People tend to talk about "chick flicks" a lot, you know, the kind of film that stars Anne Hathaway or Holly Hunter and has people stressing a lot about their relationships. There's an assumption that certain sort of films will only play to female audiences, but you never hear about the flip side of the coin.
"Dude movies," aimed squarely at a male demographic, are certainly plentiful enough, and this month's example is "My Super Ex-Girlfriend," a movie that combines loser-gets-some sex comedy and superhero parody into one big dirty laundry bag full of guy-only laughs. How do I know this is a "dude flick?" Well, the first "joke" that appears a few minutes into the film is when one guy turns to his buddy and asks, "If you could have any superpower, what would it be?" To which his friend replies, "The ability to blow myself." Duu-uu-de!
Let's start with the premise of this movie, which is, in a nutshell, chicks are freakin' crazy. Well, not all chicks -- just the needy, jealous, controlling, neurotic, passive-aggressive ones; a distinction that may be lost on female viewers. Guys may be more comfortable with the truth of this proposition, but at least the movie plays fair, hewing close to that time worn adage, "Men are stupid, women are crazy."