arrangement of subplots. Continue…