Lost in the DVD Store

Rating: Null/10 (16 April 2010)

The main character here is described to us as someone with no life. As the movie proceeds, our man has a modern redemption: he is enriched. It is important to get this initial notion of emptiness conveyed to us in as economical way as possible because generally it gets in the way of the following endearment-comedy cycle that these things depend on.
So our guy is shown avoiding real life and aimlessly drifting through a video rental store, picking through time-wasting DVDs. This film would easily be one of them.
Once again, ordinary life is contrasted with a magical world presented in the way that a movie is. People come and sit in an auditorium for an hour or two and their lives are transformed. The people in the ordinary world are hypnotized. I call this simple device "folding." It takes that audience and conflates it with us, and we subconsciously adopt some of the characteristics of the on-screen audience. It is a cheap shot, a simple trick. But it works, and this is why we see it so much.
Otherwise the thing has a standard form: girl won, girl lost, girl regained in a public display. Since we already have blown the audience effect for another purpose, here we have the audacious plot element that our appealing girl teaches jogging photography in one of the most cinematic urban parks in the country! It is just because of that last scene where a crowd as surrogate photographic voyeurs, can applaud the ultimate kiss.
Zoe is appealing.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.