It occasionally happens that there will be a romantic comedy that I want to see, although this greatly hinges on the on-screen presence of Zooey Deschanel.
It’s no surprise that my wife likes a happy ending to go along with her romantic comedies. I know that there is no way that she’ll go see a movie that begins with a breakup.
So, I had to concoct a new, more wife-friendly plot to get her interested in “(500) Days Of Summer.” My movie takes place in the post-glacial melt Arctic. Due to the warmer climate and the earth’s rotation, the characters really do have 500 days of summer as they try to bond amidst the occasional polar bear and a life floating on the water.
Since she eventually saw through my ruse and took me to the movie, I thought it fitting to include it on the list.
While “Summer” might be seen as an alternative to romantic comedies, it still has one foot in the world of “Never Been Kissed” and one foot in “Before Sunrise.”
Twentysomethings Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Deschanel) are the happy couple who breakup near the beginning of the movie. Since the story jumps around among its 500-day timeline, this doesn’t occur at the chronological midpoint but soon enough for the audience to begin searching for fault lines.
I am often reminded that murder mysteries take one of two forms. Either you know what happened and you find out who the killer is or you know who did it, but you must figure out how. “Summer” is of the latter structure; we know early on that the two aren’t one anymore, and we are captivated to find out why. The movie would probably be a lot duller if not told in this structure, but that’s the point; which begs the question, if “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” were told in this fashion, would it be a good movie?
Another thing that makes “Summer” different from most movies like it, is it’s told from the guy’s perspective, and once you realize this, you see how it’s already in a class of its own. Showing this side of the relationship can be successful, as seen in “High Fidelity” or “I Love You Man,” but whether a guy-side movie called “Bro Actually…” or “Fried Green Buffalo Wings” can rake it in like their feminine counterparts can would be a risky gamble which would immediately backfire from the presence of a Renee Zellweger or Kate Hudson.
Still, “Summer” does borrow from more feminine oriented movies. We have the wacky best friends, the occasional voiceover and the wise-in-all-things-romance prepubescent girl. It’s these things that, to use a baseball metaphor, keep the movie from knocking it out of the park even though it hits a strong home run. If you can’t outdo “Pushing Daisies” in your voiceover, it’s not worth doing.
For every rom-com staple, we’re rewarded with genuinely good scenes like a musical dance number and a split screen telling of the main character’s perception of a party and what actually happened. There’s even a few Fellini and Ingmar Bergman references thrown in for good measure.
Though like its nonlinear storytelling, “Summer’s” male-centric lead is almost a gimmick, but a good one. There are more men that can identify with Tom’s ever-present iPod and real human feelings than with Matthew McConaughey and his lost shirt.




I hate movies with misleading titles. But I like movies that can tell an effective story in an hour and a half.
The best horror movies exploit the unfamiliar. I’m not sure how Spanish audiences first received this “The Orphanage,” but the fact that it’s in another language seems to make it more real. Same with older scary movies. Lon Chaney’s makeup in the “Phantom of the Opera” may look comical in some lights, but there’s always that little voice that asks, ‘wait a minute, what if this guy was for real?’
Mention Greece to the movie-going public and they’ll think of John Travolta. Mention it again, saying “No, stupid, the country. Grease is spelled with an A.” After they finish punching you, three things will pop into their heads as they walk away: that old building with the columns, that funny flat bread, and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”
Entertainer. Companion. Confidant. Courtesan. Prostitute.