Difference Between Chick Flicks and Date Movies

I feel the need to apologize for referring to "chick flicks" last week in my review of He's Just Not That Into You. After watching Nights in Rodanthe, (three stars total) I was reminded that the central feature of a chick flick is neither designer clothing nor a sassy best friend, it's melodrama. A romantic comedy that appeals equally to men with profane elderly people or ugly stoners is just a "date movie." There's a reason chick flicks are synonymous with "soap operas" and "weepies" - the only laughter (if any) should come between sobbing fits. We're talking about loves lost, friendships tested, and DEATH. Aside from The Bucket List, I can't think of a "male bonding" movie to deal with disease, infidelity, poverty, racism, and DEATH, but I can think of many a "women's picture" (Fried Green Tomatoes, Waiting to Exhale, and Titanic, for starters). Guys just prefer physical struggle and intellectual intrigue to daily drama, and I don't think that infers emotional immaturity or insensitivity. Anyway, I'm a guy and I liked Nights in Rodanthe. I liked the scenery, the bird's eye cinematography, the quiet dream sequences and flashbacks, the editing and music during the hurricane. I don't think it needed a romance (which had no chemistry and came out of nowhere) but I guess there's no other way they could have explained a married woman and a relative stranger becoming pen pals. I want to like Diane Lane more than she gives me reason to and Richard Gere's fame has always puzzled me, so you know I didn't watch this movie for the acting. I'm not sure why I watched it, and little did I realize that if you've the seen the theatrical trailer, you've already watched it too (the whole movie is right there in the trailer). I'm glad I did though. The trailer doesn't ask questions about how kids process divorce, how parents process their kids wanting nothing to do with them, or how surgeons process death on the operating table. My wife hated the movie. Nights in Rodanthe helped us realize not only what a true chick flick is, but that my wife hates them. She'd prefer a date movie, or even an action movie to watching something sad, and that's part of the reason I married her (we rented Rambo: First Blood on our honeymoon).

OUT TODAY ON DVD: MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA & SOUL MEN