The ranking covers only comedies, excluding horror and science-fiction versions such as Face/Off, Freaky (called actually really liked), Nine Lives with Kevin Spacey trapped in a cat, and The Cobbler with Adam Sandler.
The list builds from one out of ten, The Hot Chick with Rob Schneider and Rachel McAdams, joking she should make a Notebook sequel to buy up all copies.
Two out of ten is Dream a Little Dream with the Corys, a rare four-person switch that somehow got a sequel.
Three out of ten groups the father-son versions: 17 Again, Like Father Like Son with Kirk Cameron and Dudley Moore, and Vice Versa with Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage, the best of the three.
Five out of ten is Prelude to a Kiss with Meg Ryan and Alec Baldwin, called the Juliet stratosphere.
Asked for thoughts, the reply places it in the latter days of Meg Ryan's arc, a film that felt like a favor but was enjoyable; it made the playoffs but is not a round-two movie. — Juliet Litman
Six out of ten is All of Me with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin; seven is the 2003 Freaky Friday with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, called rock solid, with a tangent on Lohan's Parent Trap to Mean Girls run.
Eight is 13 Going on 30, nine Being John Malkovich as the highbrow version, and ten Big, called the best one ever and the icon everything else derives from.
The anecdote is presented under the Steven Seagal award name: the hosts say Ruffalo almost left the project during Thriller rehearsals because he hated the rehearsal process and choreography, and had to be talked into staying.
It is called funny because he came up through Broadway plays; he is joked to be a serious-plays guy, not a musicals guy, and his Thriller is called a mail-in that makes the scene more fun.
Ebert was not impressed: two stars, saying Jennifer Garner is a charmer but the victim of a charmless treatment.
Ebert could not buy the magazine office, professionals not noticing a 13-year-old mind, Jenna's spectacularly bad redesign being accepted, and emotional and sexual puzzles; he said it should have been a musical. His points are called decent.
He liked Garner, which is credited for getting two stars out of him.
Wesley Morris, then at the Boston Globe, called it a contagious but dopey first star vehicle for TV's Jennifer Garner, tailor-made for women who lust for dream houses, dream jobs and dream hubbies; a host guesses that if asked now he would call it one of his favorites of the last 25 years.
Dopey can still be fun; Ebert's logic points are correct but part of the genre, and the office looks like the Working Girl set.
The big party where the Six Chicks show up is a first pick; school cliques like an "A squad" at Bronx High School of Science and college "BPs" are recalled.
Jenna being mean to Beaver hurts, and seven minutes in heaven is joked to be banned in 50 states in 2026.
Tom Tom becoming Judy Greer is called one of the best teen-to-adult castings; Greer reportedly disagrees, and young Jenna reads as Hilary Swank to one participant, which is disputed.
Jenna waking up at 30 (cell phone, checking her body, the hockey player, "I'm Jenna Rink, big-time magazine editor") is great, a mission statement for Garner recalling Hanks in Big.
Visiting Matt requires suspension of disbelief since he doesn't react as if she were on drugs.
The dress-up montage uses Whitney Houston; Lips Like Sugar by Echo and the Bunnymen was reportedly planned but could not be licensed.
Jenna saving the party with Thriller is an iconic rom-com scene; the green modified Versace dress became a yearly Halloween costume, though her dancing starts stiff and Ruffalo drags his foot while the Gollum actor bangs it out.
Asked by name whether Michael Jackson's baggage complicates the scene now, the reply is no; the surprise is that everyone at a 2004 party knew the whole dance.
Wesley Morris wrote that watching the cast dance like ghouls made him cringe: "the amateurness isn't cute, it's scary."
It recalls bar mitzvahs and the Cha-Cha Slide; Arlene the secretary joining is a favorite moment.
The Liz Phair montage with Razzles and the Brooklyn Bridge, and Love Is a Battlefield with the nice Six Chicks, are included; one more scene of Jenna advising the 13-year-olds is wanted.
Jenna's class-of-2004 pitch is rewatchable as probably the worst publishing idea of all time, while Lucy's heroin-chic idea sounds pretty good.
Jenna and Lucy having it out, with Judy Greer lights out, is the last pick; the wedding scene is excluded and Vienna is saved for later.
The other pick is the first scene waking up in the apartment: the umbrella gag, the physical comedy, and the slip with the jacket as the defining look.
Both agree the first 25 minutes, from the closet until she gets to work, are excellent.
Surprise at a cell phone ring; Courteney Cox magazine cover; Rudy Giuliani office photo; flip phone; Liz Phair's Why Can't I; Garner's MTV Movie Awards and Teen Choice nominations
An ASR-unclear item about the phone ('so many m's on the phone ... he wants a decision now') and being surprised by a cell phone ring are offered; the slip dress is called a little 1997.
Jenna's office wall has a photo with Rudy Giuliani, from when that was just the 9/11 mayor, not a joke.
The flip phone, with colored screens arriving around 2002-2003, and the twice-used Liz Phair song are picks.
Garner's performance earning MTV Movie Awards and Teen Choice Awards nominations, possible only in a three-year vortex, is offered as a winner, but the same speaker then defers: 'I think you're right with Liz Phair.'
Rom-com bitches are loved: mean but never catastrophically so, watered-down versions of people everyone knows; Lucy is one.
Sigourney Weaver in Working Girl is an example; Judy Greer is unassailable and makes this a better movie.
Lucy is Jenna's Darth Vader, pulling her to the Six Chicks from the 13th birthday party.
A tangent asks whether Jenna Rink would have had a bat mitzvah and is Jewish, with Kathy Baker recalled from Picket Fences and Street Smart, and a Jewish-themed pilot with Adam Friedland still only in text messages.
Jennifer Garner's hairstyles, including chopsticks in the hair, track the character's evolution and add a feminine touch.
J.Lo magazine covers; the Six Chicks; Kathy Baker as the mom; wardrobe color shifts; Billy Joel; Ruffalo's wardrobe; luxury references; New York exteriors; the pink slip dress; the 61 Fifth Avenue apartment
Obviously and unquestionably the J.Lo magazine covers in a Garner movie, right as J.Lo is about to split from Ben Affleck, whom Garner is about to date.
Near the end Jenna takes down the J.Lo Sparkle covers; the hosts say that five months later Garner and Affleck debuted at Fenway for Game 1 of the World Series, which the speaker says they attended.
The hosts say the J.Lo relationship didn't go over with the fan base because she was an unabashed Yankees fan from the Bronx; showing up at the 2004 World Series with Garner, who had a 100 percent approval rating, is a Nick Hornby moment.
The Six Chicks as a gimmick: a group of mean girls in a rom-com has a 100 percent success rate, and the name works.
Asked about the mechanics, the answer is that row position reflects closeness to the center of power, so the one on the periphery got pushed out. — Juliet Litman
Mean Girls and the Plastics arrived a week later, which is said to have hurt this movie.
Kathy Baker as the mom is great casting that looks like mother and daughter, with a good line about not regretting her mistakes.
Ariana Grande's thank u, next video homages this movie, with the dream house.
Wardrobe shifts to warmer colors as Jenna softens and darker as Lucy turns ruthless; Garner has reportedly worked with the costume designer, Susie, about ten times since.
The green Thriller dress reportedly ended up in a costume warehouse and was spotted on a Sex and the City extra, looking different.
Billy Joel from the mid-2000s on has aged incredibly, and the 1987 mixtapes are well done.
Matt's girlfriend, an attractive anchorwoman moving to Chicago, introduces the term commuter couple and belittles his vitamin-bottle photos.
Ruffalo's wardrobe (Adidas, CBGB shirt, well-fitted pants) and his pendant light are still in style.
Luxury references like St. Barts and the San Ysidro Ranch remain aspirational.
New York locations such as 444 Madison and 61 Fifth avoid anything gimmicky; the movie shows a sunny, crime-free New York without acknowledging 9/11.
The pink slip dress is something people would wear now.
The apartment at 61 Fifth, 7C, in Greenwich Village would rent for about $55,000 a month now; an Alec Baldwin and Hilaria sighting nearby follows.
The chosen exteriors (444 Madison, 61 Fifth, a Tribeca street that could be a Whit Stillman movie) are landmark-type locations that look as good now; they were picked in limited time.
The Brooklyn Bridge shot many films go for always works; the movie uses both sides, the Razzles walk on the Manhattan side and the playground on the Brooklyn side.
