A Ronda Rich Novel Based RomCom

Ronda Rich said she never writes anything in her column that would cause her embarrassment if her pastor read it. So, when it came time for a television movie adaption of her book, “The Town That Came A-Courtin’” she made sure the film stayed true to the clean content of her writing.

“If you’re looking for good wholesome family entertainment, with no sex, violence, or cussing, then you’re going to enjoy this movie,” said Rich, whose columns appear Sundays in the Citizen’s East Metro section.

“The Town That Came A-Courtin’,” a romantic comedy about a community’s love for their mayor and how that appreciation plays out in the life of an author visiting the town, airs on Sunday, Jan. 19 at 7, 9 and 11 p.m. on the UP network.

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For more information about a wonderful romantic comedy please visit What Would Meg Do?

'That Awkward Moment' Spins on Male RomCom

(Reuters) - Actor Zac Efron navigates the tangled, complex web of dating and the New York singles scene in "That Awkward Moment," a film that puts an uncommon spin on romantic comedy: the male perspective.

The movie, due to open in U.S. theatres on Friday, follows the lives and loves of best friends, 20-something men in the big city trying to remain emotionally unattached as they manoeuvre the tricky terrain of jobs and relationships.


"This is the first look, I think, of what it is like to be a guy dating at our age and what it's like to be out there," said Efron, 26, who is also an executive producer on the film.

"Sometimes it takes your best friends to get through it," added the star, who shot to fame in the Disney "High School Musical" TV movies and more recently starred in the historical drama "Parkland" and the thriller "The Paperboy."

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For more information about a wonderful romantic comedy please visit What Would Meg Do?

The Growth of Cinematic Romance

The year 2013 wasn’t a good one for the romantic comedy.

Pickings were slimmer than they’ve ever been, and the few entries that did garner some attention—like Admission, Austenland, and Baggage Claim—weren’t your typical rom-com, nor did any of them make more than $25 million at the box office. The Atlantic’s own Christopher Orr wrote extensive autopsies of the failing genre, and his critique of Love Actually (as a classic and romance) inspired think-piece wars. The rom-com’s cause of death, he wrote, is not just a dearth of willing (or talented) stars, studios and audiences, but the fact that there are no longer “[obstacles] to nuptial bliss for the budding couple to overcome.” According to Orr, “new complications must be invented, [and] test-driven”—which nobody is invested in doing anymore.

With these kinds of conversations painting a grim picture around what isn’t working in cinema’s most visible form of amour, it’d be easy to believe all romance has vanished from the movies.

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For more information about a wonderful romantic comedy please visit What Would Meg Do?

'A Middleton' to Spark Up the Theaters

The films At Middleton and That Awkward Moment hit theaters this weekend, adding to the limited offerings available to theatergoers in the romantic comedy genre. At Middleton centers around two adults who meet and share a connection during their children’s campus tour at Middleton College.  The two leads are played by Vera Farmiga and Andy Garcia.  

That Awkward Moment stars Zac Efron (High School Musical, Valentine’s Day), Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station), and Miles Teller (yesterday’s Sundance Prize winner Whiplash) as three friends encountering the dating world in that awkward moment before it is decided where a relationship should lead. The films add to the offerings in a genre that many have called lackluster and uninspired at worst (Why are Romantic Comedies So Bad?) and described as morphing and evolving at best (The Romantic Comedy is Dying, but Cinematic Romance is Thriving). This spate of recent articles in The Atlantic and Cineaste has discussed the standing, fate, and future of the genre, through critical analysis such as Drinking Buddies: This is How Romcoms Should Work and a wave of spirited discussion on the film Love Actually and its purported merits or lack thereof.

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For more information about a wonderful romantic comedy please visit What Would Meg Do?

How Pursuit of Love is Played

Narcisse Mondoux has but one passion left to pursue in life.

Unfortunately, the retired, widowed master plumber has one major obstacle to overcome to fulfil it — himself.

Those are the broad strokes of the plot in Gratien Gelinas’s little gem of a romantic comedy, The Passion of Narcisse Mondoux, now on at the Grand Theatre and starring the masterful Rod Beattie of Wingfield fame in the title role and Brigit Wilson as the object of that passion, the recently widowed Laurencienne Robichaud.

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For more information about a wonderful romantic comedy please visit What Would Meg Do?

Debra Messing's Quest for Romance in 'Outside Mullingar'

Debra Messing, a nice Jewish girl, slides effortlessly into a foursome of otherwise Irish actors in the wistful “Outside Mullingar,” a new romantic comedy — that is, by the time it resolves an identity crisis — from award-winning writer John Patrick Shanley (“Doubt”).

A world premiere, “Mullingar” has just opened at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

That Messing makes for a fine ensemble actress is hardly astounding. We saw it for eight seasons on TV's “Will & Grace,” in which she played a neurotic interior designer, and later in the Broadway-centric “Smash." What is surprising is how convincingly she plays an Irishwoman in her Broadway debut, which finds her cast as a thirty-something introvert on a farm in rural County Westmeath.

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For more information about a wonderful romantic comedy please visit What Would Meg Do?

'Obvious Child' Attempts to Bend RomCom Rules

Director and screenwriter Gillian Robespierre debuted her romantic comedy “Obvious Child” at Sundance last week about raunchy Brooklyn comedian Donna Stern (played by actress Jenny Slate) who loses her cheating boyfriend, job and then gets pregnant after a drunken one-night stand. The movie subverts a whole bunch of traditional romantic comedy rules. Slate’s character remains makeup less, with tangled hair for most of the film and has a strong penchant for joking about her bowel movements. When her one night stand with an earnest and sweet guy ends up in pregnancy, she struggles with how to tell him about her plans for abortion.

Robespierre and Slate talked to the Wall Street Journal about their desire to portray real women and how they struggle with unplanned pregnancy.

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For more information about a wonderful romantic comedy please visit What Would Meg Do?