After reading the glowing reviews for the bland, wait-for-cable "Ghost Town", I've come to realize that the rom-com has been replaced by the com-o-age film. The bottom line is that today's romantic comedies simply do not have any romance in them. Instead, these movies focus on one character's realization that they are immature and need to grow up. The women in these films (be it Wedding Crashers, Knocked Up, or Ghost Town) are little more than tangible rewards waiting for the guys at the end of their journeys.

Yesterday's Battle of the Sexes has been replaced with today's Refusal to Grow Up. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that a generation that extols the virtues of "30 is the new 20" finds itself embracing films about retarded inner-growth but can't we at least have two people battling these issues? Can't we fill our comedies with relationships that have more hurdles than just the man's own immaturity? And I'm not glamorizing the past. It's not like Doris Day and Rock Hudson played three-dimensional characters in most of their films but at least both of their characters had personality, problems, and potential.

What might be the most troubling aspect of this latest movement is that there are a bevy of beauties out there who are being wasted. These talented actresses are given nothing to work with despite the fact that I'd argue that most of them have more to offer than the male counterparts. Gone is the whip-smart dialogue. For these ladies, hi-jinks rarely ensue. Instead, their job is to sit and giggle all googly-eyed while the leading man gets to play both the cad and the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold.

Now don't get me wrong, some of these films are entertaining. I'm not saying that these films should be done away with. I just wish that a) we would call them what they are and b) actually get some legit rom-com's in the cineplexes.

Much like the modern spoof movies that don't actually spoof anything, there's little romance in the modern rom-com. And, to me, that's a damn shame.