Anne Thompson On Men?

Occasionally, I check around the web to see what other critics are saying about the Oscar race. Sometimes their comments strike me as bizarre but I tend to let it slide. However, Anne Thompson's characterization of the movie taste of dudes has forced my hand. She writes, "Men would rather die than go to a romantic comedy--unless it stars Seth Rogen, Vince Vaughn or Adam Sandler. Judd Apatow figured out that making rom-coms for both sexes was the way to go". First, this is a complete (and false) generalization. Adam Sandler isn't popular anymore. He sucks. The same is applicable to Vince Vaughn. He plays the same character in all of his movies.

Also, we don't see Seth Rogen/Apatow films because of the romance part. We go see them primarily because of the crude juvenile humor. The romance parts of Knocked Up accentuate the comedy. If it was just romance for the sake of romance, I'm pretty confident most dudes would've hated it.

She also writes that, "they [movie studios] like to make movies for men because they're more predictable and reliable and less finicky and demanding than women."

I really just take issue with the "more predictable" part. Women aren't that complicated. If you make a romance comedy that's pretty sappy, then most women will go see it. You turn Sex in the City into a movie, then plenty of women will go see it. I don't see how this makes women less predictable. I like to believe that most movie goers (women and men) are fairly predictable. You can probably tell what they are interested in within the first minutes of speaking to them. For instance, if a girl likes america's next top model or the hills, then it's highly unlikely that she will citizen kane, and will go see there will be blood. There's nothing wrong with this of course. But, I don't think its right to characterize men as more predictable movie watchers. Most people are fairly predictable.