Just finished watching the new deluxe edition Paramount DVD of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, the 2003 romantic comedy starring the team of Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson (years before the triumph that was Fools Gold). I'm not, to put it charitably, a fan of McConaughey, but given that I've had a soft spot for Hudson since her genuinely adorable turn in Almost Famous, and since the majestic Bebe Neuwirth is on hand as her editor, I figured it might be worth a look.

You know -- how bad could it be?

The plot:

Trendy columnist for a Cosmo-like women's mag Andie Anderson (Hudson) agrees to write a first-person story about what it takes to drive a man out of your life -- i.e., the worst possible dating mistakes -- in exactly 10 days. Meanwhile, eligible ad agency lothario Benjamin Barry (McConaughey) accepts a high stakes bet that he can lure any woman on the planet into falling head over heels with him, also in 10 days. After the inevitable meet cute, the inevitable battle of the sexes begins, and after an hour or so of the inevitable wacky hijinx, the two wind up in each others arms. The end.

Okay, cutting to the chase, the answer to our earlier question is "actually kind of bad," starting with the odd decision to give both of the lead characters alliterative names, a screenwriter's device which should give you an idea of the attempted level of cutesy here. Beyond that, there's little to say except that the film posits the most sanitized and yuppified version of New York City since the 1980 Village People movie, that the characters are, to a person, all shallow, materialistic and unlikeable, and that the aforementioned McConaughey is an insurmountable problem. Sorry kids, I feel the same way about his putative sex appeal as I do about Madonna's, which is to say they both strike me as the kind of person who'd give you the crabs.

Perhaps I overstate. Here's the trailer -- feel free to make up your own mind.

Bonuses on the new disc -- hey, there's a reason they call it "deluxe" -- include negligible deleted scenes, an audio commentary by director Donald Petrie, who seems like a nice enough young man despite his horrible movie, a couple of making-of documentaries, and a music video by Keith (Mr. Nicole Kidman) Urban, that's so carefully crafted to appeal to every conceivable demographic under the sun that it kind of takes your breath away (not meant as a compliment).

Oh, and I should also add that the suddenly ubiquitous and amusingly monikered Burr Steers -- who acted in The Last Days of Disco and directed 17 Again, both of which (coincidentally) I discussed in the last two weeks -- was one of the screenwriters. Jeebus, dude, we have to stop meeting like this.

In any case, you can -- if you must, obviously -- order How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days here.