I am suspicious that the books upon which movies like this are based are produced by a computer program (codenamed “Nicholas Sparks”) that takes a witch’s brew of inputs and spits out cheesy and contrived romantic stories. In this case, the inputs were “Jewish immigrants”, “the son of Clint Eastwood”, “art snobs”, “bull-riding cowboys”, and “North Carolina”.

Not well directed, but an interesting milieu.

Manic cartoon with no particularly likeable characters.

B-movie horror, with no gimmick spared.

Poorly directed martial arts.

Like watching a movie about Jar Jar Binks.

Critics off-base, good movie.

An expert comedy.

Well-done; prototype for the genre.

Best, smartest romantic comedy I have seen in a long time.