Customer Reviews

Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys

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A tiny bit on the cheesy side, but very fun, and often hilarious.

Note that this 2005 version (Amazon's release date for this is wrong, I think) of the DVD with the pink cover that includes a picture of Dave Barry has several special features that were cut out of the newer 2006 version that has the blue cover not including Dave Barry's face. That blue-cover version, along with having more professional-looking DVD menus, may have better picture quality during the film, though -- at least it's easier to read the end credits on that version (and if they re-rendered the movie at higher quality and it took more space, that could explain why many special features were removed).

I think Dave Barry's writing is akin to stand-up comedy. His flow, pacing, "delivery", and choice of material fits with the concept of a comedian on stage, giving a show with nothing but a microphone. His books are almost all based on the idea of picking a topic, then making lists of sub-topics, and cracking jokes about them. So to translate this into movie form required that the material be augmented and sometimes significantly changed. The writer of the movie had two choices I think. He could have turned it into a kind of sketch-comedy show, with a series of sketches but no attempt to connect them. The second choice, which he took, was to try to architect a flow more akin to a tradition scripted comedic story. I just don't think it worked. Maybe if it had a screenwriter with talent equal to Dave, it could have worked.

So basically, some of it was funny, but more often it was just dumb, and the "flow" was awkward. I say, read his book, and skip this movie.