IndianaSmith's scariest movie (http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,114476.msg146937.html#msg146937) thread got me thinking about love, naturally. I'm sure somewhere under your calloused bad movie shells lies a glimmer of romance! Come on, just a *glimmer*? :wink: With the summer solstice around the corner, I can't think of a better time to come clean. I'll kick this off with a small list of my own favorites from various countries, listed alphabetically:
Amélie (2001) - Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, French - Every frame of this film exudes cuteness! Amélie goes to fantastic lengths to make strangers' dreams anonymously come true. She then sets about the task of fixing her love life, trying to capture the heart of a shy man who collects discarded photobooth pictures.
In the Mood for Love (2000) - Dir. Wong Kar-Wai, Hong Kong - Chow Mo-wan and Su Li-zhen, neighbors in a crowded tenement, discover their spouses are having an affair. They meet for dinner under the pretext of understanding each other's other, to gain some perspective on the betrayal (which neither has confronted head on with their spouse). Inevitably, they begin to fall for each other but circumstance and gossip forbid them to act on their affections.
Lovers of the Arctic Circle (1998) - Dir. Julio Medem, Spanish - It is really a unique take on the tired star-crossed-lovers theme. As children Otto and Anna have a schoolyard crush of sorts, and then quite by coincidence, their parents marry. As teenagers, they carry on their relationship in secret. As adults, they find they have drifted apart (quite literally, residing in different corners of the earth), and long for a reunion. This has finally come to DVD, so check it out!
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) - Dir. Ernst Lubitsch, America - Such as true love goes, the relationship between Klara Novak and Alfred Kralik begins as a bitter feud, each detesting the mere presence of the other. But since they work at the same nicknack shop, they inevitably discover the heart and person underneath.
La Strada (1954) - Dir. Federico Fellini, Italy - Times are hard and Gelsomina's mother sells her to Zampano, a brutish traveling entertainer. In her travels as a clownish sidekick, she meets "The Fool", charming and kind, and falls in love. But life is complicated and her emotions even more so.
I'm not crazy about romantic movies (I'd sooner jab myself in the eye than watch a "chick flick") but I do love the movie version of The English Patient. I have the book as well, although it's a completely different story. Ralph Fiennes is one of my very favorite actors.
One of the coolest love stories I've watched in the past year is SECRETARY. There was some underlying current in that film that made me just want to root for those to get together, and it was not really formulaic Snobbywood.
Gotta agree with Ulthar, I was very much rooting for the happy 'live together in sickness and binding ropes' type ending in the Secretary.
I tend to be a sap for these type films, but just don't tell anyone. For some reason I have a soft spot for Serendipity, since I'm a reasonable fan of John Cusack, and well Kate Beckinsale is Kate Beckinsale [not a great actress, but hey, that's not what I watch for...]
Nothing beats this moment for film romance:
(http://www.the-trades.com/hprice/DVD/LadyAndTheTrampStill1.JPG)
I thought that Sex & Lucia was a very interesting romantic/erotic type flick.
If you don't mind going a lot more explicit than typical mainstream fair, it offers equal parts romance/eroticism/mystery/comedy. Paz Vega turns in a fantastic performance in it.
Laugh all you like, but theres a mind 90's Anime feature called "Battle Angel". I don't know if the dubbed is any good, but 95% of the time they are unforgivable.
Thinking about it made me look for something like this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=s5jmGnXgpZU
It is based on one of the greatest comics ever.
Quote from: HarlotBug3 on June 20, 2007, 06:09:11 PM
Laugh all you like, but theres a mind 90's Anime feature called "Battle Angel". I don't know if the dubbed is any good, but 95% of the time they are unforgivable.
Thinking about it made me look for something like this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=s5jmGnXgpZU
It is based on one of the greatest comics ever.
"Battle Angel" is a great anime. Love is sharing your cyborg lift support systems with someone else.
I can't believe no one mentioned this one....
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjOhe-Wk0CM .....(heavy sigh....)
Quote from: Torgo on June 18, 2007, 09:07:18 PM
I thought that Sex & Lucia was a very interesting romantic/erotic type flick.
Sex & Lucia is great. Torgo, it's the same director as
Lovers of the Arctic Circle. You should definitely check that one out.
Quote from: Andrew on June 20, 2007, 06:39:44 PM
Love is sharing your cyborg lift support systems with someone else.
I'm surprised Garry Marshall (:hatred:) never picked up on this misogynistic possibility.
Saber Marionette J has a boy meets cyborg, boy falls in love with cyborg kinda story. Personally, I think the personalities of men would be much easier to capture with robots...
Quote from: RCMerchant on June 20, 2007, 06:54:04 PM
I can't believe no one mentioned this one....
[youtube=213,175]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjOhe-Wk0CM .....(heavy sigh....)
RC, looks like you've found the gem that earned Dalton a stint as James Bond! Really, he's a natural.
Quoteauthor=DodgingGrunge link=topic=114480.msg146939#msg146939 date=1181978012
Amélie (2001) - Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, French - Every frame of this film exudes cuteness! Amélie goes to fantastic lengths to make strangers' dreams anonymously come true. She then sets about the task of fixing her love life, trying to capture the heart of a shy man who collects discarded photobooth pictures.
This is my favorite movie in the whole world!!! I've been to France and it kind of feels like you're in the movie! It's one of those "feel good" movies but certainly not a chic flick!
A demain!!!
Quote from: Citronnade on June 22, 2007, 09:09:05 AM
This is my favorite movie in the whole world!!! I've been to France and it kind of feels like you're in the movie! It's one of those "feel good" movies but certainly not a chic flick!
A demain!!!
Welcome to the board, Citronnade!
:smile: :teddyr: :smile:
One of my best friends is living in Paris right now. She says every day she finds something dirty and strange and alive, as though she's in a Henry Miller novel. She doesn't want to leave.
I don't know.. not much of a romantic movie fan.. they tend to rub my face into my own sad and dismal social life too much.
To quote some comedian or other...
"Girls always complain that guys don't like romantic movies. That's not true, guys love romantic movies. Porno! it's a romantic movie with all the slow parts cut out!"
Hmmm, I'll have to stretch my mind to dig up even a couple of titles for this...
All The Real Girls, by David Gordon Green. Felt very authentic. Beautifully made.
Say Anything, of course.
Kind of recently, Cold Mountain. I really hate Nicole Kidman, but even I understood why he had to get back home so badly.
I also love Remains Of The Day. Full of extremely tiny, yet heartbreaking moments of restraint.
I'm generally a sucker for the classics:
Casablanca
Anything with Bogie & Bacall
Almost anything with Audrey Hepburn (didn't care too much for Breakfast at Tiffany's).
For slightly more recent films, there's the John Hughes teenage romantic comedies (although I still say Andie should have picked Duckie) and the John Cusack series of Hughes movies.
I like "Amelie" a lot. "The Princess Bride" is another good one that many of us guys can seem to deal with. Oh, oh, and "The Nightmare Before Christmas!"
I've always thought that the love story angle in "Conan the Barbarian" worked well. He loves Valeria, she dies, he engages in a man on horde battle to the death and she briefly shows up to lend him a shield.
On the other hand, "An Officer and a Gentleman" drives me nuts.
Anyone else find the relationship between Lionel and Paquita in Dead-Alive as touching as me?
Anyone? :teddyr:
The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love always worked for me.
And the picnic scene from A Beutiful Mind.
Quote from: Shadow on June 24, 2007, 04:30:37 PM
Anyone else find the relationship between Lionel and Paquita in Dead-Alive as touching as me?
Anyone? :teddyr:
Yes! I've always said that if you can forgive someone if their mother eats your dog, it must be love!
Quote from: Derf on June 24, 2007, 02:52:03 PM
the John Hughes teenage romantic comedies (although I still say Andie should have picked Duckie)
Nowadays,
Pretty and Pink seems like it has such a weird ending. But they ran a number of test screenings and, since this was the 80s, the audience actually wanted to see her get the rich guy! John Hughes was appalled and thus
Some Kind of Wonderful was born (same movie, real ending, the characters were just re-arranged a bit).
In the novel form of Pretty in Pink, Andie did pick Duckie. I liked that ending better.
Quote from: DodgingGrunge on June 25, 2007, 05:03:47 AM
Nowadays, Pretty and Pink seems like it has such a weird ending. But they ran a number of test screenings and, since this was the 80s, the audience actually wanted to see her get the rich guy! John Hughes was appalled and thus Some Kind of Wonderful was born (same movie, real ending, the characters were just re-arranged a bit).
I guess I missed
Some Kind of Wonderful. I'll have to look for it sometime when I think I can handle more teen angst. Thanks for the info!
Quote from: Snivelly on June 25, 2007, 07:28:08 AM
In the novel form of Pretty in Pink, Andie did pick Duckie. I liked that ending better.
I also didn't realize it was a novel. Was this a novelization of the film, or was the film based on a novel?
Quote from: Derf on June 25, 2007, 08:22:08 AM
I also didn't realize it was a novel. Was this a novelization of the film, or was the film based on a novel?
How could you capture Andrew McCarthy's character's smarmy smile in novel?
SIXTEEN CANDLES remains to this day one of my favorite, and oft quoted, movies. Except for the very ending. Arrrrrgggghh. That last line is just agonizing. It would have been MUCH better without the last scene, or if it HAD to be there, end it with Jake giving Sam her undies back.
And yes, the character of Farmer Ted DOES ring a little too close to home in case anyone is wondering. :bouncegiggle:
"Wheeerrre is my auto-mobiiiilllle?"
QuoteQuote from: Snivelly on Today at 07:28:08 AM
In the novel form of Pretty in Pink, Andie did pick Duckie. I liked that ending better.
I also didn't realize it was a novel. Was this a novelization of the film, or was the film based on a novel?
I can't recall offhand. I know I read it in high school, my best friend had read it and passed it to me when she was finished. I think it might have been a novelization of the film, but I seem to remember it went a bit more in-depth with some of the characters, such as the store manager Andie got the old dress from.
(http://images.southparkstudios.com/media/images/714/714_image_13.jpg)
Don't you know you gonna shock the monkey. Hey hey!
But seriously, my favorite moment is from Say Anything, but not the above lampooned moment. Before that, after Lloyd gets rejected by Diane.
"Just take this pen, and write me."
"She gave me a pen...I gave her my heart...and she gave me a pen."
Also, from another Cameron Crowe movie, Singles (another of my girl's favorites). When Cliff (Matt Dillon) finally says "Bless you," after Janet (Bridget Fonda) sneezes in the elevator. Another blatent "Awww" moment that got me a bit.
Not a romantic movie but a romantic moment: the end of Stranger Than Fiction. Holy crap did I love that movie. At first I didn't like where they were taking the ending, but then they developed it and I couldn't help but love it. It's the first flick to make me teary eyed since the end of Godzilla 1985.
Quote from: tombofanubisdotcom on June 28, 2007, 09:51:03 AM
Not a romantic movie but a romantic moment: the end of Stranger Than Fiction. Holy crap did I love that movie. At first I didn't like where they were taking the ending, but then they developed it and I couldn't help but love it. It's the first flick to make me teary eyed since the end of Godzilla 1985.
I think I might actually see stranger than fiction, if only because I love when clowns get the chance to frown. Speaking of which, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" was a great movie for anyone typically nauseated by 'romance'.
...Even though I wasn't even 10 when I watched it, I've been considering going back to it...except that I know it will make me cry again.
Also good for a tear are 'Dancer in the Dark' and 'Requiem for a Dream'.
Quote from: Andrew on June 20, 2007, 06:39:44 PM
Quote from: HarlotBug3 on June 20, 2007, 06:09:11 PM
Laugh all you like, but theres a mind 90's Anime feature called "Battle Angel". I don't know if the dubbed is any good, but 95% of the time they are unforgivable.
Thinking about it made me look for something like this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=s5jmGnXgpZU
It is based on one of the greatest comics ever.
"Battle Angel" is a great anime. Love is sharing your cyborg lift support systems with someone else.
You and this site are now officially my favortie things on line :cheers:
There are more than a dozen of them, but if you haven't already, check out the manga (mini-graphic novels). They are so violent and so romantic at the same time that they'd probably kill you if printed in color.
Romance ... BAH-HUMBUG!!!
Actually I was looking at IMDB's top 50 Romance films and I think I've seen about 90% or better of them.
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Genres/Romance/average-vote (http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Genres/Romance/average-vote)
The end of Dead Alive, where a blood-soaked Paquita and Lionel kiss, , ,that's about as romantic as I can stand it. . .
Quote from: ghouck on June 29, 2007, 01:38:52 PM
The end of Dead Alive, where a blood-soaked Paquita and Lionel kiss, , ,that's about as romantic as I can stand it. . .
I always said that DEAD ALIVE is really a love story. :smile:
My favorite is WEST SIDE STORY. I feel that WEST SIDE STORY did ROMEO AND JULIET even better with Tony and Maria meeting at the dance and Tony singing shortly after that. Both ROMEO AND JULIET (1968) and WEST SIDE STORY (1961) are good films.
Below is Tony singing "MARIA" just after meeting her for the first time.
[youtube=425,350]http://youtube.com/watch?v=VpdB6CN7jww
Well, as long as we're talking about anime, one of my favorite romances was the one between Kei and Mizuho in Onegai Teacher. It's a series that plays heavily on the whole "hot for teacher" theme, but in a way that really is romantic instead of dirty and pornographic. What makes it a comedy, of course, is that Mizuho and Kei end up married to each other long before they get to decide whether they're in love or not. The fact that this romance is semi-forbidden (legally permitted, but only if they keep it a secret from everyone else at school) also complicates their lives to the point of utter absurdity.
Apart from all the comedy, though, the story is very romantic because of Kei and Mizuho having to struggle through one socially awkward situation after another together, and how this binds them together in more than just a sexual way. (The only actual sex portrayed, in fact, is in a rather apocryphal episode that serves as something of an epilogue to the series.) There's plenty to imply that their marriage does get consummated somewhere along the way (even before that apocryphal episode), but the story itself focuses on love and how they get themselves into it with each other.
In short, it's my favorite romance because it's got all the eroticism, but there's nothing really lewd about any of it. I think these anime makers are on to something.
I find myself thinking about anti-romance films like
BLACK NARCISSUS or
LOLITA or
LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN...
But of course the classics have been mentioned like
CASABLANCA...
Quote from: Scott on June 29, 2007, 10:32:27 PM
My favorite is WEST SIDE STORY. I feel that WEST SIDE STORY did ROMEO AND JULIET even better with Tony and Maria meeting at the dance and Tony singing shortly after that.
Both ROMEO AND JULIET (1968) and WEST SIDE STORY (1961) are
GREAT films.
Quote from: Snivelly link=topic=114480.msg148036#msg148036 date=11827In the novel form ofi]Pretty in Pink[/i], Andie did pick Duckie. I liked that ending better.
PRETTY IN PINK... She should have gone with Duckie. Karma for you Snively.
Quote from: DodgingGrunge on June 22, 2007, 09:36:39 AM
One of my best friends is living in Paris right now. She says every day she finds something dirty and strange and alive, as though she's in a Henry Miller novel. She doesn't want to leave.
Henry Miller, "Romance Of Certain Old Clothes" Hmm...I don't know..."dirty and strange and alive...?" To be Romantic, I think it depends upon
what's alive...
Speaking of alive, did anyone mention
HAROLD AND MAUDE? :teddyr:
A PLACE IN THE SUN is terribly upsetting to me and I think 'cause it's romantic!
OSSESSIONE is the same way, I love it, but watching it is painful. Even in
CASABLANCA, why are the greatest screen lovers always star-crossed?
WUTHERING HEIGHTS, GONE WITH THE WIND, DUEL IN THE SUN, LOVE STORY...?
Thanks for the karma Allhallowsday! :smile:
Wuthering Heights is my all-time favorite novel, but I have always been sooo disappointed with the movie versions made. Although the version with Lawrence Olivier is wonderful, and he was such a gorgeous man in his youth, no movie made yet has ever been able to capture the pathos and dark brooding mood of the book. It has everything, forbidden love, revenge, ghosts, dramatic death scenes, and yet all any director has been able to make of it is yet another period piece. :bluesad:
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (take your pick of versions) . . .
Quote from: Snivelly on July 02, 2007, 11:03:26 PM
Wuthering Heights is my all-time favorite novel, but I have always been sooo disappointed with the movie versions made.
I almost mentioned
Wuthering Heights since I also love the novel, but since this thread was about movies, I left it out (I've never seen a movie version out of fear of what they'd do to one of the greatest dark romances ever).
Has anyone here ever seen
Truly Madly Deeply? I really enjoyed that one. It's sort of along the lines of
Ghost, but much better written, IMO. It stars Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson in a very bittersweet story of love, life and death. I can see that most here are not much into romances, but this is a really well-told story. And there's ghosts! :tongueout:
What about when Dr. Serizawa wishes his fiancee and her new love well before sacrificing himself to ice Godzilla in the original movie? See, Red Robot, not every romantic movie is a chick flick.
For a totally romantic horror film, what about The Abominable Dr. Phibes?
But if we're talking movies that are all about the romance, how about The Toxic Avenger What Dreams May Come?
Quote from: Allhallowsday on July 02, 2007, 11:09:55 PM
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (take your pick of versions) . . .
Then the episode of "Night Gallery" entitled "Phantom of What Opera" w/ Leslie Nielsen as the title character and Mary Ann Beck as his prisoner. ROTFL! at the end of that one.
GUI! I hate romantic movies! But for a romantic moment, probably in Pirates of the Carribean 3: at world's end when Will turner and Miss swan (Kira Nightely ring any bells?) were getting married on a pirate ship when a battle was going on. Now that I think of it, it's more of a comedy seen :bouncegiggle: