Random Thoughts About Things You Don't Care About - "Valentine's Day" edition

Last night I got home from a dinner party and although it was almost 11, I wasn't tired, so I decided to watch a movie. Instead of being smart and diligent and watching Animal Kingdom, thus crossing off another movie and category in the Oscar Death Race, I instead decided to watch the ridiculous movie Valentine's Day, which my Tivo for some reason decided I needed to see.

First thing you need to know about this movie is that it's a Garry Marshall film. Enough said right? The next thing you need to know is that it's done in that scattered, 25 different stories that all link up somehow, Pulp Fiction style that sometimes works in movies but more often does not. In Valentine's Day it just comes off as lazy; lazy directing, writing, and acting. The plot is basically about a bunch of different people in Los Angeles dealing with the joys and horror of February 14.

It wasn't awful. I mean, I watched the whole thing and only rolled my eyes like 7 times; usually during any scene with either/both Taylor Swift or Taylor Lautner. But there are a ton of things wrong with this movie.
First, it's too long. There's no reason this damn movie needed to be over 2 hours long. It's like 135 minutes! Also, there are too many characters/actors/stories in it. Do you recall hearing about the HUGE cast when this movie came out last year? The fact that Jamie Foxx, Shirley MacLaine, Anne Hathaway and Geore Lopez are all in a movie together is ridiculous, not to mention Ashton Kutcher, Taylor Lautner, Bradley Cooper and Julia Roberts. Y'all, believe me when I tell you that I haven't even listed half of the cast; this thing is so bloated with stars it's ridiculous.
Which leads me to wonder - what was in it for them? I don't think the budget was big enough for everyone to get a huge paycheck, and except for maybe Kutcher, all of the actors had roughly the same amount of screen time - 8 minutes. Does Garry Marshall still have enough clout and power in Hollywood that people like Jennifer Garner and Queen Latifah agree to appear for 15 collective minutes in one of his films? Also, what does Marshall have on Julia Roberts? Pretty Woman was over 20 years (!) ago; she can't possibly feel like she still owes him for something, can she? Did she lose a bet?
Roberts' character's story was probably the most touching. And I'll admit that the "twist" or reveal or whatever that her character and Bradley Cooper's had at the end of the movie actually surprised me. I know I know...it was 1 o'clock in the morning! I was tired. But damn was I annoyed that there wasn't more to the romantic reveal of Cooper and Eric Dane being gay lovers. You have these two hot men in your movie, as BOYFRIENDS and we don't even get to see them kiss? That's just cruel.