Sure, he's cute for the 120 minutes of a movie, but how annoying would it be to make all the decisions while a hoodie-clad yes-man stands sweetly off to your side? Actually, there's a pathetic paucity of boyfriend material in film these days, and it's because the men of romantic comedies are forced into one-dimensional stereotypes just as often as the women are.

We're always railing against Hollywood for forcing women to choose from roles that are either hookers, victims, doormats or pixies, but the options for men are similarly limiting. There are three categories of men in romantic comedies. They're either EFMs like Cera, Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill and Zach Braff in Garden State, personality-free perfect cyphers like James Marsden in 27 Dresses, Colin Firth in Bridget Jones's Diary (don't let the fact that it's Firth fool you. This character is not well developed or realistic!) or Mark Ruffalo in 13 Going on 30, or stonery slackers like Seth Rogen in everything or Kal Penn in the Harold and Kumar movies.

I tried to think of dudes in romantic films with fully developed, complicated, non-stereotypical characters whom I'd actually want to date/screw in real life, and the list is pretty flimsy:

• Ryan Reynolds in Definitely, Maybe or Just Friends
• Ryan Gosling in The Notebook
• Paul Rudd in Clueless
• Taye Diggs in The Best Man
• Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride
• Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna in Y Tu Mama Tambien
• John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank

I can't even include Cusack in Say Anything, because Lloyd Dobler is borderline EFM. Is there an untapped well of boyfriend material that I'm missing? Where are the Paul Newmans of this modern world? Help a girl out!

On The Brink [Hollywood Elsewhere]

Earlier: Manic Pixie Dream Girls Are The Scourge Of Modern Cinema
Cool Hand Paul: Thinking Woman's Sex Symbol

MOE: Hey! Look! We're on the same couch!
hahaha I heard that! Someone's IM-ing you!

MEGAN: And both hung over!

MOE: You're supposed to be doing crappy hour!

MEGAN: It was you! I swear! God, you're soooo jealous.

MOE: Oh, yes, I'm hungover. I have these friends who actually have the day off!

Whoa! Jumpy much?
MEGAN: There was a gnat!

MOE: (Megan just killed a "bug")

Okay dude, so we have soooo"are a contributor to global warming.

MOE: This is why I drink kombucha.

I like my gut flora.

Anyway this wasn't even ON the agenda today.
MEGAN: Oh, like we have an "agenda." That's for grown-ups

And/or people without hangovers who work in their PJs
MOE: So like Harold and Kumar are going to Guantanamo, bro!
MEGAN: That's what Kal Penn gets for supporting Obama!
MOE: It's just one of the many examples that the fact we have this random prison in a country we don't even recognize for people we think might be terrorists but no one has enough evidence to press charges!

oh let's finish that sentence1

It's just one of the many examples that the whole Guantanamo thing has sorta seized the public imagination!

Imagine that!
It comes out April 25

MEGAN: I think that the public would rather the prison was fictional. I know I'd like it better that way.

MOE: How many prisoners are still left there?
MEGAN: several hundred
MOE: I really wish that story had been written by the Washington Post.

My old friend Jon wrote Harold & Kumar with his college buddy one summer at Penn.
I was always so proud of him bc he went to Wharton and usually people who go to Wharton wind up just making their money by gambling with other people's money but he actually gambled with his creative soul!
So like

MEGAN: The only famously immature person from my alma mater is Howard Stern.
MOE: Ooooooh we have Donald Trump and Saul Steinberg and Warren Buffett. And Andrea Mitchell but whatevs. And Melissa Rivers! ANYHOWZE
Kosovo declared independence! Should we talk about this? And by "we" I mean "you" because all I remember about Kosovo is how they are ethnic Albanians or whatever, and Albania had that whole ponzi scheme thing.

And how we used to like to stick up for the religious freedom of Muslims.

MEGAN: Um, I know their PM is hott.

MOE: Until we realized they were EEEEVIL et.c
MEGAN: And Kissinger droned on about them during his speech at my college graduation in 1999

Which, like, it's 2008 and something is only now happening?
Also, the Serbs don't like it, and their PM claims that it's all a violent thing initiated by Bush, only his supporters slept off their hangovers before getting around to initiating some violence before his speech so they did it after.
And then they stoned our embassy in Belgrade.
Oh, and the UN still has to protect Serbian minorities in Kosovo from violence from Kosovars.
MOE: Now, Putin hates Kosovo bc of Chechnya? Or just bc he's EEEEVIL?
MEGAN: Um, I'm voting Evil. Putin hates breakaway provinces, and anything supported by us, like Kosovo. And Muslims. Especially breakaway Muslims.
MOE: Right. But he's down with like Iran and Syria right?
MEGAN: Yeah. I'm pretty sure he's just jealous because everyone thinks Thaci is prettier.
MOE: Okay sooooo Jessica Baty
MEGAN: I feel so awful for her when she starts crying.
MOE: The girlfriend of Steven Kazmierczak says he was on Prozac.

I feel like crying when she cries.
"Interest in Nietzche is the one thing all school shooters have in common." That might be the only thing he shares with them though.
MEGAN: I feel like the aggressive wearing of all black clothing is another thing.
MOE: But yeah, reading about how he was so focused on prison reform and rehabilitating criminals and giving people who had fucked up a fair shake — that probably points to something. Maybe like rabidly homophobic Christians who are closet gays! OR something.
So, uh, what's happening on the John Edwards endorsement front? Predictions?

MEGAN: Well, one of the reports I read yesteday said they he was cutting himself while in juvie, and then wrote a thesis on self-mutilation in the prison system.
I think Edwards waited too long to be relevant.

I mean, he dropped out ages ago, and Mitt dropped out last week, and Mitt's endorsed by Johnny hasn't

MOE: And should we discuss how Obama has convinced Charles Barkley to run for governor of Alabama?
MEGAN: In 2014!

MOE: Well Edwards can make up for poor timing with a good speech if he does it soon.

MEGAN: Soon being the operative word.

MOE: If he does it this week he can get a whole week of coverage.
MEGAN: But he's "torn," like Natalie Imbruglia and thus equally irrelevant
MOE: Hahaha I just saw random pix of Natalie Imbruglia on one of the wire services! She was hanging out with Natalia Vodianova, Lucy Liu and Valentino at some really weird looking event that has to have taken place in a foreign country.

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE.
MEGAN: But, yes, Edwards needs to make up his mind really soon
MOE: I'm looking for fun art re Guantanamo and it's hard! Did you see Sicko? He went there but it was hard to get in.
Oh and speaking of ...Morgan Spurlock! Loser.

MEGAN: And, by hard, I assume you mean "he almost got blowed up"
I just don't understand why you would go to Afghanistan to search for OBL and think you wouldn't face crazy death threats.