How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days

The year was 2003. A world rocked by terrorism waited anxiously as George W. Bush announced plans to invade Iraq. The Human Genome Project was completed, with ethical questions mounting everywhere. A fresh-faced Paul Martin began his long-lasting, unforgettable tenure as Prime Minister of Canada. In the midst of all this, Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson, the Gable and Lombard of our time, joined forces for the very first time in a little Donald Petrie film called How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. The odds were stacked against it — in this climate of war and fear, what hope did a micro-budget indie with no big-name actors and a challenging, almost Godard-ian tone have with the general public? Nevertheless, riding a wave of ecstatic reviews and awards, this little-movie-that-could played in theatres for months, eventually becoming arguably the defining film of the decade. Indeed, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days mania has never really died, and perhaps that's why the time is right for Paramount's deluxe edition DVD release, just in time for when critics begin compiling their top ten movies of the decade lists. Relive the majesty of Kate Hudson as Andie Anderson, a journalist who hatches a story idea about becoming the world's worst girlfriend, careful to make all the mistakes that women make in relationships. Little does she know that her target, Larger Than Life's Matthew McConaughey, has made a bet that he can make any woman fall in love with him within ten days. How daring of Donald Petrie to craft a romantic comedy around two completely and utterly hateful characters and engage them in a love story that redefines the word "unconvincing." How bold of screenwriters Kristen Buckley, Brian Regan and Burr Steers to take such a lightweight premise and drag it out to 116 bone-crushingly predictable minutes. How strange that producers Robert Evans and Lynda Obst never got around to a sequel called How to Lose a Guy in 11 Days. DVD extras include a director's commentary (or, as I like to call it, a "master class") and a making-of documentary featuring such A-list heavy-hitters as Lynda Obst, Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long. Really, Paramount? Not even Bebe Neuwirth?