Wedding Wars - When McSteamy Met McStamos

So last night, I watched A&E's Wedding Wars, which has ER/Full House (I'll never let him live Uncle Jesse down) star John Stamos as Shel, who is hired to plan his brothers wedding to the daughter of a campaigning senator. When the Senator publicly announces his opposition to gay marriage, a speech written directly by Shel's straight brother Ben (played by Grey's Anatomy's McSteamy. er... Eric Dane), Shel decides to go on strike, supported by Ben's fiance (Bonnie Sommerville of Kitchen Confidential, Grosse Pointe and Friends) but not by his boyfriend (Sean Maher of Firefly). Soon, his lone campaign escalates and more gays join in the strike in support of gay marriage.

The movie panders perfectly to liberal minded people (like me), with all the perfect clichés of liberal activism. It's a romcom within the political spewing, which works perfectly fine for me. It was nice to see a male on male kiss between Stamos and Maher with no big brouhaha and Stamos does and excellent and likeable job as Shel. I mean, the whole thing was cornball to the country fair yet I laughed a lot more than I thought I would for a TV movie on A&E.

It's hard to know if it'll make a difference changing people's minds, because it's doubtful the movie will attract viewers not already okay with the idea, or in love with Eric Dane or Stamos. Still, baby steps and one has to give credit for the makers to make this piece of political fluff somewhat realistic (no big changes are made in the end still but at least the debate continues) and incredibly fun to watch (the fight between McStamos and McSteamy is worth it alone!). Add Bonnie Sommerville as the understading bride-to-be, who, as is from Grosse Pointe, I will always follow, and Sean Maher as Shel's not as understanding boyfriend, and it rounds out a really likeable cast. Even Mr. Barbra Streisand (James Brolin) as the Senator made for a nice nemesis who was still not completely unlikable or cartoonish.

Wedding Wars repeats again several more times (it IS A&E you know) at:

Friday, December 15 8:00am EST
Friday, December 15 2:00pm EST
Saturday, December 16 10:00pm EST
Sunday, December 17 12:00pm EST
Sunday, December 17 2:00am EST