Intro:

Some hate them. Others love them. That said, I personally love a good romcom. They may be predictable, but that's a part of the joy in watching them. You're almost certain the movie will end exactly as you thought it would. Romcoms are very varely cinematic masterpieces, which is why some of my favorites are rated so poorly by Roger Ebert.

Please enjoy a list of some of my favorite romcoms, and see what Roger Ebert has to say about them.

Set It Up

"The leads bring such strong comic chops and have such chemistry that there's a chance we might have been smitten even if Silberman hadn't provided them with wannabe-iconic scenes to play, including one that originates in the conviction that pizza is the most romantic food. Their shared sense of humor is built on deadpan delivery and insulting remarks that are really secret statements of camaraderie. Charlie and Harper fall into a mutually satisfying relationship so fast that you start to imagine the old married couple they could become, if only the stars would align.

The ensuing plot complications enrich the movie, even as they suggest fresher roads that the film rarely musters the nerve to explore. One of these is the physically and emotionally draining aspects of capitalism. "Set it Up" is as much a film about work as it is a romantic comedy.

People on the lower rungs of the film's economic ladder often seem exasperated by their mistreatment by customers and clients, while people on the higher rungs are obsessed with money and status and are often unknowingly condescending towards people below them (notice how how Charlie's conversations keep circling back to getting promoted, and how Harper keeps finding herself without money to pay low-wage workers who probably earn only slightly less than she does). The script seems forever on the verge of combining all these details into a grand statement, probably a satirical one. But it never happens, and you're left wondering if the movie softened its own edges so as not to scare anyone off."

The Proposal

"So I was sitting there, cringing, knowing with uncanny certainty where the story was going. No movie begins with scenes of a man and a woman who are utterly incompatible unless it ends with them in love, unless perhaps it might be one about Hitler and Eleanor Roosevelt. They will fly to Alaska, she will be charmed by his family, she will be moved by the community spirit, she will love the landscape after the skyscraper towers of Manhattan, and they will have misadventures, probably involving unintended nudity and someone falling off a boat. So it is written.

But slowly, reluctantly, disbelievingly, they will start to warm up to each other. And it was about at that point when reluctantly, disbelievingly, I began to warm up to them. Bullock is a likable actress in the right roles, which she has been avoiding frequently since "Speed 2: Cruise Control" (1997), which I liked more than she did. She is likable here because she doesn't overdo it and is convincing when she confesses that she has warmed to his family's embrace -- and who would not, since Andrew's mother is the merry Mary Steenburgen and his grandmother is the unsinkable Betty White. His father, Craig T. Nelson, is not quite so embraceable, but only because he is protective."

Life As We Know It

"Awww. This is really sad. Holly and Eric have to share the same enormous Atlanta mansion. I think it has room for an indoor 100-yard dash. Although their deceased friends Peter and Alison (Hayes MacArthur and Christina Hendricks) were young, they must have been loaded. "The mortgage is pre-paid for a year," the lawyer tells Holly and Eric. How many people can say that?

Awww, this is never gonna work out. Eric is a tomcat on the prowl. Hell, that first night he met Holly on a blind date set up by Peter and Alison, he had another date lined up for later.

And Holly - well, she's one of your organized types, spic and span, not a mess like Messer. Plus, she maybe has a crush on Sam (Josh Lucas), the handsome pediatrician.

So anyway, what happens in "Life As We Know It"? You'll never guess in a million years. Never. You might just as well give up right now. I don't like spoilers, so just let me say that Holly and Sam adopt Sophie and live happily ever after in the mansion. Awww."

How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days

"I am just about ready to write off movies in which people make bets about whether they will, or will not, fall in love. The premise is fundamentally unsound, since it subverts every love scene with a lying subtext. Characters are nice when they want to be mean, or mean when they want to be nice. The easiest thing at the movies is to sympathize with two people who are falling in love.

The hardest thing is to sympathize with two people who are denying their feelings, misleading each other, and causing pain to a trusting heart. This is comedy only by dictionary definition. In life, it is unpleasant, and makes the audience sad.

Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson star. I neglected to mention that, maybe because I was trying to place them in this review's version of the Witness Protection Program. If I were taken off the movie beat and assigned to cover the interior design of bowling alleys, I would have some idea of how they must have felt as they made this film."