Donald Petrie
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In this latest plagiarism of The Ugly Duckling and Pygmalion, there's a serial terrorist on the loose.
Miss Congeniality also steals shamelessly from Pygmalion (Vic making over Gracie from an ugly duckling cop into a stunning, statuesque beauty), but truncates the process to the point where it loses its appeal.
There aren’t just echoes of “Romancing the Stone” in the film but also borrowed bits from “Miss Congeniality” (Bullock’s character doesn’t know how to navigate fashion) and “21 Jump Street” (Tatum’s character says dumb things only to be corrected by smarter people baffled by his idiocy).
Bullock channels her Miss Congeniality comedic chops for a slapstick performance that shows she isn’t afraid of looking silly.
A deliriously madcap combination of laughs, guilty pleasures and jungle foliage, The Lost City is what would happen if Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom and Miss Congeniality conceived a love child on a Jumanji board.
Even when the film (accidentally or on purpose, it’s hard to say) references her iconic stumble from Miss Congeniality, it’s still a treat to see how Bullock takes these tools and wields them like Chaplin with his cane and bowler hat.
It reminds us why we fell in love with her back in her Miss Congeniality days.
Their chemistry and performances are a stern reminder of some of the two’s best comedic performances in Miss Congeniality , Two Weeks Notice , 21, and 22 Jump Street.
You would never guess it from the trailer, but "Miss Congeniality" was probably inspired by either the musical "My Fair Lady" or its inspiration, George Bernard Shaw's stage play "Pygmalion."
"Miss Congeniality" has a hard time getting past its by-the-numbers, routine plot that pulls in the usual chestnuts of undercover cop tale, "My Fair Lady," fish-out-of-water story and, for good measure, a romance.
Little surprise, really, that Miss Congeniality was not only better as My Fair Lady , but also better as a straight farce a year earlier with Drop Dead Gorgeous .
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
Directed by Jake Kasdan
influenced by Grumpy Old Men (1993)
Themes Plot Dialogue
It’s no longer just the teenagers learning life lessons anymore; now an elderly duo, sporting a “Grumpy Old Men” vibe (along with themes from “City Slickers”), takes over half of the show.
The all-ages spread stretches its predecessor's nostalgic, Breakfast Club -style premise to accommodate Grumpy Old Men -like routines: cue jokes about hips and hairlines.
This sequel swaps The Breakfast Club out for Grumpy Old Men , which doesn’t work as well, especially when the movie tries to do both at the same time.
We’re barely given time with them before they get sucked into the game, and their Grumpy Old Men -style dialogue gets old quickly, especially because we all know how their storyline is going to develop before it even starts.
Set It Up (2018)
Directed by Claire Scanlon
influenced by How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
Visuals Characters
Scanlon blends the lower-key hangout vibe of ‘90s rom-coms like When Harry Met Sally and Four Weddings And A Funeral with the glossy, heightened aesthetic of post-aughts fare like 27 Dresses and How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days .
Like Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days , or Jennifer Garner in 13 Going on 30 , Harper yearns to do important, substantial work, yet is thwarted by the realities of her job, which include fetching dinner for Kirsten and pacing around the office wearing her boss’s Fitbit so her trainer won’t get angry.
Isn't It Romantic (2019)
Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson
influenced by How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
Themes
And you don’t need to have memorized How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or 27 Dresses or 13 Going on 30 to know the score here.
In the century's first decade, when movies such as 27 Dresses and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days were as plentiful as roses in a Valentine's Day bouquet, Isn't It Romantic might have seemed like a bold corrective.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but did we nominate Walter Matthau or Jack Lemmon for Grumpy Old Men? Biased critics may look at Clint's work in Gran Torino and want to see something edgy, but it's really just a caricature of things that he has done before and done better.
Materialists (2025)
Directed by Celine Song
influenced by How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
Themes
Perhaps we don’t get movies like the canonical 90s and aughts rom-coms—How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003) or Failure to Launch (2006)—because we don’t live in that world anymore.
If nothing else, I find it difficult to believe that a filmmaker whose career has featured as many high points as anyone else working today would want to pull a Gene Hackman and go out with something that is nowhere near his best work, as the actor did by apparently bowing out with the aggressively mediocre " Welcome to Mooseport ."
In the rush to anoint Gore Vidal blood relation Burr Steers the next Dylan Kidd (writer-director of Roger Dodger ), I wonder how many people suspected that Steers' follow-up act to Igby Goes Down would be the conceptual lollapalooza of habitual bad director Donald Petrie's How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
From It Happened One Night to What's Up, Doc?, the real frisson that underpinned the pleasure of such movies lay not in the love story's "will they, won't they" plotting, but in the skillful ways each script pushed to the limits the public constructions of the value of female virginity and the dangers of male sexuality and swathed the all-too-hokey "happily ever after" denouements in sparkling irony.
From It Happened One Night to What's Up, Doc?, the real frisson that underpinned the pleasure of such movies lay not in the love story's "will they, won't they" plotting, but in the skillful ways each script pushed to the limits the public constructions of the value of female virginity and the dangers of male sexuality and swathed the all-too-hokey "happily ever after" denouements in sparkling irony.
Book of Love (2022)
Directed by Analeine Cal y Mayor
influenced by How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
Plot
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: 27 Dresses , The Proposal , How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days , and even a bit of Bridget Jones’s Diary .
Then there’s the standard makeover theme you’ll remember from Working Girl, Miss Congeniality, or another Kohn-Silverstein project, Never Been Kissed.
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Directed by Clyde Geronimi
influenced How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
Plot
Andie decides to write an article about how to act like a heroine in a Julia Roberts/Ashley Judd romantic comedy and thus scare away a man in ten days; Benjamin, in order to win the diamond contract away from a pair of scheming women dedicatedly joined at the hip like the Siamese cats in Disney's Lady and the Tramp, makes a bet that he can make any woman (read: Andie) fall in love with him in those same ten days.
While there certainly are elements of many different genres and films here, from Glee to Mystic Pizza to any you-name-it teenage coming-of-age movie, CODA literally speaks in its own language and delivers an experience that is unique, heartfelt, sincere and most definitely worthwhile.
One Night Only (2026)
Directed by Will Gluck
influenced by How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
Characters
Barbaro has a natural charm and energy that evokes the romantic comedy leading ladies of the 2000s and 2010s, like Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or Emma Stone before she became Yorgos Lanthimos-pilled.
And, in a hilarious one-scene bit, Rachel Dratch (2009's " My Life in Ruins ") is a spitfire as an eyebrow-afflicted patient of Danny's.
Together they play "Pygmalion" or -- with Julia Roberts' actual man, Benjamin Bratt, on love-interest duty -- "Pretty Woman."
As well as The Silence of the Lambs, Wind River joins a genre that runs from The X-Files to Sicario to Miss Congeniality.