The problem with contemporary romance is that it always feels like somebody’s mom wrote it in 1983. By which I mean, that even though the characters are supposed to be around my age (25-39ish), they all sound like were rounded up at a mid-1980′s romantic comedy anachronism convention with all the quasi-post-second-wave-feminism gender politics associated therewith and executed with the kind of heavy-handed myopia you usually attribute to aging relations political opinions. You know what I mean. It is the story in which the hard-headed business woman—who may or may not be wearing shoulder-pads despite it being 1998—has to be taught the value of family and American value systems via the sexy, sexy courtship of a small-town, blue collar mechanic who reads Dickens and possibly has either an orphaned child or an orphaned dog to raise. The hero, invariably, has to learn to love again after the death/abandonment of his wife/mother/flighty younger sister and is also, possibly, in the process of trying to save the dying family business. Together they save the economy of Treacle Town just in time for Christmas/The Big Festival of Celebratoriness/The appearance of badly dressed businessmen. If it is a 1980′s teen romantic comedy, there also may or may not be a downhill ski-race and/or boat race that will save Grandpa Nick’s estate/bed & breakfast. This is also the plot to every Hallmark Christmas movie, all of which have aired within the last 3 weeks and all of which I have seen. Along with this entree of romance, you can choose five of the following side-dishes to mix and match: a wedding, a dog, a child, interfering parents, interfering friends, a Big Misunderstanding regarding a smoking hot member of the opposite sex who always turns out to be either gay or a sister, a sudden fear of commitment when no fear of commitment existed prior (let’s call the Deus Ex Matriphobia), the re-appearance of an ex-flame, and a serial killer.