Must ... not ... puke: "Must Love Dogs"

In general, I think I'm an OK husband -- help out around the house, pick up after myself, pleasure my wife, even do a little cooking.

But if The Light of My Life continues to inflict these D-level romantic comedies on me, we're going to have problems.

Actually, I may have myself to blame for suffering through "Must Love Dogs." I'm on record as being forever devoted to Diane Lane -- she's on the list -- and I've generally considered myself a John Cusack fan. While I made a point to avoid this drivel in theaters, I'm sure I let slip at some point that I'd watch "Dogs" on cable, if only for those two actors.

Sadly, they not only fail to make this movie tolerable, but Cusack has now officially gone from "geeky cool" to "annoying as f*ck." Harsh, perhaps, but bear with me.

"Dogs" has newly divorced preschool teacher Lane awkwardly re-entering the dating scene and eventually coming across Cusack through an Internet personal ad placed by her sister. He's also on the rebound -- each of our leads was dumped -- but his wooing of Lane contends with a few snags between the would-be lovebirds and competition from the dad of one of Diane's students. He's a supposedly dreamy professor type played by ... wait for it ... Dermot Mulroney.

(Motherf*cker! I can't get away from this guy! Goddamn you, Dirty Steve!)

So yeah, not much of a story. Also, while the first round of dates for Lane's character provides a few humorous moments, it was easy to predict what would happen when. Oh, this date is with an older guy? Wonder if it'll be her widowed dad? Oh, this other older guy looks uncomfortable? Wonder if he thought she would be younger? This holds up throughout the movie, with the misunderstandings between Lane and Cusack and the ultimate outcome of the Mulroney Affair all taken from Romantic Comedy Antics 101.

One thing that wasn't standard but was even more irritating: the now-trademark Cusack philosophical bullsh*t. Seriously, it's getting hard to find a movie in which our boy Johnny doesn't spend a few minutes at a time rambling on about all things cosmic. It wasn't bad in "High Fidelity" because (a) he broke the fourth wall and addressed the viewer and (b) he was dead-on with a lot of the relationship stuff. But it was overboard in the otherwise amusing "Grosse Pointe Blank" and intolerable in "Serendipity," as was that movie in general.

The rambling doesn't help things here. But wait, it's not like Cusack wrote the script, right? No, but get a load of this note from IMDB: "According to director Gary David Goldberg, he gave the script to John Cusack and encouraged him to change any of his character's dialogue to better suit him. Goldberg was surprised by Cusack's response, who later sent the director about 35 pages of new dialogue for his character."

Gee, thanks, John.

It's all kind of sad, really. Diane Lane is such a cutie and, yes, decent actor, that she deserves a decent romantic comedy. She totally could have done something that didn't involve "Three's Company"esque miscommunication and a finale that has her jumping into a river. (Sigh.) Hopefully "Unfaithful" still carries enough weight that she can find a few more good roles. You know, like "Judge Dredd."