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Never Been Kissed (Drew Barrymore film)

Started by Ballad of Ballard Berkley, July 29, 2019, 04:23:14 AM

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Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Well the entire premise is just bollocks, isn't it? Look at Drew Barrymore, she's beautiful. Twats would be literally falling over themselves to give her a kiss at school (the film is about a formerly 'dorky' woman filing an undercover investigative report at her old high school).

The Truth About Cats and Dogs is another one. Janeane Garofalo is presented as some sort of sad-sack frumpy person, but she's a beautiful woman.

Is there a male equivalent? A film in which an obviously attractive man is portrayed as an ugly fucker until the final act, when he's suddenly unveiled as an absolute adonis?

Mr Bean's Holiday doesn't count.

famethrowa


Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Jack Nicholson, despite being bald, is a sexy man. To the best of my knowledge he's never appeared in a film in which he's initially depicted as a sad baldie prick and then, what-o!, he's irresistible!

Mister Six

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on July 29, 2019, 05:52:05 AM
Jack Nicholson, despite being bald, is a sexy man. To the best of my knowledge he's never appeared in a film in which he's initially depicted as a sad baldie prick and then, what-o!, he's irresistible!

As Good As It Gets?

Shaky


BlodwynPig


Ballad of Ballard Berkley



Icehaven

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on July 29, 2019, 04:23:14 AM

The Truth About Cats and Dogs is another one. Janeane Garofalo is presented as some sort of sad-sack frumpy person, but she's a beautiful woman.


The film itself even virtually admits as much by having the plot hang on comparing her looks to Uma Thurman's, as if suggesting she's too ugly for Ben Chaplin in the first place wasn't ridiculous enough.

There are actually quite a few. The film starts with the fit male actor (Ryan Reynolds in Just Friends or The Rock in Central Intelligence) wearing a fat suit in high school and generally portraying one of life's losers. Then cut to the future and they've got washboard abs and the mean girls who shunned them end up with egg on their faces.






phantom_power

It is a shame as aside from this failing I think Never Been Kissed and, particularly, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, are really good light romantic comedies

famethrowa


Mister Six

One of my favourite jokes in Childrens Hospital is that Rebecca Romjin plays this kind of character, but she never takes off her glasses or lets her hair down, so everyone treats her like absolute shit constantly.

Noodle Lizard

In the Jump Street films, I found it interesting that Jonah Hill's character is the one with the romance subplots, despite Channing Tatum standing beside him most of the time barely even noticing the female characters.  I don't know if that counts as a male equivalent to that silly "ugly duckling" trope, though.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: thecuriousorange on July 29, 2019, 11:11:58 AM
There are actually quite a few. The film starts with the fit male actor (Ryan Reynolds in Just Friends or The Rock in Central Intelligence) wearing a fat suit in high school and generally portraying one of life's losers. Then cut to the future and they've got washboard abs and the mean girls who shunned them end up with egg on their faces.

I have never seen these films, but I'm glad, in a way, that they exist. I'll never watch them, obviously.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: phantom_power on July 29, 2019, 02:00:59 PM
It is a shame as aside from this failing I think Never Been Kissed and, particularly, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, are really good light romantic comedies

They are. Nice, likeable films, albeit marred by the trope we're talking about.

BlodwynPig


Icehaven

I haven't seen Shallow Hal but I know the premise is Gwyneth Paltrow is actually fat but for some godless reason Jack Black is the only person who sees her (and other people who are overweight or deemed unattractive for other reasons) as slim/beautiful. Is there some reason why an actor who's hardly Adonis himself, and is pretty chubby in this film, is playing a character that needs to learn a lesson about inner beauty and not judging a woman by her weight/looks? Is it supposed to be that he's a bit of a hypocrite? I'm not saying Jack Black is ugly or anything of course, he isn't, it's just deliberately casting someone who's hardly standard Hollywood leading man material as a man who needs to learn not to judge by looks does smack a bit of one of his supposed issues being that he's a bit of a hypocrite who thinks he can bat way out of his league, which isn't exactly the message of non-judgement and that's it's what's inside that counts that it thinks it is.

SavageHedgehog

I saw it half my life ago, but I seem to remember Garofalo not at all being unattractive was kind of part of the point of The Truth About Cats and Dogs ? Could be way off. Good film though.

Was much less keen on Never Been Kissed (still watchable). I remember being annoyed not so much that the lead was a famous Maxim favourite, but that the character hadn't even not been kissed; she says something like "I've done stuff with boys, but I've never had a proper kiss", which seems to be not following through on its central conceit, as if we couldn't empathise with the character without that first part.


amputeeporn

Quote from: icehaven on July 30, 2019, 08:28:06 AM
I haven't seen Shallow Hal but I know the premise is Gwyneth Paltrow is actually fat but for some godless reason Jack Black is the only person who sees her (and other people who are overweight or deemed unattractive for other reasons) as slim/beautiful. Is there some reason why an actor who's hardly Adonis himself, and is pretty chubby in this film, is playing a character that needs to learn a lesson about inner beauty and not judging a woman by her weight/looks? Is it supposed to be that he's a bit of a hypocrite? I'm not saying Jack Black is ugly or anything of course, he isn't, it's just deliberately casting someone who's hardly standard Hollywood leading man material as a man who needs to learn not to judge by looks does smack a bit of one of his supposed issues being that he's a bit of a hypocrite who thinks he can bat way out of his league, which isn't exactly the message of non-judgement and that's it's what's inside that counts that it thinks it is.

Yeah, you've stumbled on the premise of the film here. From memory (from seeing it in the cinema as a kid!), it's that he's an ugly fucker who's got no business judging anybody. The joke is kind of hammed up by Jason Alexander playing his best friend and holding similar standards.

Chollis

She's All That.




Absolutely VILE how could she EVER be prom queen

Icehaven

Quote from: amputeeporn on August 06, 2019, 09:29:59 PM
Yeah, you've stumbled on the premise of the film here. From memory (from seeing it in the cinema as a kid!), it's that he's an ugly fucker who's got no business judging anybody. The joke is kind of hammed up by Jason Alexander playing his best friend and holding similar standards.

I see, which is equally judgemental on Black and Alexander's looks. Also that logic indirectly suggests it's OK to judge others by looks if you're attractive enough yourself, which isn't great either. A terrible idea all round really.

gilbertharding

Does it? I mean - I really don't know...

Perhaps the logic is 'stay in your league'?


If - and it's a big if - we're allowed to talk about the way actors look... I've read loads of discussions about how male AND female actors who are supposed to be playing the part of someone who's plain looking, are ALWAYS at least a 9. I think someone called it Hollywood Ugly.

But then there's a joke which crops up regularly on Family Guy where they criticise the looks of some actress or other (Minnie Driver's incredibly wide face, for instance - or Uma Thurman's incredible wandering eyes) for no good reason except horrible meaness.

Of course, if you're 'Hollywood Ugly', you're only ever a makeover away from happiness anyway.

To answer the OP - John Cusack and Cameron Diaz both played 'homely' in Being John Malkovich, but (IIRC) neither had the 'redemption' scene where they take off the metaphorical glasses at the end.


imitationleather