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The Fractured Mirror

Created by Nathan Rabin

Nathan Rabin's Happy Place's Definitive Guide to American Movies about the Film Industry

Latest Updates from Our Project:

The Fractured Mirror entry: Win a Date With Tad Hamilton (2004)
6 months ago – Sat, Sep 23, 2023 at 06:41:06 AM

Win A Date with Tad Hamilton (2004)FM

Robert Luketic followed up his 2001 breakout debut Legally Blonde with 2004’s Win a Date With Tad Hamilton, a retro return to the glossy romantic comedies and dramas of producer Ross Hunter with a little Frank Tashlin sprinkled in for good measure.

The eight time Teen Choice nominee casts an irresistible Kate Bosworth as the regrettably named Rosalee Futch, a West Virginian who works at a Piggly Wiggly alongside best friends Cathy Feely (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Pete Monash (Topher Grace), who also happens to be her boss. The small town girl with the radiant smile gets a ticket to the big time when she wins a contest for a glamorous evening out with the titular movie star, a self-destructive playboy looking to rehabilitate his image in order to snag a plum movie role.

Josh Duhamel is way too appealing in the title role. In the not so grand tradition of romantic comedy formula we’re supposed to root for the everyman best friend who has been pining away forever to get the girl. Grace is an innately likable performer but his character is written as a controlling, self-pitying, entitled Nice Guy type where Tad Hamilton is handsome, sweet, funny and genuinely enamored of Rosalee for understandable reasons. 

Grace’s lovestruck Piggy Wiggly manager might actually be the least sympathetic character in a film with a dynamite supporting cast that includes Gary Cole as Rosalee’s suddenly show business-obsessed dad and Nathan Lane and Sean Hayes both channelling Tony Randall as Tad’s high-powered Hollywood team.

Win a Date With Tad Hamilton errs in making the right guy seem like the wrong guy and the wrong guy seem like the right guy but it’s a charming enough throwback to the days of Rock Hudson and Doris Day to make that central mistake eminently forgivable.

The Fractured Mirror entry: The Wager (2007)
6 months ago – Fri, Sep 22, 2023 at 07:52:22 AM

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The naming rights for Nathan Rabin's Happy Place are Officially Up for Sale!
6 months ago – Thu, Sep 21, 2023 at 11:22:03 AM

I am forever thinking up ways to make my six year old website Nathan Rabin's Happy Place more profitable and increase its audience.

It's been a real struggle and six years in things have, if anything, only gotten harder. So I am introducing an idea that hopefully someone will go for and will make my life and job easier and less filled with apocalyptic dread.

Clint and I sold the naming rights for Travolta/Cage a few years back to Effin Birds. Now I would love to sell the naming rights to Nathan Rabin's Happy Place for one thousand dollars a month.

I'd like to be able to get something out of my twenty-six years as a professional writer, eight books and countless columns. I'd like to think that all of that experience and expertise has an economic as well as creative and emotional value.

In a world with eight billion people, hopefully at least someone will find this appealing and toss me a lifeline when I need it most.

If this is too rich for your blood, which it could very well be, you can help me out in a smaller but still appreciated way by pledging my Patreon account, buying a book or becoming a subscriber to my Substack, Nathan Rabin's Bad Ideas, and if you would be kind enough to send me a tip you can do so through Paypal. My address is [email protected]

My career as a full time freelancer in a time of great anxiety and peril is to throw a whole lot of stuff against the wall, metaphorically speaking, and hope that it sticks. Hopefully this will.

https://www.nathanrabin.com/happy-place/2023/9/6/ue9s3taozx29iw1z561hcxmnm6xz2y

The Fractured Mirror entry: Souls for Sale (1923)
6 months ago – Thu, Sep 21, 2023 at 06:38:22 AM

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The Fractured Mirror entry: 365 Nights in Hollywood (1934)
6 months ago – Mon, Sep 18, 2023 at 03:19:07 PM

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