Autumn In New York

Bomb Rating: 

Love is a douche commercial.

The studio could have saved me some time by simply changing the tagline for this film to "love is a douche commercial."

Those of you who have spent a sick day dazedly watching daytime soap operas know exactly what I mean. Inevitably, some women in a white nightgown walks to a window, draws the curtain and a beautiful beam of light settles softly on her smiling face. It's the kind of scene that stops just short of having a swarm of bees fly into her panties to emphasize her flowery allure. Without saying a word, you know her crotch is fresher than Martha Stewart's bathroom after a meth-induced cleaning binge.

If you know what I'm talking about, then you know exactly what Charlotte (Winona Ryder) looks like every time she glances at or thinks about Will Keane (Richard Gere). Despite the fact that she's 22 and he's 49, and that he's a womanizing sack of crap and she's dying of some heart ailment, they fall in love. Thereafter follows more sappy, drippy dialogue than you could possibly imagine or stand. Charlotte takes Will's watch and he asks her when he'll get it back and she says, ever-so-sweetly of course, "When you forget I have it." Richard laughs. I would have thumped on her ticker.

Charlotte quotes poetry, which I figured is a good thing because if she's going to die, she might as well die sensitive. This movie also has harp music in it, which reminded me of taking a dump in the men's room at the Bellagio. Speaking of taking dumps, a curious thing happened while I watched this film. About every five minutes, one of the few men in the theater would get up and leave to go to the bathroom -- or try to sneak into an adjoining Jackie Chan flick. Few of them came back.