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Welcome to What She’s Having! Join us every Wednesday as we discuss a romantic comedy, including the incredibly moving, the genuinely hilarious, and the truly terrible. We take a magnifying glass to this most beloved and contentious genre, catapulting into discussions about gender roles in film, women behind the camera, our love of movies… some general ridiculousness… and quite a bit of nerding out. There will be gushing. There will be ranting. We will profess our love for John Cusack. What ...
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Welcome to the latest episode, where we discuss 2000’s What Women Want. In Nancy Meyer’s first foray into rom com directing, she goes BIG: Two of the biggest stars at the time as leads, impressive ensemble cast, and a high-concept idea full of promise. Unfortunately for her (and Helen Hunt, and Alan Alda, and most of all Marisa Tomei) this movie fa…
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Welcome to the latest episode, where we nurse the emotional scars handed to us from the Oscars by delving into our very first Jennifer Lopez movie, 2002’s Maid in Manhattan. We couldn’t be more divided on this movie: Alia seems to love it unquestioningly while Lisa remains sceptical. We can both agree that Jennifer Lopez was perfectly suited for th…
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Happy Birthday to us! We turn the terrible twos this week, so we thought we’d celebrate with a special movie we’ve had in the hopper for quite a while: 1934’s It Happened One Night. It’s hard for us to hide our complete love for this movie, but really, what’s not to like? A road movie that includes an escape by sea, bus and car, Clark Gable and Cla…
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Check out our latest episode as we discuss the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Brought to us by the filmmaking team of Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman, it passes its ten-year anniversary as a pretty solid example that an American romantic comedy can be experiential, romantic, emotionally complex and a truly realistic depiction of…
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We celebrate the Holidays once again as we discuss the 2006 film The Holiday, which is surprisingly short on the holiday stuff and big on the painfully long scenes. A good starting premise is too-soon soaked with overblown hollywood embellishments, reminding us that two women trying to grow out of bad relationships, really just need to rebound to t…
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This week we discuss 1997’s Grosse Pointe Blank, starring John Cusack as a hit man, Dan Aykroyd as an evil hit man, and Minnie Driver as his love interest (Cusack’s not Aykroyd’s– that would be weird). We’re joined by Andrew Parker of Dork Shelf to get to the bottom of this funny, somewhat unscrupulous, action-infused romantic comedy. Oh, and it ha…
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Check out our latest episode as we take a break from the romance to discuss the acclaimed 1980 comedy 9 to 5. While the gender politics haven’t aged all that well, the trio of Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton boasts undeniable charisma, and they do kick some figurative, and surprisingly literal, ass in the name of equal rights in the workpl…
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We celebrate Halloween with a discussion of Hello Again, a little known ghostly rom com from 1987 starring Shelly Long and Gabriel Byrne. It’s the age old story of a suburban housewife who chokes to death on a chicken ball and then gets necromanced back to life by her sister, then ends up meeting a handsome doctor. In short: insanity. We’re joined …
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Join us this week as we tackle the 1998 rom com killing machine You’ve Got Mail. Written and directed by Nora Ephron, based on source material from the 1937 play Parfumerie and the 1940 movie The Shop Around the Corner, this is Tom Hanks’ and Meg Ryan’s third and final film together. We find a lot to talk about with this monster: is this a sweet lo…
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Check out our latest episode as we discuss the 1995 Amy Heckerling film Clueless. Both an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, and a highschool movie at the start of the teen-movie craze of the late 90s, it’s also a pretty neat time capsule. We discuss Alicia Silverstone, the early 1800s rural English social sphere vs. mid-90s Beverly Hills, the ever-…
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Check out our latest episode as we discuss the 2005 film Hitch, Will Smith’s first, and interestingly, last romantic comedy vehicle, and boy is this movie something. Smith barely keeps this one together with his natural charisma, but with hopeless comic timing, awkward performances, and generally the idea that all women are stupid enough to get tri…
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Check out our latest episode as we discuss the newly released 2014 film The F Word, (or the more generic “What If” to those outside Canada). Starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan, and helmed by Michael Dowse, this film offers a fresh take on a pretty conventional rom-com story of woe: what if the one you fall for is already taken? We discuss the …
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Join us this week as we discuss the 1972 film The Heartbreak Kid. This isn’t your average Farrelly Brothers’ remake, but the original helmed by comedian/actor/director/writer Elaine May. The film starring Charles Grodin, (pre-grumpy Dad phase), Cybill Shepherd and Jeannie Berlin, follows a honeymoon doomed with bad decisions and packed with so much…
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Check out our latest episode as we discuss the beloved 1987 film The Princess Bride. We also team up with our bros from the Rewatchability podcast, J.M. McNab and Blain Watters, for our first ever joint episode! With so many quotable lines, wonderful costumes, silly stunts and sad stories from Blain, this is one memorable film for our generation. W…
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Check out our latest episode as we discuss 1988’s Bull Durham, a movie about sex and baseball, and sexy-baseball. We follow Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner through a season of the minor leagues and a summer of moving on, moving up and a lot of getting it on. We share our thoughts on the differences between 1988 and 2014, how not to fu…
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Check out our latest episode as we discuss the newly released FX pilots Married and You’re the Worst, the first in the crop of tv pilots coming this year in our very own rom-com tradition. Packed with comedy actors both familiar (hey Jenny Slate!) and new, both shows aren’t wasting any time getting right into their respective romantic entanglements…
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Join us this week as we discuss the 1987 film Roxanne. Starring Steve Martin and Darryl Hannah, and boasting a wonderful cast of supporting characters, (hey there Fred Willard and Damon Wayans!), this Cyrano de Bergerac retelling is as wacky as it is romantic, and often very hard to dislike – unless you don’t like movies where a couple guys dupe a …
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This week we watched the much anticipated 2014 film They Came Together. Packed full of silliness and absurdity, this self-reflexive parody includes an ensemble that reads like a list of your favourite comedy actors. Helmed by David Wain and written by Wain and Michael Showalter, the geniuses that brought you Wet Hot American Summer, it may be the r…
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Check out our latest episode as we go back to 1981 when the genre was fresh and exciting, and Albert Brooks was telling it like it is with his second feature, Modern Romance. While Brooks holds a special place in the comedy lover’s heart, it’s the efficient storytelling and cringe-worthy realism that gets us excited to talk about this noteworthy ro…
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Join us this week as we discuss the newly released 2014 film Obvious Child. Friends, we couldn’t wait to see this film and were not disappointed – in fact, we engage in the kind of gushing normally saved for the fares of Moonstruck, The Apartment, or in Alia’s case, The Housesitter. Not many of these come along in this genre, (women in four of the …
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Check out our latest episode as we take on Working Girl, a film that packs 80s star power with the likes of Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver. Helmed by Mike Nichols, it shows us a little slice of 1988 America, a world where feminist politics on the big screen were surprisingly condescending, and everyone wants to be a cog in the…
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For our latest episode, we braved half-empty theatres to see 2014’s The Other Woman, starring Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, Kate Upton and some guy from Game of Thrones (aka Alia’s “second favourite Lannister”). The movie, directed by the oft-maligned (by us) Nick Cassavetes, tries its hand at a tale of female friendship where you would least expect i…
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Well friends, we’re back from hiatus to present a little thing we like to call the Sandler-Barrymore Trifecta. That’s right: we watched 1998’s The Wedding Singer, 2004’s 50 First Dates, and 2014’s Blended… and we suggest you not try this at home. With Blended as the latest release from the romantic comedy duo of Adam “Has left the building” Sandler…
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Check out our latest episode as we discuss the 2000 film Happy Accidents. What’s more fetching than an earnest, fun-loving man that also reveals that he’s a time-traveller? We’re not sure. This movie, starring Marisa Tomei and Vincent D’Onofrio might just charm the pants off you, if you can get past the late 90s formalisms and remember Anthony Mich…
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Check out our latest episode as we discuss the 1997 film My Best Friend’s Wedding. A vehicle that re-launched the rom-com reign of Julia Roberts, (“how dare she take a break from romantic comedies?” thought someone in 1996, as they rented a VHS copy of Mr. Wrong.). The film offers the actress a strong platform to show off her manic comedic chops, i…
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Last month, the two-part series finale of the epic romantic comedy sitcom How I Met Your Mother unleashed unto the interweb a haze of confusion, upset, and in some cases, blind fury. We’ve let the dust settle in the wake of the finale’s March 31 air date, and try to reason through the end of an often silly, often charming rom-com series that subver…
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Join us this week as we discuss the 2000 film High Fidelity, by the guys who brought you Grosse Pointe Blank, plus the guy who wrote Con Air, and Stephen Frears. Based on the book by Nick Hornby, John Cusack stars as Rob Gordon, a record store owner reeling over his most recent breakup. And like anyone who might value a record collection over say, …
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Check out our latest episode as we discuss the 2009 film Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Perhaps a surprise to anyone who ignored this one back in 2009, the film is a loose adaptation of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol- but with way less dimension and way more Matthew McConaughey. As fans of the recent HBO series True Detective and in light of the recent Os…
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We say goodbye to March and our month-long excursion into romance (sans-comedy) with sighs, daydreams and long gazes out the window… and also the 2004 film The Notebook. A vehicle that launched the young careers of Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling, it also boasts the wonderful James Garner and the amazing Gena Rowlands, for some strange reason we ca…
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It’s almost springtime and we continue our romance month by warming up to some mature summer lovin’ with 1995?s The Bridges of Madison County. Maybe it’s the age-old tale of forbidden love, or how surprisingly good Clint Eastwood looked without his shirt, but we sure find it easy to get into this 90s classic starring Meryl Streep, playing Italian-b…
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Join us for the second episode in our month of romances, as we discuss the 1972 film The Way We Were. We follow Barbara Streisand’s Katie and Robert Redford’s Hubbell from college days as distant admirers, through their free-spirited early relationship, and their difficult marriage full of compromise. Do all good romances end in everlasting love? W…
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We kick off March with a month-long detour, putting comedy aside to take a look at some of the most beloved films of the romantic-drama. We’ll be plunging into the depths of unrequited love, longing gazes and epic love stories spanning the years, starting with the 1942 film Casablanca. Back in the ‘40s as Rick and Ilsa, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid B…
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Join us this week as we discuss the 2010 film Leap Year, starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode for some reason. We’re happy this is not a leap year as the so-called Irish tradition of women only being able to propose to men one magical day every four years is the stupidest thing we’ve ever heard. The road trip premise and beautiful landscapes of Ire…
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This week we discuss the 2010 film Jack Goes Boating, directed by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, originating from the play by Robert Glaudini. We found this romantic comedy-drama beautifully simple and a bittersweet way to remember one of our favourite actors. Episode 51 – JACK GOES BOATINGBy Whatsheshavingpodcast.wordpress.com
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This week we celebrate one year of podcasting with the 1989 Rob Reiner/Nora Ephron film When Harry Met Sally. The film, which tops many ‘best of’ romantic comedy lists, (and also gave us our namesake thanks to the very famous diner scene), sparks a spirited discussion on the age-old friendship/relationship debate, homage vs. imitation, truths about…
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Join us for the last episode of our first year of podcasting! We chose this very special time to talk about the 2008 Kevin Smith film Zack and Miri Make a Porno, for some reason. Get ready for an in-depth discussion on a film that is not as bad as you expected it to be. With a classic romantic comedy premise of friends realizing their unrequited lo…
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It’s cold outside friends, so let’s lament summer with the wintery romantic comedy tale, 1996’s Beautiful Girls. While Ted Demme’s oft-dramatic, coming-of-age film is plagued with actors who all look a little too old to be 20-somethings, there is plenty of genuine adult-panic mixed in with its easy-listening rock and roll soundtrack, misogyny and v…
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Check out our latest episode and our first brom-com* of the year, 2010’s She’s Out of My League, starring Canadian favourite Jay Baruchel. Is this film a great example of subverting the genre, or does it pale in comparison to the loser-guy-wins-popular-girl trope that has been done better? Is a man shaving another man’s nether regions the true test…
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Check out our latest episode as we discuss the 2012 film The Five Year Engagement. Romantic comedies set around weddings or wedding planning are pretty much old hat– does this Jason Segel/Nicholas Stoller vehicle do anything to refresh the genre? Is it furthering outdated, sexist notions of marriage, or is it boldly suggesting that weddings just ar…
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Welcome to our first episode of 2014! We start the year off with the 90s classic Sleepless In Seattle, starring romantic comedy vets Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. As we look ahead at the new year and ponder the important things in life, we get down to the important questions: Is the film a worthy homage to the classic romance An Affair to Remember, or ju…
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We ring in the end of the year with a discussion on the 2011 ensemble New Years Eve. With so many characters and so little in the way of plot or character development, the film celebrates the end of a year and the beginning of a new one with punch-in-the-face-style romances and bloated resolutions from people we don’t care about. For those who long…
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Join us for another episode celebrating the holiday season with the 1995 film While You Were Sleeping. After a great debate on Love Actually, it’s nice for us all to agree on how delightful this film is… and our crushes on Bill Pullman. While most holiday films focus on the build-up to Christmas, this one steps away to show the days after spent wit…
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You know it, you love it, we… are pretty divided on it! It’s the favourite holiday rom com, 2003’s Love Actually. It’s hard to summarize our longest episode to date, so we’ll just say there’s lots of yelling, lots of swearing, and more characters being called “dum-dum” than ever before! So if you real-ly love Christmas, come on and let it… snow. Ep…
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Join us this week as we discuss one of the most depressing holiday movies ever, 1960’s The Apartment! Directed by Billy Wilder and starring a very young Shirley MacLaine, a still-pretty-young Jack Lemmon, and a “Yeah, he’s kinda old already” Fred MacMurray, the film really focuses on the sadness that some experience around the holidays. While it ta…
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We kick off December with the 2001 film Bridget Jones’ Diary, because, what better way to start the holiday romantic comedy season than with a fun-loving, kind of sloppy, hopeless romantic female icon like Bridget Jones? It’s been awhile since the phenomenon of the book-turned-major film starring Renee Zellwegger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant was the…
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Check out our latest episode as we take a look at a growing sub-genre, the “bromance” (or “bromantic comedy”, if you will), with perhaps one of the earliest of its kind, the 2004 film Sideways. Featuring unlikeable characters doing unlikeable things, with a hint of road-trip, male-bonding, budding romance, this wine-fest/character study maintains a…
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By Whatsheshavingpodcast.wordpress.com
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