Romance

With Friends Like These…

  • Title: Friends with Money
  • IMDb: link

Friends with Money

I wish Jennifer Aniston would get a new agent.  She stars in some really horrendous films and yet finds nice supporting roles in films like She’s the One and Office Space.  Then last year she finally hit paydirt in starring in one of the better films of the year in Rumor Has It, but it seems things are back to normal with the regrettable The Break-Up and Friends with Money as well providing yet more disappointment for fans of the girl we fell for as Rachel Green.

The film centers around three married women (Frances McDormand, Joan Cusack, Catherine Keener) and their single friend Olivia (Jennifer Aniston).  The women are all well off even if they live somewhat scattered lives.  Jane (McDormand) is married to a loving husband (Simon McBurney) whom everyone believes is gay.  Franny (Cusack) is married to a loving husband (Greg Germann) with more money than they know what to do with.  Christine (Keener) is stuck in a marriage and professional partnership with an emotionally distant man (Jason Isaacs).  And then there’s Olivia who quit her job teaching in order to become a maid.

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Criminally Contrived Cinema

  • Title: Failure to Launch
  • IMDb: link

A man meets a woman through a wager, bet, or dare or has some secret that can’t be shared.  The two actually do fall for each other (these contrived film couples somehow always have 100% compatibility) but just as they are expressing their true love the reality of the bet, dare, or secret is exposed and the characters are forced to part for about 20 minutes of screen time when their mutual friends come up with a plan to trick them into getting back together.  It always works and the couple lives happily ever after.

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The Rumors are True

  • Title: Rumor Has It…
  • IMDb: link

Rumor Has It...

What if you found out that a well known book and film were based off the real experiences of your family?  That’s what happens to Jennifer Aniston’s character as she realizes that, for her family, The Graduate may just have some added meaning.

Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston) is going through a crisis.  She’s unsure about her recent engagement to Jeff (Mark Ruffalo) and is traveling back home with him for her younger sister Anne’s (Mena Suvari) wedding.  All this anxiety is nothing compared to what will happen next.  A discussion with her grandmother (Shirley MacLaine) and her mother’s best friend (Kathy Bates) lead her to believe that the book and movie The Graduate was written about her family.  She travels to San Francisco to find the man who romanced both her mother and grandmother, Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner), looking for answers and wondering if this man could be her father and if not will she fall under the same spell as her mother and grandmother?

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