#1: Made of Honor Online Shopping deals Now !!

I caught and ignored this in flight on way and back from China to visit my fiancee. Boring both ways. If it had to be made, it should’ve gone straight to DVD (why Blu-ray?). Sidney Pollack must have had some free time. Typical unbelievable characters–a short Yao Ming this Dempsey with Don Johnson/George Michael stubble! Monaghan, as usual, looks adorable. I took off my headphones after a few minutes on the way, and left them off on the way back. On the other hand, my love story is so beautiful, it could and should be made into a movie directed by Yimou Zhang–romantic comedy, not martial arts fantasy. No exagerating. Ask our friends and family. Skip Made of Honor and wait for HuNan Love.
Rating: 1 / 5

Men sometimes have difficulty growing up. This is a premise that many women–even some men– are embracing nowadays. It’s an unfortunate fact but true. In various ways, women can be turned off, alienated, and hurt by what one author penned in his book title, ‘The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up’. Relationships and commitments are delayed, gratification becomes fleeting, but is often a foundational fact in men’s lives.

Of course it isn’t always true, and women and men often seek and find maturity from within and from others. Yet, you can’t help be taken by how true ‘Made of Honor’ grasps at this concept.

Tom (Patrick Dempsey) is a serial ladies’ man. He has looks and charisma, but his appetite is admittedly for “insatiable sports’ sex”. During college, he meets Hannah (Michelle Monaghan), who knows better than her counterparts that no one is going to use her casually and put her aside. Unlike her roommate, she holds out for what she wants. And what she gets is a relationship or at least a friendship with Tom.

Ten years later Hannah and Tom are still together. Tom is seemingly satisfied with his conquests. He must still be desirable, for he has at least one woman in his queue who is willing to follow his “no more than one date per week” rule. Hannah and he are pals. They go shopping and out for lunch and cheesecake like no macho men I know, but the casual acting suspends our disbelief. At this point and throughout the movie, I felt the film drew strong reminiscences from ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding,’ an engaging film with a phony premise, but much of the operating procedure can be found here in a gender role reversal. Instead of Julia Roberts regretting her ex-lover pal getting engaged, it’s Dempsey’s turn.

How does he cope with it? Well, “absence makes the heart fonder”. This cliché is actively used in many movies from the intrigue and intricacy of ‘Closer (Superbit Edition),’ where its sordid and interesting to most conventional movies you can think of. This time its closer to the latter. One of the more endearing aspects of `Made of Honor’ is Tom’s relationship with his father (here played by with warmth in a sunset role by the late Sydney Pollack). While Tom is a serial lover, Dad is a serial groom. In one scene together, he is negotiating a pre-nuptial agreement with his beautiful young bride, the sixth of his life.

When Hannah takes a business trip to Scotland, she meets the perfect man. Even before Tom’s shock of meeting him upon her return, he is empty and missing her. He decides to change his priorities. Just like in ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ where the buddy relationship is pulled into the engagement, it seems a bit contrived and implausible. Yes, ex-lovers are invited to weddings, but this time her lothario friend is chosen to be her maid of honor, an ignominious title, even the most sensitive male would find too much.

It makes for an interesting far-fetched set-up, and if it weren’t for Dempsey’s naturally casual performance, nearly matched by the supporting male cast, it could have been a disaster. With his basketball buddies we get the gamut of male talk, but it’s Felix (Kadeem Hardison) who suggests he sabotage the nuptials from within. Now who do you know in the real world of men would say or do that?

The mixed blessing here is that the plot makes the deliberations new while it makes us incredulous. Can you imagine basketball buddies helping Tom make flowery gift baskets for a wedding shower? And it only speaks well for Dempsey’s talent that he can make us believe the cattiness of Hannah’s supporting friends who were passed up for a man. Yet, their private investigation of his rival, Colin (Kevin McKidd), a descendent of a Scottish Duke, works well enough to keep our eyes from rolling out of our heads.

In the end ‘Made of Honor’ is a likable, if not predictable film. It has as many rewards as it has drawbacks. It certainly helps that the cast and characters, except Colin’s overbearing family, are likable enough and the performances aren’t overwrought for some forced proceedings. I’m particularly partial to Monaghan’s sweet reading of Hannah, and I find Dempsey, like Roberts before him, likable enough to empathize with his problems. I do think despite some of the preposterousness, some people–yes, especially women–will profit from this viewing experience. In the end I have to confess I hold affection for what I know is basically an average film. (Besides the title is a nice pun.)

A J.P.’s Pick 2.5 *’s =Fair-Good
Rating: 3 / 5

Will not play in BDUP-5000. Blu-Ray is plagued with issues, ever changing standards, poor development of discs. If it does not play in a player you bought 6 months ago, then it is just plain garbage.
Rating: 1 / 5

If you’re into RomCom, “Made of Honor” is Made to Order for you. Patrick Dempsey encores his reluctant bachelor bit from “Enchanted,” and Michelle Monaghan is beautiful and charming as “THE girl.” The whole thing is entirely predictable from the outset, but it’s a pleasant journey getting there. The Amazon seller advertised as Just Launched, and, since her price was right, I wanted to help get her started in the biz. But when no DVD arrived at the outer delivery date, three emails of inquiry were sent, none of which received the courtesy of a reply. But back to the movie, you can do far worse than spend an evening with “Made of Honor.” Watch it and enjoy!
Rating: 4 / 5

… so it was just perfect as I had a few hours to kill. The film is pleasant and wellmade up to a point, and I predict it will enjoy a long life on video, thanks to the appeal of the stars. Dempsey is an acquired taste all right, and I wouldn’t cross the street to see him if he was giving away real estate, but a lot of people love him, and fans will get a lot of him here. Every shot of him is framed and lit in a way to suggest he is the most adorable man on earth, a way of thinking that perplexes the ordinary viewer, though I will give him credit here, he allows himself brief moments of looking like a clown when the script calls for it. There’s the one sequence where, after a rousing basketball game he joins Kevin McKidd in the shower, his eyes straying to where McKidd’s soaping himself up, over and over, high road and low road, and Dempsey panics. In the theater I was in, for the 2:15 show, this bit of male panic made everyone laugh. However Dempsey doesn’t really seem like he’s enjoying himself or even particularly invested in the script.

Michelle Monaghan works wonders with what she’s got, though it’s stretching to have her play the second part of the picture as though she’s in love with the Scottish hunk, and she’s only momentarily forgotten she’s been in love with Dempsey since the era of Monica Lewinsky. It’s a familiar storyline but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. We just saw this story a few months back in PS I LOVE YOU when Hilary Swank was brought to mysterious Ireland to fall in love all over again, only now here it’s Scotland.

The one who should get the Oscar next spring is the fellow who made Dempsey look 20 years old for the opening sequences of the picture. It can’t be just makeup, it must be a blend of makeup and CGI, perhaps a stand-in? It is totally eerie and unworldly–what Freud called the “uncanny”–and sort of sets the tone for the rest of the film, the underlying attitude that says, he is a monster, but he’s a loveable monster and he’s ours.

Rating: 3 / 5