Valentine’s Day (2010, Garry Marshall)

Story by the HJNTIY team, screenplay by the creator of some show called Army Wives and directed by the dude behind The Other Sister, so there was no guarantee of quality here, but the movie safely occupies the competent, innocuous middle ground between piece-o-shit HJNTIY and surprisingly-good Love Actually. Light and predictably happy, with a cameo from Kristen Schaal of Flight of the Conchords which I enjoyed far too much compared to its surrounding scenes.

So. Ashton Kutcher (Butterfly Effect) runs a flower shop with happily married George Lopez (Sharkboy & Lavagirl). Ashton proposes to career girl Jessica Alba (Love Guru) instead of longtime friend Jennifer Garner (Invention of Lying), who has fallen for a married guy (AK & JG end up together). Jamie Foxx (Miami Vice) is a sportscaster whose boss Kathy Bates (The Waterboy) assigns him to cover valentine’s day, during which he meets Jessica Biel (Elizabethtown) who throws an anti-val-day party every year because she is lonely. Shirley MacLaine (Artists & Models) tells 50-year husband Hector Elizondo (Georgia Rule) that she cheated on him decades ago, but he forgives her at a park screening of Hot Spell (a movie with Shirley and Anthony Quinn which nobody remembers). Patrick Dempsey (McThingy on Katy’s shows) is in the movie but I already can’t remember why. Topher Grace (Spiderman 3) likes Anne Hathaway (Becoming Jane), finds out she works as a kinky phone sex operator but learns to deal with that. Eric Dane (McThingy on Katy’s shows) is a sports star who is gay, managed by Queen Latifah (Stranger Than Fiction) who I think works with Jessica Biel and is Anne Hathaway’s boss and there are other connections that aren’t important. Lastly, Julia Roberts (Duplicity) is on a plane flying home on military leave to see her son for a day, sitting next to Bradley Cooper (Midnight Meat Train) who is gay for Eric Dane. Then there are some 18-year-olds whom we can safely ignore, including a pop idol or two.