When Harry Met Sally

In 1989, director Rob Reiner was just starting to make people forget actor Rob Reiner (Meathead from “All in the Family”) when he created a cinematic standard for romantic comedies. Helped by an all-star team (writer Nora Ephron, cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, stars Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan), Reiner’s “When Harry Met Sally” is the Woody Allen movie for everyone who doesn’t like Woody Allen movies, a Manhattancentric look at Baby Boomer relationships with romance and pathos leavened by cunning wit. Crystal and Ryan are the friends who think friends can’t be lovers (or is it vice versa?) until they are.

Chaos Theory

Canada – America’s cold, remote neighbor. Seems its romantic comedies are a little like that, too. “Chaos Theory” (2008) is actually a very good Ryan Reynolds vehicle. He gets to play a whole range of emotions as a wedding-day dad imparting wisdom to a cold-footed groom, using his own marriage as an example. But instead of the artistic safety of American-style, cinematic tentpole commerce, this film is edgier, angrier and sadder. But also wittier and with music designed to speak to the story rather than to sell the original motion picture soundtrack. A little harder to love, but still a keeper.

Music and Lyrics

Not everybody loves Drew Barrymore, but I’m quite fond of her. Meanwhile, Hugh Grant has done so many rom-coms he could make asking Alexa for the weather forecast sound like he’s about to pop the question. So why do Barrymore and Grant spend most of “Music and Lyrics” (2007) generating such little chemistry? The story of a washed-up pop star and a frustrated writer haphazardly thrown together to hurriedly dash off a song for a current pop star comes off as, well, haphazard, hurriedly thrown together and dashed off (their age difference doesn’t help). Rom-com conventions rescue the ending – barely.