Jennifer Lopez made history twenty years ago last week, when her romantic comedy The Wedding Planner topped the box office the same week that her sophomore record J.Lo debuted atop the Billboard 200 music chart – making Lopez the first (and still only) person to have a number one film and album launch at the same time. Her professional success over the last two decades has wavered, from starring in notorious flop Gigli (2003) to garnering Oscar buzz for playing an industrious stripper in Hustlers (2019), but the year 2001 was likely her zenith, at least culturally. I’d never seen The Wedding Planner – despite my girlfriend loving fellow J.Lo romcoms Maid in Manhattan (2002) and Monster-in-Law (2005), she had not yet asked/forced me to watch this one with her – so this seemed as good a time as any to scratch a borderline cultural artifact off my cinematic bucket list.
(more…)
Cinema Charchuk 