The cinematic doppelganger effect seems to happen on a cyclical basis. Every few years, a pair of movies are released whose concepts, narratives, or central conceits are so similar that it’s impossible to envision how both came out of such a complex and expensive system with even the fairest amount of awareness of the other. Deep Impact and Armageddon. Antz and A Bug’s Life. Capote and Infamous. Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Observe and Report. And now two R-rated studio-released romantic comedies about fuck buddies played by young, attractive superstars have graced the silver screen within only a few short months of each other. We typically experience doppelganger cinema with high-concept material, not genre fare. To see two back-to-back movies released about the secret life of anthropomorphic talking insects, a hyperbole-sized rock jettisoning towards Earth’s inevitable destruction, a Truman Capote biopic, or a movie about a mall cop seem rare or deliberately exceptional enough as a single concept to make the existence of two subsequent iterations rather extraordinary. Much has been made of the notion that Friends with Benefits is a doppelganger of No Strings Attached (the former has in more than one case been called the better version of the latter), but when talking about the romantic comedy genre – a category so well-tread and (sometimes for better, sometimes not) reliably formulaic that each film is arguably indebted to numerous predecessors – can we really say these films are doppelgangers in the same vein as the high-concept examples, or [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Every week, Landon Palmer and Cole Abaius log on to their favorite chat client of 1996 as MrSmith1939 and 2BorNot2B in order to discuss some topical topic of interest. This week, the two daydream the ultimate reboot – an entire era of filmmaking brought back to life through the lens of modern directors. What styles should we bring back and homage? It is a good idea to let nostalgia drive us artistically? Will people in 30 years be harkening back to the Abramsian style?

Modern romance and the movies are arguably dependant on one another, as movies have a long history of affirming the idea(l) of the perfect relationship. Hollywood movies in particular have developed a mastery at the formula of bringing imperfect individuals together into perfect couplehood and framing marriage as the closure of all previous conflicts and difficulties. Many romance movies, thus, teach us what romance and couplehood are or, perhaps more dauntingly, what it should be. That romantic films are a staple in the box offices of commercial movie theaters to reparatory screenings or are marathon’d on television every Valentine’s Day is evidence of our ritual association of considering real-life romances in fictional terms. It is rare that movies, especially Hollywood, seem to do the opposite: reflect the distinction between ideal romance and the ostensible “reality” of relationships in all their complexity, grittiness, slow development, necessary problems, and (most of all) subtlety. Perhaps the most evident turns cinema makes in this direction is in the break-up movie, that rare narrative that situates itself as a disruption from the normal mode of portraying couplehood through representing its antithesis, the dissolution of a couple. The most recent example is Blue Valentine, the great Cassavetes-style, character-driven psychodrama about a couple who continue making the wrong turns and can’t make it work despite, or because, of themselves. Breakup movies from the light – (500) Days of Summer – to the heavy – Blue Valentine – often self-consciously (either by testament from the filmmaker like in [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

In this sci-fi romantic comedy, the TiMER will countdown to when you find love. What happens if yours is blank?

Future filmmakers, if there’s one thing that your quirky indie comedy will need to have any shot at success beyond the snowy streets of Sundance, it is charm.

Marc Webb has officially been offered the job to take on Spider-Man for three full films. Are you ready for Spider-Man 4: Spider-Man 1? Great. What should it look like, smart guy?

The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards are upon us. And while they are on live on ABC as of 8/7c, you may not be watching them. That’s okay, as I will updating our list with the winners as they are announced.

Sony Pictures works fast. Just a day and a half ago, they announced the death of Spider-Man 4. Now we’re getting reports of a new director, and a new format.

Put simply, it’s going to be a populist kind of year. Once again, the likes of Avatar and Star Trek, along with The Hangover, are hanging around during awards season.

Some years at the cineplex are just better than others. Which years those are can always be debated, hence the reason why FSR writer Paul Sileo and FSR’s resident devil’s advocate Josh Radde sat on their collective asses to hash out whether or not 2009 was particularly strong or notably weak.

In the last month of the past decade, we put our readership through the ringer. We unleashed list after list of our favorites of the decade and the year. And if you can suffer through one more round of awesomeness, it will all be over. For now.

End of the year lists usually come in tens or some sort of multiple of ten but here, as you will see, there are only seven slots. No, I’m not purposely trying to be subversive, nor was this result of laziness, and I assure you that it wasn’t an attempt to gyp you out of those bottom three slots. There just weren’t ten great, unequivocally funny comedies released this year.

Perhaps one of the greatest honors, yet most difficult tasks of my year is the creation of my annual top ten list. As this site’s editor in chief (or whatever title suits me this week), I get to kick-off our Year in Review every year with my picks for best of the year.

Rob Hunter recalls a year of marketing with 15 of the most exciting slices of cinema to hit big screens this year. The best trailers.

It is the week of Christmas, and we’re gathering up gift recommendations (for ourselves, of course) in This Week in Blu-ray. If any of you need to get something for your favorite Blu-ray columnist on the web, there are two great titles below in the ‘Buy’ category that I would love to receive.

Rob Hunter loves movies. He also loves writing sympathy cards for a greeting card company. These two joys come together in the form of cash money payments that he receives every week and immediately uses to buy more DVDs. This week… District 9, ICHI, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, and more.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the nominations for The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards. But that’s not all!

We were all blown away by the original and now the U.S. will have a shot at it with Richard Jenkins, Chloe Moretz, and Kodi Smit-Mcphee. But are they headed in the right direction with this cast? You be the judge. That way we don’t have to form an opinion.

This week’s Culture Warrior examines how independent film is changing the relationship of film and music, and questions the validity of the “indie” label.

This week’s Culture Warrior explains how Tarantino’s latest has matured the filmmaker beyond simple homage to cinema’s past and instead displays a reverence to the overall potential power movies have to offer, rooted in the sacred experience of the movie theater.