This one's for you, listmaker!

It is a rare event for me to get to any films, so I will review the last two DVDs I watched, which are both recent movies, so they should count.
The first was the totally disappointing Waitress. Oh, Adrienne Shelly (R.I.P.), why oh why did you make this film? And after I went and got a "Maria" dress that won the heart of my beloved Jeremy some 12 years ago. This was the most treacly, ridiculous, boring, predictable movie I have seen in a long time. Basically, it served as a backdrop to knitting time. I did get a lot accomplished with the dread cluster patterned panel of the blanket simply because I had no interest in looking up at the screen. I should have known not to watch something with this level of hype (a mistake I am sure to repeat with Juno). I am really tired of people fawning over work by people who they like, or admire, or who died, regardless of whether it really has any redeeming value of its own. Had someone else made this movie, would the critics have praised it so highly? I doubt it. And to hear them tell it, old Felicity Whats-her-face was supposed to be amazing and I imagined a performance akin to Jennifer Aniston's in The Good Girl: surprisingly realistic. I don't know whether to blame her or the direction, but she was a walking cartoon. If you haven't already seen it, don't bother.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed Once, the Irish modern musical. I thought it was sweet without being cavity-inducing and earnest without being obnoxious. The music was not something I would necessarily want the soundtrack of, but was definitely palatable in the context of the film. Watching the protagonists' creative process was enjoyable for me. And I liked the casual, flirty conversation between the two leads. What this film made me think about, though, was the thirty-something bachelor so often portrayed as still having rock posters on the wall and living life basically the same way he did as a 15 year old. I know these men exist in real life. But I wonder if this is a modern construct or if in say, 1808, these men existed. And if so, how was it expressed by them, when there were no rock posters? Is prolonged adolescence a new thing? Is our longer life span encouraging this behavior, when people don't see a rush to grow up? Being an adult at 16 makes sense if you are going to die at 50, but if you expect to live to 100, when do you really need to step it up? What do you think?