Wednesday, June 3, 2009

New In Town


There's a cinematic urban myth that if the coming attractions don't look promising, the movie you are about to watch won't be any good, either. New in Town proves that the same is true for DVDs. I knew this movie was going to be just as bad as everyone said it was when I had to sit through an extended trailer for a direct-to-DVD Christmas movie starring Jared Padalecki before getting to the main menu.

I can't recommend New in Town to anyone looking to enjoy a charming romantic comedy, or an accurate portrayal of the hard-working, salt-of-the-earth people of southeastern Minnesota, or a feminist manifesto on how to thrive in both white- and blue-collar environments. This movie is none of these things (although it really, really seems to think it's all of them). Renee Zellweger's pinched features have never looked more irritated than they do here, as she treks from Miami to Minnesota to take care of some corporate mumbo-jumbo at a food plant that is the livelihood of an entire small town. (I'm convinced it's not the cold that's bothering her, it's the script.) She butts heads with a scruffy-cute union rep played by Harry Connick Jr. until they get tired of hating each other and decide to fall in love instead. (I've seriously never seen a rom-com make the enemies-to-lovers switcheroo so abruptly or undeservedly before.) There's also some nonsense about an annoying secretary's tapioca recipe saving the factory from shutting down. (This movie would have you believe that tapioca runs through the veins of all Minnesotans.)

But all that's not to suggest that the New in Town DVD is of no use whatsoever. It's the perfect DVD to rent if you're looking for a new drinking game to try. Take a drink every time you spot a rom-com cliche (that's one for when the hero rescues the drunken heroine when her car gets stuck in the snow bank, another for when the heroine is the only one qualified to help the hero's tomboy daughter prepare for her first date). Drink twice every time you see an acclaimed character actor embarrassing themselves with a fake Minnesota accent (one for Francis Conroy, and a double shot for J.K. Simmons). Drink again every time the movie suggests successful career women lack any kind of common sense outside the boardroom (that would be pretty much every scene where Zellweger isn't in a boardroom). And I'd say drink every time any of the townspeople says or does anything "folksy" that comes off annoying, but you wouldn't even make it through the first scene.

Special features include cast and crew commentary, a bunch of (rightfully) deleted scenes, a making-of documentary that consists of the cast and crew patting themselves on the back for surviving the shoot in a Winnipeg winter without complaining about the cold, another doc on the making of the requisite tapioca food fight, and a feature on scrapbooking -- just in case you haven't gotten enough sentimentality and faux-folksiness from the film.

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