Romantic Comedy

LOS ANGELES -- Aaron Sorkin has a new pitch for all those viewers who did not fall in love last fall with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, his behind-the scenes look at a late-night comedy show. Try it as a romantic comedy. STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP returns tomorrow at 10 p.m. on NBC.

"The Taming of the Shrew" is such an unruly romantic comedy that there are advantages to staging it outdoors, where the running argument between a man and woman leads to some actual running. Although the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory production literally running in the meadow of Evergreen Museum & Library is more notable for its enthusiasm than its accomplishment, that kind of silliness is agreeable on a summer evening. It's also nice that the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory is helping to fill the void left by the defunct Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, which also staged its shows outdoors at Evergreen in north Baltimore and indoors at St. Mary's Outreach Center in Hampden.

A trio of actresses with four Best Actress Oscars among them -- Jodie Foster, Holly Hunter and Anne Bancroft -- will make Baltimore their temporary home next month during the filming of "Home for the Holidays," a romantic comedy.Ms. Foster will co-produce and direct the movie, in which Ms. Hunter and Ms. Bancroft play a daughter and her mother coming to terms during a hectic Thanksgiving celebration.Over the past two weeks, Ms. Foster and a film production team have been in Baltimore scouting locations, auditioning for smaller cast parts and interviewing for production employees.

Nick Prevas is truly an “artist of all trades.” The 30-year-old Charles Village resident writes and directs films, works on graphic design projects, plays guitar and sings in the band White Lodge. He even handles communications and media for the American Visionary Arts Museum. Originally from Highland, Prevas tells b that there's no place he'd rather be than Baltimore: “There's just an energy to our city like no place else. I lived in L.A. for a few years and couldn't ever get the vibe there like I can in Charm City.

Diana Scarwid, an Oscar nominee in 1980 for "Inside Moves" who returned to Savannah, Ga., to raise a family, has agreed to star in River Road Productions' "Not Under My Roof," a romantic comedy that will shoot in six weeks in the resort community of Tybee Island, Ga. Written and directed by Lance Smith, the story concerns two high schoolers whose passionate relationship cools when his divorced mom and her divorced dad start dating. Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jeff Ballard also has a small part.

Colonial Players' production of Matthew Barber's 2003 romantic comedy Enchanted April succeeds on several levels in creating enchantment. The January-to-early-February scheduling is ideal for an escape to springtime on the Italian Riviera in the post-World War I era. For about two hours, the Annapolis company transports us to a time and place where we meet diverse characters whose disillusions might have relevance to our own. This old-fashioned romantic...

Isla Fisher plays Rebecca Bloomwood, the title character in Confessions of a Shopaholic, as a woman whose hand-eye coordination works at top speed only when she's grabbing for a sale item. The funny idea behind her performance is that she's so distracted by hot dreams of buying stylish goods for bargain prices that she can't keep brain and body working together. You never believe, even in a fantasy way, that Bloomwood could stumble into a job at a Manhattan-based financial magazine for a Conde Nast-like conglomerate.

One should have reservations about No Reservations, a romantic comedy that does precious little with the considerable resources at its disposal. Those resources include a pair of actresses - the formidable Catherine Zeta-Jones, lovely and commanding as ever, and the effortlessly charming Abigail Breslin, fresh off last year's Oscar nomination for Little Miss Sunshine - who alone should make any movie worth the price of admission. That they don't isn't so much their fault as it is the people behind the camera, who are far too happy to follow well-trod cinematic paths when they could at least stretch the genre's boundaries.

On his wedding day, the in-the-buff groom is expected to meet his partner - but not his new business partner, whom he mistakes for the masseuse he summoned for a pre-wedding massage. Bernard Slade's Romantic Comedy has cynical, successful Manhattan playwright Jason Carmichael assume that budding writer Phoebe Craddock has arrived at his apartment to administer his massage. Although she finds Jason a bit strange, Phoebe soon accepts an invitation to his wedding and his offer of a writing partnership.

One of last year's big hits at the Maryland Film Festival was "Boom!," a campy 1960s period piece starring Elizabeth Taylor. "Boom!" was presented by John Waters, who considers it the greatest bad movie ever made. Waters' choice this year -- Lodge Kerrigan's "Clean, Shaven" -- will be presented in a diametrically different spirit. The drama, about a young man suffering from schizophrenia, terrified and impressed Waters when he first saw it in 1993. "There's not the slightest bit of irony in my selection this year," said Waters, who is currently in the final stages of completing "Cecil B. Demented."

Ernst Lubitsch's 1932 "Trouble in Paradise" series soars on gossamer wings, thanks to the dashing words of screenwriter Samson Raphaelson. The star, Herbert Marshall, asks a waiter, "If Casanova suddenly ... turned out to be Romeo ... having supper with Juliet - who might become Cleopatra. ... How would you start?" The waiter replies, "I would start with cocktails." Marshall, playing a suave con artist, is about to fall in love with an impudent thief, played by Miriam Hopkins.

A battle-of-the-sexes romantic comedy in which extreme opposites eventually attract. Now there's something you don't see every day. Well, actually, you do, and The Ugly Truth offers yet another variation on a theme that had been worked to death back in the days of Laurel and Hardy. The only difference here is that the disparity is taken to bawdy, stereotyped extremes that are often offensive, occasionally funny but mostly just tired. Poor TV morning-show producer Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl)

The hero of (500) Days of Summer, Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), works at a greeting-card company, where he's a whiz at creating slogans such as "I Love Us." He's given up on his professional dream of becoming an architect but not on his dream of finding true love - and he reckons he's lucked into it when his boss hires a comely, quizzical assistant named Summer (Zooey Deschanel). She likes Tom, she really likes him. But she doesn't believe in love at first sight, or even second or third sight.

Whatever Works makes more of a demand on a viewer's willingness to suspend disbelief than movies about vampires or giant robots. Would a dewy-fresh Southern gal named Melodie St. Anne Celestine marry a New York City curmudgeon named Boris Yellnikoff - especially when he's played by Larry David in an amateurish bluster sure to curb anyone's enthusiasm? It's easier to believe that the lovely and talented actor who plays Melodie, Evan Rachel Wood, in real life has coupled with Marilyn Manson, the shock rocker.

He's Just Not That Into You ** (2 stars) Starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson Directed by Ken Kwapis New Line Home Video $28.95 ($35.95 Blu-ray) Watching a bunch of self-pitying beautiful people is never as much fun as Hollywood makes it out to be. But at least the writers of She's Just Not That Into You manage to work in a few good lines for its photogenic cast. That, and it makes Baltimore look not only good, but hip. Essentially, HJNTIY follows nine eligible Baltimoreans as they struggle to connect, generally without much luck.

Isla Fisher plays Rebecca Bloomwood, the title character in Confessions of a Shopaholic, as a woman whose hand-eye coordination works at top speed only when she's grabbing for a sale item. The funny idea behind her performance is that she's so distracted by hot dreams of buying stylish goods for bargain prices that she can't keep brain and body working together. You never believe, even in a fantasy way, that Bloomwood could stumble into a job at a Manhattan-based financial magazine for a Conde Nast-like conglomerate.

He's fought off aliens, drug lords, the CIA and -- ay! -- robots. Heck, he even brought George Foreman to his knees. Now, in Hitch, his first romantic comedy since he burst onto the small screen as the Fresh Prince, Will Smith finds himself in the battle of the sexes. Smith, the quintessential ladies' man -- who's resplendent with his actress wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, on the cover of this month's Essence -- plays "date doctor" Alex Hitchens, creating situations to help ordinary guys snag the girls of their dreams.

Are guys really that hard to understand? They are, at least according to He's Just Not That Into You, a romantic comedy in which young, excessively attractive Baltimoreans struggle to understand dating, relationships and their significant others. The premise is pretty simple: When it comes to matters of the heart, women steadfastly refuse to see what's right in front of them. The same holds true for guys, by the way, but let's let the gals believe in their uniqueness, at least until the movie's over.

Are guys really that hard to understand? They are, at least according to He's Just Not That Into You, a romantic comedy in which young, excessively attractive Baltimoreans struggle to understand dating, relationships and their significant others. The premise is pretty simple: When it comes to matters of the heart, women steadfastly refuse to see what's right in front of them. The same holds true for guys, by the way, but let's let the gals believe in their uniqueness, at least until the movie's over.