An Overview of 22 YM/OW movies by PoliteSuccubus

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Ready!Set!Go!...Er..Actio n!
I'd actually written this for another site, but it was a writer's site so I feel no conflict posting it here also.

While this isn't by any means a comprehensive list, here are some films that I've seen and a very brief idea of what they are about. One of the trends that I dislike is that often someone dies; usually the young man. I find this a odd commentary in that it seems that someone must be "punished" for falling in love with an unacceptable person. However, trends are changing and movies such as "How Stella Got her Groove Back", "White Palace" and "A Tiger's Tale" show couples (and by extension their families and friends) who cope with their relationship.

HAROLD AND MAUDE: A young man, (20) who feels his life has no purpose, drives a hearse and teases his mother with very realistic pretended suicides meets Maude, a 79 years young woman who embraces life in all it's forms...including the 20 YO Harold, and teaches him the joy of living for each day.

THE GRADUATE: When Dustin Hoffman asks the still sexy Anne Bancroft "Mrs.. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?" in his cute quivering voice I can't help but grin. Priceless. He goes from being a young man who can't even get undressed properly to someone who is so suave that all the bellboys respect him. But he's knocked back to geekdom by true love, and again raises above it. (On Broadway, an adaptation of "The Graduate" with Kathleen Turner and Jason Biggs is a box-office sensation).

A TIGERS TALE: Mother Ann Margaret isn't happy when she catches young C. Thomas Howell peeking at her daughters boobs by flashlight in his car. But he sets his sights higher and focuses on capturing her heart instead and succeeds. However, in this more realistic than most OW/YM films, the mother has a lot of misgivings and even gives him up "for everyone's own good". Something against which he fights tooth and nail.

CRUSH: Andie McDowell stars as a headmistress who discovers her old pupil has always had the hots for her. But more than that, they fall in love and plan to marry until her jealous girlfriends plot to break them up. Sadly, it works all to well and the young man is killed, but the friendships survive. "Are we having a thing?" She asks, after their second time. "No. Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a thing." He replies. Both grinning she shucks her panties.

IN THE BEDROOM: A woman with a young lover and a bad ex husband who wants her back. It is a very interesting movie to watch for the insights it gives on the inner workings of relationships in families of people in YM/OW relationships, but sadly, it is another movie where the young man dies, and from then on out the OW is almost totally ignored to focus on the parents grieving processes.

WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE: Johnny Depp, along with everything else going on in the movie, is having an affair with a married woman on his delivery route; an aspect of the film often over looked while the watcher focuses on his relationship with his family and new girl friend.

STEALING HOME: Mark Harmon, through a series of flashbacks, relives the summer Jodie Foster was his older woman teaching him about life, love, and sex. It's a very touching story, very well done. Sadly, he is having the flash backs because she has died, and left him her ashes in her will.

SUMMER OF '42: Jerry Grimes finds himself comforting newly widowed Jennifer O'Neil, who's husband dies in the war. Over the course of the summer he learns not only about sex, but how to be a compassionate person.

MILK MONEY: Doesn't really qualify here, but hey, I had to include it. I mean gee, a group of young boys pool their money together to hire a sex worker to show them her breasts. That counts, doesn't it?

MOULIN ROUGE: Counts by the same token, although Nicole Kidman's Sabine can't be much older than Ewan McGregor, it still bears mentioning. Again, however, someone dies.

UNFAITHFUL: The film is not judgmental of OW/YM, but clearly portrays the attraction as only lust. The husband does become upset that the wife is with "a kid". The interplay between husband and lover when they meet is quite interesting; a challenge between two confident men competing for a woman. However with different perspectives because of their age and because of their true feelings about the woman (one loves her, the other does not).

AMERICAN PIE: this movie added a new word to the English Language "MILF", but in it everyone is a stereotype of one sort or another.

WHITE PALACE: YM goes to a fast food place and hassles a OW waitress, later, they meet in a bar and she brings him home. He thinks it's to just pass out on her couch...But wakes up not to the lovely dream of his wife, but to the waitress giving him a blow job. She's lonely, he's recovering from wife's death. What starts out as sex turns out to be much more. However, she has issues of how he views her, etc. After they work out the social/philosophical issues between them they pursue their dreams; together.

AFTERGLOW: While an older, sensitive but unfaithful plumber (Nick Nolte) initiates an affair with a younger, frustrated, childless housewife; his own wife, (an incredibly beautiful Julie Christie), falls for the housewife's own husband, a young self-possessed businessman.

MOONSTRUCK: Cher and Nick Cage fall in love despite their family's wishes and despite he's one handed. Very sweet film about overcoming all sorts of obstacles.

HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK: Angela Basset plays an over stressed business woman who is tempted by her friend to go to the islands. While there she meets a medical student/bus boy and is swept away. Reality keeps biting her in the ass though as in when his mother ask her to leave her son alone, saying she wants grandchildren. Her own family back in the states is also somewhat miffed. Her boyfriend leaves her because he feels he is being treated like a boy toy and not a man. But true love will out, she chases him down and they get back together.

Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN: Up for a Oscar this year I believe. It's the tale of two young men who hook up together and with a older woman to try to find a mythical (or is it?) beach. A lot of tenderness in this coming of age film.

EARTHLY POSSESSIONS: Stephen Dorf is a somewhat confused bank robber and Susan Sarandon is his hostage who go on a cross state run. They both grow and learn as they go, and there's some hanky panky involved before they both settle back into the lives they were meant to live.
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Many blessings, Polite



thanks for the reviews. i havent seen any of the movies you mentioned, somehow, so i cant really say on them, but yes, most of the movies i've seen that seem to fit this are pretty overt about the woman being a dangerous influence on the young man, and she often kills or tries to kill him herself.

are you just mentioning the ones that dont work out that way?

a couple big ones i'd mention are:

sunset blvd.
grifters

there's also a sequence in paul schrader's 'mishima: a life in four chapters' that addapts segments from novelist yukio mishima's 'kyoko's house', which deals in part with the sadomasochistic relationship between a young man and an older woman. the movie is decent but i strongly suggest reading some stuff by mishima for a very interesting and extreme take on the relationship between love and death. my personal favorite is his first novel,'confessions of a mask.'

not sure if this fits in enough for ya but a recurring thing that i've noticed in a number of asian movies [ranging from 'ugetsu monogatari' to 'mr. vampire' or 'memories'] is where a young man is seduced by an actual ghost. this might be deceptive though, as part of this seems to center around the myth that when young women die out of wedlock they become ghosts because they have nobody to burn offerings for them when they are dead.

all three of the examples i mentioned above are worth seeing anyhow. mr. vampire treats this type of relationship very humourously and the ghost woman who set out to seduce the young man is actually in love with him and i believe ends up rescuing him from a vampire at one point.
ugetsu is about a man who sets out to become a samurai and win success on the battlefield, leaving his wife behind, with noble intentions, but he continuously grows farther and farther from his family, and ends up getting seduced by a ghost while his wife back home struggles to survive on her own. i take the ghost in this case to be the deceptive rewards of the man's lust for power.
the other interesting example of this is the title segment from the anime, 'memories' ['magnetic rose' is based originally on a manga one-shot, titled 'memories of her'], which is about a group of futuristic astronauts who answer the distress signal of a derilect vessel in space which turns out to be inhabited by the ghost of a jellous, bitter old opera diva. she strives to seduce and destroy the astronauts. here we see her representing some sort of false nostalgia for something lost that threatens to drag everyone it touches down to hell.

for something completely different see the 'ballad or narayama' [1982 imamura remake], which plays a lot with sex and age differentials. though they dont always overlap there is at least one notable instance where a young man who is unable to find a young woman who will have sex with him ends up with a much much older woman. the main character of the movie is herslef an older woman who's main dillema seems to be trying to convince her son to help her die and tying up loose ends in the family before she goes. excellent movie and one of my personal favorites.

actually all of imamura's movies are noteable in that they feature all sorts of irregular relationships that are usually treated from a very socially relative perspective. another example is in 'vengeance is mine', where a serial killer's young wife actually tries to seduce his elderly father. definitely try and see these movies at all cost.

interesting topic.



there's a frog in my snake oil
I've never heard of "How Stella Got Her Groove Back", but it sounds very similar to "Shirley Valentine" (a brit movie about the same theme, altho she's not a high-flier, and it's set on a Greek island). In that one the younger man is more of a gateway to Shirley discovering herself, and only a sacrifical lamb of sorts in the sense that he gets dumped (no happy happy ending here) . Have you seen it Poly? [scuse the familiarity ]
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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here



All good people are asleep and dreaming.
Angst essen Seele auf (1974)
(Ali: Fear Eats the Soul)

An older German woman marries a younger Morrocan
man and it seems to offend everyone.

The director (Rainer Werner Fassbinder) gets his point across
without beating you over the head.

Didn't give me a good feeling about humanity.

I found it to be a powerful film.



Ready!Set!Go!...Er..Actio n!
Originally Posted by Golgot
I've never heard of "How Stella Got Her Groove Back", but it sounds very similar to "Shirley Valentine" (a brit movie about the same theme, altho she's not a high-flier, and it's set on a Greek island). In that one the younger man is more of a gateway to Shirley discovering herself, and only a sacrifical lamb of sorts in the sense that he gets dumped (no happy happy ending here) . Have you seen it Poly? [scuse the familiarity ]
Nope, I haven't tho it sounds familer...
Poly is OK, but most people call me Polite or PS.