The LG Report Movie Review: "It's Complicated"

In truth, it's not really all that complicated.

I'm talking, of course, about the movie "It's Complicated," starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.  Released on Christmas day, it has grossed about $22 million as of this writing.

Bottom Line: as romantic comedies go, on a scale of 1 to 103, I'd give "It's Complicated" an 84.2.  Most such scales go to 100, I know, but The LG Movie Report has to be different. 

The film's plot revolves around divorcee Streep's fling with her ex-husband (Baldwin) who has remarried.  His new wife, of course, is a young hottie (semi-hottie in my opinion.)  This all occurs during the early stages of Streep's budding romance with the architect (Martin) overseeing her home expansion. 

How complicated was that?

The theatre was not crowded.  My sister and I showed up 45 minutes early and sat alone for 20 of them.  The LG Movie Report Useful Adivice: Don't arrive at the theatre too early for this movie or you'll just sit discussing trivia like the history of Target Stores.

These blog postings build on one another, as you can see, so please keep up.

I would've tried to sneak a photo of the screen during the movie for the benefit of The LG Movie Report's readers (both of them), but the movie studios are so worked up about film piracy these days that they'll burn your eyes out if they catch you trying to photograph or videotape their productions. 

And they are serious about this.  Sophie the Blog Dog recently got caught trying to videotape the re-release of the "Scoobie Doo Movie" and this is what the studio did to her:

Now she needs a seeing-eye dog. 

Restaurants are forced to admit seeing-eye dogs, thanks to federal law, but most don't admit regular dogs.  So Sophie sends her seeing-eye dog into McDonald's to get Happy Meals for her.  It's complicated.  

Back to the movie review.

This film was formulaic and predictable. However, it was also pretty funny. Portions of the dialogue were drowned out by audience laughter, which, to me, is the sign of a good comedy. 

I think I can hear you drowning out my typing with your laughter.  Or are those yawns?

I usually consult the website http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ before attending a movie.  It aggregates reviews from a large number of sources (The LG Movie Report is not among them...yet) and assigns a rating on a 1 to 100 scale (they're not creative enough to go with 103.)  Rotten Tomatoes gave "It's' Complicated" a 50% rating, which is not good, but in a separate poll of rottentomatoes.com readers, the film received a 75% rating, which is very respectable.  I reccommend the RottenTomatoes website, you should check it out.  It also rates movies available on DVD and pay-per-view. 

Disregard the opinions of others (except mine) and see this movie if you like romantic comedies, you won't be disappointed.  Who cares about the plot of romantic comedies anyway?  You're there only for the laughs, and this movie has them.

Here's an insight on the plotting of most romantic comedies: The guy and girl who start out hating each other, end up married or dating.  Almost always.  And no, I didn't attend UCLA film school, I figured that out all by myself.  

One unusual thing about this movie, and I'd be interested in knowing if anyone has an explanation: in five or six scenes an overhead microphone or two was lowered into the view of the camera.  Really, I'm not kidding.  It was mildly distracting a couple of times, especially when I started looking for it. 

With all of today's modern video technology, it's almost impossible to believe that the production company couldn't avoid this problem.  And these visible microphones didn't figure into the storyline or seem intentional in any way.  It's hard to understand.  If you see the movie, keep an eye out for it. 

Here's a picture of the poster for the romantic comedy "Bounty Hunter:"

I took this picture because I figured that I should show at least one or two movie stars in a post about a Hollywood film and this was the only one in the theatre lobby.

The trailer for "Bounty Hunter" looked pretty good, but that's never an accurate predictor of a film's quality. This movie was filmed in part at Monmouth Park racetrack at the Jersey Shore, one of my favorite destinations for an afternoon of leisure.  So I already like it somewhat.

One more thing. A friend of mine once had dinner with Alec Baldwin (it's true) and he said that all the guy talked about was money.  But in movies and on TV, he seems like a good guy to hang out with.  What do I know? I was trying to give you an insider fact like TMZ.  I'm new at this.
Are you aware that there are no Target stores in Vermont?