Just because I am a chick, it doesn’t mean I am a champion of the romantic comedy. It’s quite the opposite as you’d be hard pressed to find many I care to crow about. I prefer horror and gore to a rom-com romp. There is so much drivel that tries to pass itself off as entertainment (I’m looking at YOU, Leap Year, and YOU, The Proposal), but I found this movie to be a real breath of fresh air in a genre that has long since gone stagnant.

Kristen Bell plays Beth, an art curator, who is in the middle of planning a large benefit gala. After she experiences a humiliating evening at the hands of her ex, Beth’s little sister shows up, squealing that she is engaged to be married to a man from Italy whom she has only known for two weeks. They are getting married immediately, and Beth must fly to Italy to be the maid of honor. She manages to clear a few days to attend, no thanks to her over-bearing boss played by Anjelica Huston.

During the dress rehearsal, a dashing groomsman (Nick, played by Josh Duhamel) catches her eye. The two flirt the night away, and Beth is obviously being swept off her feet. However, a misunderstanding about another woman derails her magical night, and she ends up having an impromptu pity party in a fountain with a bottle of champagne. Before she leaves, she snags a few coins from the “fountain of love,” just for spite.

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In the first installment of TV Digest: Canceled, I talked about shows such as Moonlight, Jerico and Studio 60 that were gone too soon. This time I’ve got more shows that were canceled way before their time, and are a testament to both how amazing television can be but also how nearsighted executives can be when making the decision to cancel a show.

While these shows may no longer grace our television sets with shiny, fresh new episodes, they live on in our hearts and on our DVD shelves. These are what I consider to be the most beloved canceled TV shows of our time.

Arrested Development

Produced by brilliant filmmaker Ron Howard and starring a slew of incredible actors, Arrested Development ran for three seasons from 2003-2006. Shot in a documentary style fashion, like The Office, the show is about the wealthy but seriously crazy Bluth family after their father gets arrested and their company faces bankruptcy.

Oldest son Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is the glue that holds everyone together while siblings Gob (Will Arnett), Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) and her husband Tobias (David Cross), and Buster (Tony Hale) do their best to make a mess of things. I really can’t say enough about how good this show was.

Other than the incredible casting, this show has some of the best writing and comedic timing I’ve ever seen on television. I have watched all three seasons multiple times and I can watch an episode now and still find something brand new to laugh about, because of how well the writers reference old jokes and spin new ones in their wake.

But the show also can have these incredibly heartfelt moments, in between the insanity, that remind us how important it is to be a family despite how much money you have in the bank. And as the economy continues its slump, this crazy family in the midst of financial turmoil is looking far less eccentric and just plain average. As this show ages it becomes more and more relevant, and it becomes clearer and clearer just how great it is.

Despite all that, as well as numerous Emmy nominations and wins, the show was canceled. Luckily we’ll see more of the Bluth family soon, in a feature length movie that begins shooting this year.

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Justin Theroux, the man of a thousand projects, has just added one more flick to his plate.  According to The Hollywood Reporter, Theroux is now looking to set a comedy in the stars.  He’s strapped in to pen a little romantic comedy called Space Invader for Fox, and may even oversee its mission control as director.

By now, the men out there (and many of the women) will immediately be recoiling at the idea of a romantic comedy. But this is Theroux, writer of Tropic Thunder, so you know it’s not going to be that kind of movie. Invader follows a man who suspects his astronaut  girlfriend is cheating on him with another astronaut while they’re stationed up top,  so he finds a way to blast off into space and confront her. The deliciously funny and sexy Will Arnett is set to star as the jilted, Earthbound lover.

It sounds silly, but it’s the right kind of silly, the kind of thing Don Knotts would have made in his heydey, only raunchier. With Theroux and Arnett on board, I think it’s one we’ll eagerly countdown to.

A few months ago we were treated to a mysterious teaser for a new film titled Despicable Me, which had a cornucopia of comedic names attached to it like Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Will Arnett, Kristin Wiig, Russel Brand, and Danny McBride. We’re finally getting a bit more of the puzzle solved as the second trailer for the film has hit the web.

The film focuses on Gru (Carell), the world’s #2 super villain, who is constantly at the throat of #1, his competition and enemy, Vector (Segel). The film takes a few interesting turns, which force Gru to rethink his evil ways.

The film comes from the studio and animation department that brought us Ice Age, Robots, and Horton Hears a Who! and the writing team who brough us Bubble Boy and The Santa Clause 2. Check out the second teaser after the jump, which focuses on the rivalry between Gru and Vector.

Despicable Me hits theaters on July 9th, 2010.

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It’s been three long, sad years since the Emmy-winning Fox TV show Arrested Development was canceled, and after months of rumor and speculation it looks like the Bluth family will be making it to the big screen after all. The Hollywood Reporter just reported that show creator Mitchell Hurwitz and show co-executive producer James Vallely are working on a script for the hugely anticipated big screen adaptation of the show. Imagine and Fox Searchlight will produce the film.

Debuting in 2003, Arrested Development focused in on the Bluths, a crazy family whose business goes sour and are left with nothing but each other. According to Hurwitz, the biggest holdup of the script being penned was getting the entire cast, including Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, David Cross, Will Arnett, Alia Shawkat, Portia de Rossi and Jeffrey Tambor, committed to the film.

Scheduling conflicts are certain, as cast members Cera, Arnett, and Bateman have had incredibly successful careers since the show ended. In the meantime, Hurwitz and Vallely are working together on a new animated show on Fox titled Sit Down, Shut Up, also starring Will Arnett and Jason Bateman.