The Notebook (2004)

  This is one of the most egregiously photoshopped posters I've ever seen, considering that doesn't even look like Ryan Gosling, much less the scene in the movie, where he had a beard.  This was the Christy pick for November.  I'm going to try to squeeze in the one for December in this last week but I don't know if I'll make it.  I just started watching season one of Stargate: SG-1, so that's going to eat up some time.

Allison (Rachel McAdams) and Noah (Ryan Gosling) are two Southern teens --yeah, I didn't believe that either-- who fall in love in 1930's South Carolina but are torn apart by rabid sea otters.

Just kidding.  But that would have been awesome, right?

Torn apart by class differences and WWII.  Seven years later, they rediscover one another but Allison is engaged to someone else (James Marsden).  Whatever shall she do?  Stay with the hot, rich, but terribly-dyed Marsden or throw him over for the tall, rippling ab-ed, but horribly bearded Gosling?

I know a lot of you are expecting me to viciously tear apart this movie because it's a sappy romance and I hate those on principle, but that's actually not my problem with this film.  Yes, the lead couple are obnoxiously happy and that makes my heart shrink by three sizes but that's not the worst part.

It's so boring.

Every scene that did not directly relate to the (overly contrived, saccharine) plot was so excruciatingly boring that I was almost grateful for the syrupy melodramatic parts.  The only thing that redeemed this movie in the slightest was the costuming.  Karyn Wagner earned her money and then some.  Otherwise, this just felt like a movie I had seen so many times before.  If you took out all the parts with Gosling and McAdams, this is Amour.  If you took out all the parts with old people, it's Atonement.  If that's your thing, then that's your thing and you should enjoy it.  For me, it's just something else to scour out of my brain and replace with more useful things, like late-night infomercials.