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How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (Full Screen Edition)

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (Full Screen Edition)

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Congenial fluff
Review: Once upon a time, Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson appeared in fine dramatic roles. LONE STAR (1996) and A TIME TO KILL (1996) come to mind for the former, and ALMOST FAMOUS (2000) for the latter. HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS is a pleasant, but inconsequential, piece of fluff for both.

Hudson plays Andie, the How To girl for "Composure" magazine (a fictional "Cosmopolitan"), and the writer of such articles as "How to Beat A Traffic Ticket". Inspired by her best girlfriend's bad luck with men, she volunteers to write a piece, HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS. As her boss (Bebe Neuwirth) puts it, "Five days is too short, and the magazine goes to print in eleven." Andie is to base her article on the exercise of attracting a single man, then employing her womanly wiles to drive him to dump her. (Hudson's real-life Mom, Goldie Hawn, would also have been perfect for the Andie role in her younger years.)

McConaughey is Ben, who works for an ad agency, and is out to convince his boss that he, not two female colleagues, is best able to devise an ad campaign for a major diamond wholesaler. Ben wins the assignment if he can make good on a bet, i.e. that he can make a woman fall in love with him in ten days.

Andie and Ben target each other at a party, and the battle of totally opposite agendas is on. At one point, as both gaze lovingly at each other, Andie's inner thought is revealed by a voiceover: "I'm going to make you wish you were dead." Get the drift of the plot?

McConaughey and Hudson are both enormously attractive actors, and so this film is certainly not unpleasant. OK, ok - it's cute. Hudson's Andie is the meatier of the two roles, best seen when she intrudes on Ben's night of poker with his male buds. The script works - most of the time. There was only one sequence involving Ben, Andie, Ben's family and a game of cards called "Bulls__t" that was almost incomprehensible to me, a non-card player, and which perhaps was better left in the digital editor's virtual trash bin.

Despite the convoluted path getting there, the Hollywood ending should be obvious to anyone who's ever purchased a movie ticket. Both McConaughey and Hudson are capable and deserving of better. HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS is not the sort of film that will elevate either to the A List.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Very Dissapointing
Review: I rented this movie and I'm glad that I didn't buy it. I've seen Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey in other films and both have done better. I was skeptical of the movie to begin with because none of my female friends have or would have done any of the things Kate Hudsons character Andie did to Matthews character. I felt embarrassed for both Kate and Matthew and wondered if they have really bad agents or just don't know how to pick the movies they will star in. If you decide to see this movie - go into it with extreamly low expectations and you might have a chance of feeling entertained instead of realizing you just lost 115 minutes of your life that you can never get back.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: I Also Lost Interest in 10 Minutes.
Review: I rented this movie expecting it to be a hilarious two hours of fun. Well, twenty minutes into it, I was waiting for it to end. I was waiting for the big laughs that never came. The storyline, when you think about it, is questionable: How do you make it funny, anyway? It's just weird. And not cool-weird or good-weird, just weird. Like impossible-weird. She's doing a magazine article on "what not to do on a date" and wants to drive away this guy in ten days. He wants to make her fall in love with him to prove to this people that he can make girls fall in love with the diamonds they're selling. So...she's trying to make him hate her, he's trying to make her love him. It's not that funny, it's simply a bit strange. I rented this with "Bringing Down the House," and just as a comparison between two supposed comedies, I laughed hysterically throughout and thoroughly enjoyed the Queen Latifah/Steve Martin movie. This one, on the other hand, bored me. I stopped watching after about half an hour and I don't know how I could've kept going though another hour and a half of it. This is NOT the film it's made out to be...

There must have been SOME part I liked...for instance, the moment when she first gets the job of driving the guy away. From there, everything's downhill. I'm telling you this so you know what to expect from this film. If you trust alot of the ads for it, you'll be disappointed. And for those who weren't--I guess we have very different senses of humor. Because "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" didn't hold my attention at all. I didn't like it. The story is just bland and blah. I give it 2 stars out of five because...like, well...I don't know. I save 1 star reviews for REALLY, REALLY painfully bad movies. Ones that hurt to watch, you know? This isn't painful, it's just no fun. So it gets two stars.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Laughs Galore!
Review: MOVE over, Goldie, here comes your daughter, KATE Hudson! At certain angles, Kate looks like Goldie when she was younger. The same trademark giggle and cheeky grins are there, but for me Goldie has that certain X factor, and is definitely more well endowed than her daughter (and it shows). The story line is simple, and one I can empathize with as I am The Travelling Gourmet & I am a Travel, Food & Wine journalist. Kate is a journalist for a top womens' magazine in New York and for a story, she is assigned to write a piece (journalistic lingo for story or article) on "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days" To do this her simple minded plan is to entice and ensnare a guy in a short while & then to dump him unceremoniously in 10 days. Of course, all sorts of funny and hilarious things happen in between like when she invades his bachelor pad with all her cuddly stuffed toys, bears and what have you! Also, she crashes his weekly Poker Party with the boys and creates havoc with her PMS tantrums. Then there is the classic scene where she tells him she is a vegetarian after he has slaved over a hot stove to cook her a gourmet meal of Lamb. Another classic is the restaurant scene where she accuses him falsely of calling her "FAT". What a guy, he is so tolerant he even falls in love with her! he is the Sensitive New Age Man personified. Well, who can blame him. She is undoubtedly beautiful, with or without cleavage. As star she is sure to rise and shine very fast in the future. I liked the portrayal of a HARD AS NAILS editor; very true to life. I have known editors like her, only better looking but still tough to the core beneath their designer power suits complete with immaculately varnished shocking red nails. The scenes in the magazine publishing house is very realistic, as is the scene where the stories are assigned to various writers during an Editorial meeting. I was thinking as I watched, "Is it Art imitating Life, or vice versa, or both??" The twist is that the guy also has underhand plans of his own to get a plum advertising account for a Diamond tycoon. What a world! To do this he has to prove he can ensnare Kate with his macho charms. Anyway, to cut a long story short, true LOVE wins in the end and triumphs over all obstacles. This only goes to show you how true the motto of the SAS is as WHO DARES WINS! I watched this with someone I love very much, and I recommend you watch this with someone you love very much too. It made our day and I'm sure it will make your day too. ENJOY! By Dr. Michael Lim The Travelling Gourmet

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: How to lose my interest in 10 minutes.
Review: Gimmicky-beyond-belief rom-com. The movie asks us to swallow the "concept" that an up-and-coming ad-man (Matthew McConaughey, uninteresting as ever) will win a plum account if he can make a woman -- any woman -- fall in love with him in 10 days. Not even an advertising agency would sink to these depths, I suspect. (But one never knows.) "Concept" #2: a 20-something blondie (Kate Hudson, channeling her mother) who writes advice columns for a Cosmo-ish women's magazine has been given an assignment that asks her to "go undercover" in order to show her benighted readers how to "lose a guy in 10 days" (by doing all the "wrong" things like acting clingy and demanding and et cetera). Unfortunately, this idea is NOT beyond the depths to which a women's magazine will sink, so maybe the movie is chillingly realistic, after all. Anyway, these two dunces hook up. The End. Perhaps the movie would've been more charming if the writers hadn't insisted on giving Hudson's character a wistful desire to write "political" columns for "The Economist" or something; and if they hadn't provided McConaughey with the standard my-big-fat-cute family that includes a dotty old uncle prone to incessant flatulence.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Ok Film, But Not What I Expected
Review: Although this film has captured the hearts of many young fans, I found this film satisfactory. There are bits and pieces in the movie that were funny but in the end, I realized that Kate Hudson was the only good thing in the movie. The script gave a good comedic effort but all in all, it turns out to be too predictable and ruins all the excitement and surprise of going to the movies.

Kate Hudson is the only one who glows in the movie with her excellent performance as Andie Anderson, the "How to..." girl for a local magazine called "Composure." In order to write her next article, "How to lose a guy in 10 days," Andie goes about to find her a man she can use as a guinea pig. Hudson's facial expressions and various voices she displays in the movie demonstrates what an accomplished actress she has become. Kate is very convincing as Andie and she can even light up a movie with a dry plot.

Matthew McConaughey portrays the smooth talking advertising executive who takes on a bet that he can make any girl fall in love with him in 10 days. McConaughey's dreary performance in the film makes his character have no life and live in the shadow of Kate Hudson's performance. McConaughey's Texan accent also doesn't suit well with his New York character.

The DVD special features are all consisted of the usuals (previews, scene selections, languages, etc.) and many little featurettes. They include the directors, actors, producers point of view on the characters and the actors/ actresses who play them. The DVD has featurettes about characters like Andie's friends, Ben's buddies, the Judy's, Andie and Ben's Boss, and of course, Andie and Ben. There's also a map of New York and special spot on location featurettes. There's places like Staten Island, Ben's ad agency, Andie's 'Composure' headquarters, Ben's loft, Andie's apartment, the Brooklyn Bridge and other various locations. The extras are pretty good and give you a good behind the scenes look on the movie.

The film overall was ok with occasional quirks. However, after watching all the previews and the critical raves, this movie was not as good as I expected. The selection of actors and actresses who were chosen to play the parts in the movie were good choices with the exception of Matthew McConaughey. The script was ok but with a few confusing parts. Even though the movie is known as 'the ultimate chick flick for guys,' I still find this like any other romance comedy- dull with no plot. All in all, I give the movie, 'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,' 3 out of 5 stars.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Enter cliches!
Review: I saw this movie after hearing that it was cute and funny and an overall good chick flick. I wish I could kick whoever told me that. It seemed to use every cliche in the book and was VERY predictable. I'm sorry, but I just can't give this more than two stars - and that's only because Matthew is good looking

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Watchable
Review: This is a watchable movie, especially for couples or dates, but it is not great. Kate Hudson does do a really good job of being a really "bad" date -- she made me squirm because I would have dumped her on the first "bad" date. Overall, the actors do a good job and make the film enjoyable and humorous, with a touch of emotion, so it has appeal for wider audiences.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: You're So Vain...
Review: I would recommend this movie to anyone wanting to watch a romantic comedy. This movie worked basically because of the two main actors and the on screen chemistry they have. Matthew and Kate have that special chemistry on screen that makes you believe they would actually go together (unlike the couple in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"- ugh).

Kate's behavior is so annoying, but then its supposed to be. She's trying to drive the guy away. But when they do fall for each other, you believe it. In fact, Kate and Matthew could make a serious romantic movie together and it would work great! There are some really funny scenes and moments in this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: How to make a good romantic comedy...
Review: ... Start with a good script that includes a twist, and add good acting and as much humor as possible. This movie has these elements. Kate Hudson plays a "How To" columnist for a fluffy women's mag, but she really wants to write about serious subjects. She is trying to impress her boss (Bebe Newirth) enough to earn free reign on her writing. In this process and after her coworker whines incessantly about being dumped, Hudson opts to write a reverse How To on what turns guys off. She must find a guy that will fall for her, then do everything that women do wrong in relationships. Concurrently, Matthew McConaghey plays a sharp-shooting, go-getter ad exec who has thus far worked predominantly in the sports arena. He would like to break into the very lucrative world of jewelry. What stands in his way? Two lovely ladies who believe they can do it better, and have the ear of McConaghey's boss. McConaghey makes a bet that he can make any woman fall in love with him in 10 days, in order to prove his adeptness at knowing and being able to speak to the female mind. His opposition, having overheard Hudson's latest assignment, pick her seemingly randomly as McConaghey's target, thinking he's sure to lose. This is how the couple comes together. The rest of the movie is how they come apart ... and it's funny. Actually, it's almost uncomfortably funny. Your sides will split in laughter in parts of the movie. Plus, you'll wonder how Kate Hudson ever managed to get through the embarrassingly funny things she did in her attempt to scare off unsuspecting McConaghey. Kate's performance is perfect. In the end, as you just have to know, the truth unravels with the unwitting help of McConaghey's sidekicks. All in all, this movie has everything ... a good plot, good acting, lots of laughs, and ample chemistry. This one is a must for the avid romantic comedy collector. (and guys should like it too)

As for the DVD itself ... The deleted scenes aren't bad to watch, but the movie wasn't missing anything for having left them on the cutting room floor. I don't know about you, but I never really get into the lengthy commentaries so I haven't gone there to speak about it.


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