Review of Love Stinks

Love Stinks (1999)
9/10
For males eyes only...
12 July 2002
A couple years ago, I was working at Blockbuster right after graduating from college. I saw the cover to this movie on the shelf since I'd starting working there, but judged it as kinetic crap by its horribly cheesy cover and name. Yes, I judged this movie by its cover. A customer about my age (25) then told me, unprovoked, that it was one of the funniest movies he had seen in years. He said he was surprised by it and that I should check it out. So, I did.

Wow. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I hadn't seen a movie that made me laugh that hard in a long time. I actually couldn't wait to watch it again--this time with my girlfriend. What a disaster. She absolutely hated it as much as I liked it. We didn't even get through 45 minutes of it because she couldn't take it anymore. Apparently, she thought it was one of the most un-funny movies she'd ever seen. A negative funniness even, if that's possible.

What does this tell us?

This movie probably has a target audience of 18-30 year old males.

Its rather dark view of the motives of women and, to that end, perceived "psycho" women, is fit-form to any man who's been with a woman that went too far, too fast--no matter how well the both of you got along. This movie is funny because of the powerlessness men feel in the face of a psycho woman--they can absolutely tear you apart and make everyone else think that it's your fault because you're the one who is falling apart. As Yoda might say: Dark, this movie is.

French Stewart is completely impotent emotionally, physically, and mentally in this relationship. If you're a man, you probably know this emotion all too well. This movie capitalizes on that darkest of dark corners with which to view a woman in a relationship such as this. In that sense, the movie is almost hyperbolic. Needless to say, it doesn't paint women in any sort of real favorable light. No wonder my girlfriend hated it.

So, guys, watch this movie, laugh you arse off--and don't show it to your girlfriend, she'll hate it. I, on the other hand, watched it three more times.
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