And I have sat through Shanghai Surprise, so that's saying a lot.
Who on God's earth would find something like this amusing? It is, on one hand, your garden-variety "men are such children, and women are shrews" "urban" comedies that get rammed down our collective throats every day.
On the other hand, what makes this movie unusual is that none of the characters, especially the male ones, have any redeeming qualities whatsoever. NONE whatsoever. I could really care less about the young architect with her jealous prick boyfriend who is so loving toward her, he makes her life miserable simply because she is a success. I found myself channel surfing during their parts. Then there is the obligatory story of an English professor throwing away a perfectly good relationship to setup a pert young no-nothing with firm tits, no morals, and no expectations. It's your typical nauseating story of some supposedly educated man lapping up whatever drivel Young Student spews because he wants in her pants; she actually writes a "poem" that seems more like a contribution to The Penthouse Letters, and the entranced doofus academic behaves as if she is Chaucer and the Bard rolled into a skanky blonde package. Predictably, he screws the student, the girlfriend finds out, and she kicks him out of their home. And of course, he is miserable, realizing (as much as a mongoloid is capable of realizing) that he threw away a good woman for an easy, meaningless screw. YAWN. Didn't we see Woody Allen do this a hundred times, and only better? My most scathing comments are for the third couple, Zipporah and Noah. I cannot understand why anyone would find the antics of Noah humorous, laughable, or even tolerable. Zipporah is an annoying spoiled yenta, yes. Noah, however, is an insufferable rat mistaken for a human being, the most loathsome character I have ever seen on my television screen. He is rude, he is condescending, he is obnoxious, he is physically extremely unappealing, and he is verbally and physically abusive. In one "comedic" scene, The Happy Lovers are not speaking...again. Noah decides to communicate with his wife by taking a hammer and smashing one of her beloved horse figurines to bits. That's not funny; that's emotional abuse. Then there is the wacky instance when Noah decides to refer to his wife as a "half wit." He humiliates his wife in front of his mongoloid, miserable friends, first by belittling her choice of apparel (she looks great) and then by treating her like the ignorant hired help. He belittles her ambitions of being a singer, first by sneaking around behind her back, violating her privacy by vandalizing her music room; second by actually making fun of his wife's music by singing it in an off-key country twang. This is comedy? I used to work in the homicide bureau of the local county prosecutor, and I can tell you this: it's emotional abuse like this that gets spouses shot. Poor Noah is so miserable (you get the feeling that this rodent masquerading as a man doesn't need a beautiful young wife to make him miserable; he's just a dismal excuse for a human being), he is leaving his wife on the sly. Because he lacks gumption, a polite way of saying He Has No Balls, he sneakily packs his bag while Zipporah is asleep. When she awakens, he flees the house. When she finds the packed bag and confronts him, he drives off and hides like a sissy girl...that is, after he emotionally torments his wife by stopping as if to start a conversation with her, only to burn rubber, driving away, when she walks to his car window. This is funny? No, this is at the very least the grounds for divorce. The very last scene we see of this happy couple is when Zipporah finds her rat spouse cornered, as if in a trap, in a seedy hotel room. Noah wasn't even man enough to answer the door when she found him, so she takes matters into her own hands in the form of a tire iron, which she uses to smash the window. The only way that this film could have redeemed itself is if Zipporah took the logical next step with that iron and killed the sniveling, abusive, repulsive rat.
Who on God's earth would find something like this amusing? It is, on one hand, your garden-variety "men are such children, and women are shrews" "urban" comedies that get rammed down our collective throats every day.
On the other hand, what makes this movie unusual is that none of the characters, especially the male ones, have any redeeming qualities whatsoever. NONE whatsoever. I could really care less about the young architect with her jealous prick boyfriend who is so loving toward her, he makes her life miserable simply because she is a success. I found myself channel surfing during their parts. Then there is the obligatory story of an English professor throwing away a perfectly good relationship to setup a pert young no-nothing with firm tits, no morals, and no expectations. It's your typical nauseating story of some supposedly educated man lapping up whatever drivel Young Student spews because he wants in her pants; she actually writes a "poem" that seems more like a contribution to The Penthouse Letters, and the entranced doofus academic behaves as if she is Chaucer and the Bard rolled into a skanky blonde package. Predictably, he screws the student, the girlfriend finds out, and she kicks him out of their home. And of course, he is miserable, realizing (as much as a mongoloid is capable of realizing) that he threw away a good woman for an easy, meaningless screw. YAWN. Didn't we see Woody Allen do this a hundred times, and only better? My most scathing comments are for the third couple, Zipporah and Noah. I cannot understand why anyone would find the antics of Noah humorous, laughable, or even tolerable. Zipporah is an annoying spoiled yenta, yes. Noah, however, is an insufferable rat mistaken for a human being, the most loathsome character I have ever seen on my television screen. He is rude, he is condescending, he is obnoxious, he is physically extremely unappealing, and he is verbally and physically abusive. In one "comedic" scene, The Happy Lovers are not speaking...again. Noah decides to communicate with his wife by taking a hammer and smashing one of her beloved horse figurines to bits. That's not funny; that's emotional abuse. Then there is the wacky instance when Noah decides to refer to his wife as a "half wit." He humiliates his wife in front of his mongoloid, miserable friends, first by belittling her choice of apparel (she looks great) and then by treating her like the ignorant hired help. He belittles her ambitions of being a singer, first by sneaking around behind her back, violating her privacy by vandalizing her music room; second by actually making fun of his wife's music by singing it in an off-key country twang. This is comedy? I used to work in the homicide bureau of the local county prosecutor, and I can tell you this: it's emotional abuse like this that gets spouses shot. Poor Noah is so miserable (you get the feeling that this rodent masquerading as a man doesn't need a beautiful young wife to make him miserable; he's just a dismal excuse for a human being), he is leaving his wife on the sly. Because he lacks gumption, a polite way of saying He Has No Balls, he sneakily packs his bag while Zipporah is asleep. When she awakens, he flees the house. When she finds the packed bag and confronts him, he drives off and hides like a sissy girl...that is, after he emotionally torments his wife by stopping as if to start a conversation with her, only to burn rubber, driving away, when she walks to his car window. This is funny? No, this is at the very least the grounds for divorce. The very last scene we see of this happy couple is when Zipporah finds her rat spouse cornered, as if in a trap, in a seedy hotel room. Noah wasn't even man enough to answer the door when she found him, so she takes matters into her own hands in the form of a tire iron, which she uses to smash the window. The only way that this film could have redeemed itself is if Zipporah took the logical next step with that iron and killed the sniveling, abusive, repulsive rat.