In Which Selma,Matthew and The Radio Times Film Guide 2013 Have Made Me The Film Whisperer Of The Family

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

The story so far. Have watched Fools Rush In starring Matthew Perry and Selma Hayak as part of my little mad exercise to watch as I come home late from work to watch a film randomly selected to cross off on the Radio Times Film Guide 2013 as I'm eating a microwave meal.

I like it (amongst only three of the fourteen movies I've seen I've liked). I write about it on this blog. There we are then.

But up pops Valentine's day. I'm working on that day but I know what to buy the wife. Fools Rush In. A romcom I liked. Not Richard Curtis Love Actually nothing. There we are sorted.

Now read on....

For today (Monday) was the day that the wife actually saw the movie with me.

The omens were not good. Wife had cooked a turkey curry which was fine but left us all bloated. Afterwards she suddenly acquired a heavy cold from I don't know who (not me folks).

But you know what? She liked it.

And there is something else to say as well. It actually improved on second viewing. Something I really did not expect.

At the end of the film I raised my arms as if in triumph "I am the Film Whisperer of this family!" I announced. For the last time I had to pick a film to watch was at Christmas. We had bought Netflix for the month and that particular day my wife, daughter, mother and me were arguing over what film to watch. The main blockage to a simple choice was the obviously swarthy rugged macho features of yours truly...…..especially when I take my glasses off to clean them.

Well I picked the Mel Brooks movie Robin Hood Men In Tights. A great film which if when we watched it is a guide gave people of all ages a good time.

So there is a track record now. Wife asked how I picked Fools Rush In. I could have said that in trying to randomly watch movies pre 2013 to cross off a film guide this was the next movie in the next channel on the TV from the last one I watched.

Instead I said I just was monitoring suitable films for Valentine's Day.....ho hum.

Until the next time.

How Matthew and Selma Save The Day. A Man's Search For A Romcom On Valentine's

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I'm working today, Valentine's day (ahh) but amazingly I will be off this Saturday (unusual for me) so thought it would be best to have a belated Valentine's night in with the wife having a meal I'd have cooked (Pasta bake. Don't get your hopes up. Still I'd have cooked it) and watching a Romcom later that I would have purchased from Amazon online.

But therein lies the rub. What film? I downloaded a fav of hers Four Weddings and A Funeral for her last year and like the other Richard Curtis vehicle Love Actually it's a film I dislike for being well packaged nothing. So you see being a man and picking a romcom is not easy.

I did think it would be mind you. My favourite Romcom even before I met the wife is the George Clooney/Michelle Pfeiffer movie One Fine Day. It's a favourite of mine if only because it seemed to be about realistic people falling in love with the special guest star being New York city. Far better than When Harry Met Sally which when I saw it gave me the impression it was co written by candyfloss.

So I purchase it online through Amazon Video to watch on the TV on Saturday. Or rather that was the intention. For it's not available.

I mean how could this be? I mean any movie/TV series nowadays seems to be available for sale. Even as I was trawling the German version of Three Men and A Baby. And certainly one with the George/Michelle axis should be there. But no.

So the search properly begins.

Realised as I was trawling through these films that in a lot of them the plot seems in essence to start as follows. Woman gets dumped. Woman tries to get away from her past in one way or another and then discovers man who is different from those she's dated in the past. Initially they dislike each other but.....

Well I had no intention of watching that sort of same old same old movie.

And how the woman "escapes" is stretched as well. In one she stays in her bedroom until some free spirits (which back in the day used to be called hippies) move in. In another the woman goes all Marie Kondo and minimalist until the free spirit of her sister and her daughter turned up.

Very close to being picked was a movie called How We Met starring no one I've ever heard of in which a disastrous first date gets even wilder after a policeman is killed (and it gets even wilder than that). Its seemed different enough and would have been my choice if I hadn't remembered.....

….Fools Rush In. The film I've chatted about before in this blog re my mad exercise in watching all the movies in  the Radio Times Film Catalogue 2013 starring Matthew Perry and Selma Hayek.

I liked it. I know the wife will like it. And given that it's about an American and Mexican getting along I know Donald Trump wouldn't like it. So it's a win, win, win and downloaded.

Next year though. I suspect the search will be even tougher.

Until the next time.

The Near Midnight Meanderings On A Movie With A Microwave Meal Part 12: Fools Rush In (1997)

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Imagine if you will you're Matthew Perry at the height of you fame thanks to Friends.

You get a call from your agent. A Hollywood producer offers you a lot of money to be the top billing in a motion picture. You play a character not that different from Chandler Bing AND Selma Hayek is going to be your leading lady.

Bet that decision didn't take long.

Fools Rush In is that movie. A tale of two people who have a one night stand. Selma discovers that she's pregnant and once he learns this Matthew Perry decides to propose marriage which she accepts. Two people then from different nations (she's Mexican though living in the US) planning after a one stand for a baby. A plot which predates Sharon Horgan's Catastrophe.

So in essence it's a romantic comedy. And it's not a spoiler to say that the plot basically goes through the standard Romcom hoops. It doesn't really matter though. You allow it to wash over you and it's a pleasant way to pass the time. Even though you wonder whether in real life Selma Hayek would chose Perry. After all I suspect there would be plenty of American men (and let's not be homophobic here women as well) who would be happy to become Mexican citizens if it meant she was going to be their partner.

Still of the twelve films I've chatted about in this series this is only the third I've truly liked. A quiet unassuming comedy....well there we go....enough said.

Except....

Sometimes your perception of a book, film or TV changes thanks to subsequent events. Let's look at this movie again but from a different angle. A Mexican and an American come together to form a relationship. He has to get used to some aspects of Mexican culture (the large family and an interesting taste in home décor gets gentle ribbing here) but American life is not seen as perfection either.

Sure there are problems with the relationship. But no one accuses anyone else of being drug dealers or rapists or suggests building a wall between them. Sure this is Hollywood but they work their issues out like proper adults.

So perhaps this amiable little comedy can, in the age of Trump, be seen as entertainment for the resistance against him?

Let's hope so.

Until the next time.