The first is the "Ghost of Girlfriends Past" in the form of Allison, his first lover. They revisit scenes from his past, focusing on his relationship with Jenny. She and Connor were very close at school; she gave him his first instant camera which he used to take her picture, promising to keep it forever. By middle school, they were on the verge of romance, but Connor's hesitation at a dance caused Jenny to dance with and kiss another boy.
Sandra hears of Connor's accidental revelation that Paul slept with one of her bridesmaids early in their relationship, and furiously confronts Paul. A returned Connor attempts to mend the situation, but Paul tells him to leave. He is visited by the "Ghost of Girlfriends Future", who takes him forward in time to see that Jenny marries Brad while Paul remains alone. Further in the future, Paul is the only mourner at Connor's funeral. Wayne appears and tells Connor that this is his fate if he continues on the same path, pushing him into the grave to be buried by his many ex-girlfriends.
Matthew McConaughey stars with Jennifer Garner in this romantic comedyabout committed bachelor who gets a wake-up call from his late ,legendary, hard-partying Uncle Wayne and his own Ghosts of GirlfriendsPast.Connor Mead (McConaughey--We Are Marshall) loves loves freedom, funand women ... in that order. But on the eve of his brother's wedding,with a houseful of well-wishers, wedding guests and Connor's childhoodfriend, Jenny (Garner--This Side of the Truth), the one woman who hasalways seemed immune his charm, Connor is haunted by his Uncle Wayne(Michael Douglas--The In-Laws) with an urgent message delivered by theghosts of Connor's jilted girlfriends, who take him on a revealing andhilarious journey through a lifetime of failed relationships.
Remember Harry, the Rat With Women? This time his name is Connor Mead, but he's still a rat. A modern Scrooge, who believes marriage is humbug, but is taught otherwise by the ghosts of girlfriends past, present and future, and one who spans all of those periods. Just like Scrooge, he's less interesting after he reforms.
Matthew McConaughey plays Connor as a rich and famous Vanity Fair photographer whose ambition is to have sex with every woman he meets, as soon as possible. Sometimes this leads to a logjam. Impatient to sleep with his latest quarry, a model who just allowed an apple to be shot off her head with an arrow, Connor actually arranges an online video chat session to break up with three current girlfriends simultaneously, but is big-hearted enough to allow them to chat with one another after he logs off.
When notorious womanizer Connor Mead attends his brother Paul's wedding, he is forced to re-evaluate his behavior as he comes face-to-face with the ghosts of girlfriends past, present, and future, along with his deceased uncle. The experience changes his attitude and allows him to reconnect with his first and only love, Jenny.
Celebrity photographer Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey) is so slick that he might as well be an oil tanker. He beds women as often as he photographs them, and he never lets himself get involved. Not exactly the kind of guy you'd want to have as your best man, but that's his role at his brother's (Breckin Meyer) upcoming wedding. Connor starts the evening off by sparring with ex-girlfriend Jenny (Jennifer Garner), fondling the mother of the bride (Anne Archer), telling his brother he can still back out, and even divulging a huge secret that hurts the bride (Lacey Chabert). No wonder he starts seeing a steady stream of ghosts (a la A Christmas Carol), led by his dead uncle (Michael Douglas), who, when he was alive, taught Connor everything he knew about avoiding commitment.
The movie, which opens Friday, May 1, and also stars Jennifer Garner, Michael Douglas and Breckin Meyer, offers a twist on Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" with McConaughey playing a bachelor who gets haunted by the ghosts of his former girlfriends. He exit the woods with the Ghost of Girlfriends Future played by Olga Maliouk.
So when Connor meets up with the ghost of his Uncle Wayne, an old-school player who taught him everything he knows about scamming but now insists his life was empty without love, he resists but eventually succumbs when old memories are stirred. (With his deep tan, ascot and sunglasses, Michael Douglas plays the role in an apparent homage to Robert Evans; Emma Stone, meanwhile, mostly grates as the ghost of girlfriends past, still 16 with frizzy hair and braces.)
"I am [one of] 'The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," she laughed recently, describing her supernatural character in the film of the same name. "It's a take off on 'A Christmas Carol'. Matthew McConaughey plays Connor, this guy who's been sleeping around with a bunch of women, and has a heart of stone, and some ghosts come back to haunt him and bring him lessons about his past relationships and future relationships."
Overseen by "Mean Girls" director Mark Waters, the film also stars such notables as Jennifer Garner, Lacey Chabert, Michael Douglas and Robert Forster. "I think Matthew's in a different place now; obviously there's been a lot that's happened since 'How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days,' and all that," Stone said of what separates this film from McConaughey's romantic comedies of films past. "This is really a lesson in falling in love, and not taking the path of just sleeping around for his whole life; it's a very [meaty] lesson, especially to be haunted by people."
Somebody had a great idea for "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," if you think of great ideas as strictly to do with making money: A rampaging lothario is shown the true poverty of his loveless existence by the ghosts of past, present and future. That's the high concept - and it's fairly irresistible: to take "A Christmas Carol," get rid of the Christmas part, and make it about a ladies' man.
Movie critics will not like "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," the latest spin on the whole "A Christmas Carol" tale in which a hot shot photographer, Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey), is visited by the ghosts of girlfriends past, present and future during a weekend from hell in which he nearly ruins his little brother's wedding.
Mead lives in a world where "forking" is preferable to "spooning" and where breaking up my video conference call isn't necessarily out of the question. Much to his brother's surprise, he unexpectedly returns home for the big wedding to Sandra (Lacey Chabert), a bride almost as shrill and obnoxious as Malin Akerman in 2007's "The Heartbreak Kid." The wedding party includes three bridesmaids, two from his past, and a Maid of Honor (Jennifer Garner) who we quickly catch on is his one true love.
Before Mead can learn the error of his ways, however, chaos will ensue and a wedding will be jeopardized and three girlfriends, kinda sorta, will take him on a journey through his past, present and future.
As opposed to past couplings with the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker and Kate Hudson, Garner and McConaughey have a rather pleasing chemistry though I would argue that their scenes of feistiness and conflict are significantly more convincing than their ultimate reunion.
Connor Mead (McConaughey) is a famous photographer and serial womanizer. He attends his brother Paul's wedding, where he becomes reacquainted with Jenny Perotti (Garner), Connor's childhood friend and the only girl who's ever captured his heart. After Connor delivers a drunken speech at the rehearsal dinner where he says that love isn't real, he's met in the bathroom by the ghost of his uncle Wayne (Douglas), the man who taught Connor everything he knows about seducing women. Wayne informs Connor that, over the course of the evening, he will be visited by three ghosts who will lead him through his romantic past, present, and future.
Amusement level slides rapidly from here on, as glimpses of ghosts two and three showing Connor how shallow he is and how awful his future will be are intercut with mostly awful scenes of the wedding weekend falling apart, graced by the continual shrieking of the would-be bride (Lacey Chabert). Denouement is hardly surprising.
McConaughey is Connor Mead, superstar photographer and serial womanizer. Women love him, he loves them, at least temporarily, and then sends them on their way. He deals in such volume with his dating that breaking up with his latest conquest, or rather, conquests, is a group activity done via conference call. Naturally, he seems like the perfect candidate for the traditional visitation of three ghosts who will show him the error of his ways and set him on the path to a happy and fulfilling future. Alas, the script has so many errors in it that it has no time to help anyone out, and the audience is left with the reality of a filmic future replete with banal dialogue, obvious plot points, and the desperate and ultimately futile attempt to make the collapse of an unwieldy wedding cake into a hilarious laugh riot.
In the olden days of cinema, Hollywood's biggest movie actors could spend their entire careers playing the same kinds of characters in the same kinds of movies. Today, versatility is all the rage. Though the financial allure of capitalizing upon success with similar work tempts, the performer's instinct must be to try the new and different; play a villain, attempt a new genre, do some edgy independent fare, or run the risk of being pigeonholed.Matthew McConaughey is the exception that proves this rule. The soon-to-be-40 actor is by far the most employed leading man of mainstream romantic comedies. It wasn't always that way. McConaughey's career began promisingly enough with memorable supporting roles (Dazed and Confused, Contact) and some respectable star turns (A Time to Kill, Amistad). But sometime after the financial losses of 2005's Sahara, he seemed to decide it was best to go with sure things. And thus he continued to claim top billing in vapid but profitable romcoms, playing the daft but fit and well-meaning Mr. Right to the likes of Kate Hudson.Ghosts of Girlfriends Past can be considered branching out for McConaughey in only the mildest ways. Like this: the actor stood fairly straight up on the poster artwork, eschewing the leaning posture that's marketed his two biggest hits in the genre. (For video, though, we do get a lean.) And as the plural title hints, there is not just one love interest but many, none of whom are played by Kate Hudson. The ingenious ideas of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol are run through the McConaughey romcom filter. He is Connor Mead, a notorious ladies' man and successful fashion magazine photographer. So brazen is Connor that he uses a video conference call to simultaneously break up with three smitten women while a famous young pop star awaits romance on a nearby couch.To some surprise, emotional miser Connor arrives at the mansion where his younger brother Paul (Breckin Meyer) will be getting married. Almost immediately, Connor begins making his views known, that love is for the weak, marriage is a mistake, and a sex life active with one-night stands is where it's at. On his way to sleeping with the one bridesmaid he hasn't already conquered, Connor instead gets a visit from his deceased Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas), the Jacob Marley of the piece. Wayne, a Scotch-sipping father figure whose advice and own playboy lifestyle made Connor who he is, gives the standard advisory: three ghosts will soon come.And sure enough, they do, beginning with the Ghost of Girlfriends Past (Emma Stone), Connor's first sexual partner who remains in her teenaged 1980s appearance. The flashbacks she shows Connor allow us opportunities to appreciate the fashions and music of the '80s and to understand how The One, Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner), got away while Connor grew into a smooth-talking misogynist. The Ghost of Girlfriends Present is Connor's personal assistant Melanie (Noureen DeWulf). True to Dickens, the ghost of the future (Olga Maliouk) doesn't say a word. Nor does she have to, for we're well aware of how this will turn out. Meanwhile, in the non-ethereal present, Connor does a terrific job of putting his brother's wedding to irritable Sandra (Lacey Chabert) in jeopardy with discouragement, indiscretion, and severe cake damage.With a story as remarkable as A Christmas Carol at the foundation, Ghosts would have to be made in an extraordinary inept fashion to be void of appeal. In the hands of capable director Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Just Like Heaven, Freaky Friday), it is not. But the film never satisfies in the ways that a fantasy romantic comedy should.One of the biggest issues is that this is a redemption tale and the protagonist seems pretty firmly fixed in irredeemable territory. You'll have to be a real sucker for McConaughey's twang and looks to want to see him save the day and win over his designated soulmate. Frankly, the nightmare destination of a scarcely-attended funeral in the very distant-future hardly seems like proper comeuppance for someone so sleazy and promiscuous. Nor does his present status, of returning pretty ladies' advances, make sense or indicate the emptiness it should. And promising not to leave in the night suddenly makes him a catch? Putting blame on accident-spawned orphanhood and an awful role model doesn't make Connor any more identifiable or sympathetic.There are other smaller problems. Women will not be flattered by their shallow portrayal here. The lead may be plagued by every bad manner in the book, but he is painted as an atypical, albeit admired, man. All the women in his life are desperate, randy, temperamental, or cheery prey. Even the would-be exception, Garner's rational doctor who conveniently is maid of honor and still single, falls into that last class.Then there are timeline inconsistencies, which squander some of the premise's potential fun (as better realized in similar flicks like Click and Definitely, Maybe). Why do we jump from REO Speedwagon at a middle school dance and Poison at a bar to Macy Gray's 2000 hit "I Try" showing our star-crossed couple just beginning adult life? I understand compressing time and the obligation to depict actors as younger than they are, but at least be consistent. I guess we should be thankful that the actors weren't aged down to play their teenaged selves.The stupidity, predictability, and general shoddiness noticed in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past actually aren't enough to put this at the low end of the romantic comedy genre. Oh sure, all of those factors and others contribute to one's disliking. Compared to 2008's McConaughey romcom Fool's Gold, though, this one nearly feels like Frank Capra. A dumb, raunchy Capra with a gimmick where the heart should be.
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