Chick Flicks

You know the ones I mean, guys and gals. My husband calls them "Those Movies." As in, "Oh, great, Sense and Sensibility. One of Those Movies."

Gimme some, ones you love, ones you hate. The Best and the Worst of Those Movies.

A few of my favorites:

The aforementioned Sense and Sensibility, the new one with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. Actually, just about anything that originated with Jane Austen (up to and including Bridget Jones' Diary) fits here.

My Fair Lady (a representative musical, one of the best)

Strictly Ballroom (praise of which I've already exalted elsewhere on the forum, so I won't repeat myself)

Some stinkers:

Runaway Bride--gag me, gag me, gag me. One of the biggest pieces of crap Julia Roberts has ever put her name on, and that's saying something.

Serendipity--I love John Cusack, but he obviously didn't get the "Don't Give Up Great Quirky Characters for Watered Down Romantic Leads" memo.

So, there's a start. I'm sure I'll think of more later. To clarify, I call them "chick flicks" because their target audience is women. Many of the best chick flicks transcend that title. So c'mon, tell me which ones do or do not, as, according to Yoda, there is no try.

Burnin' to Know,
Mary Lo

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You were a demon and a lawyer? Wow. Insert joke here."

I completely, 110% agree on My Fair Lady. I guess Breakfast at Tiffany's qualifies, too. I can watch both of those without shame...and, furthermore, thoroughly enjoy myself.

Ahem,
http://www.movieforums.net/showthread.php?threadid=1330

This is a somewhat old thread that deals with "chick flicks"..there ya go.

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

Um. Sorry--didn't see it there.

It's alright...I had to go looking for it myself...you wouldn't have known about it if I hadn't of said anything, and Holden would've had some rude comment, so I did it nicely.

Thanks for the clue-in. I will hereafter check thoroughly before starting any new threads--I promise!

I'm having fun reading the ones on the old thread; cheers to Sades for starting it!

Mary Lo's the Name, Reiteration's the Game

Mary Lo, you go right on with this thread, girl!!! New people come in from time to time, like me. I don't feel like doing research before having a conversation, so I'm stickin with you, babe!

Alright, I thought I new all about Jane Austen flicks and inspirations, but I gotta admit, I don't see the connection with Bridget Jones, good chic flick though it is.

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Good times, noodle salad.

How 'bout Bridges of Madison County, I liked that one.
(And it involved photography!)
[CODE][O] - 'Click'
/|\[/CODE]

-GTB

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Puppets are people too.

as great as Eastwood and Streep are......i just couldn't believe their characters in that movie. i still liked the movie though.

and Mary Lo......Snoozle is right on......old threads get lost and even though we had a chick flic one going before....there are a ton of new MoFo's and i wouldn't expect them to read back too far.
we've had some great ones since i've been here......sades has authored many.
my personal fave was the jello wrestling thread.

as for chick flics......i don't call them that, but i know why you used the term.
.........my fave "romance" movie has to be Jane Eyre......the Orson Welles version with Joan Fontaine. *sighhhhhh*. i've posted it many a time. i just love that movie.

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on dance seul, on dance seul.....

Thanks, Snoozle and Patti, for the back-up!

About the Bridget Jones connection to Austen:

When Helen Fielding wanted to write the book, she needed a plot line, and thought that she couldn't do much better than snaking from Pride and Prejudice--I totally agree. So she modified the plot and used it, with Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) as the Wickham character and Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) as the Mr. Darcy character. She watched the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice (which is most, most excellent, completely blowing the Olivier-Garson version out of the water, IMO), which actually starred Firth as Mr. Darcy, and wrote the book after.

And she wrote Mark Darcy specifically for Colin Firth, who loved the script so much that he jumped on it. Isn't that awesome? I love Colin Firth! He's starring in the new Importance of Being Earnest film (the Oscar Wilde play) with Rupert Everett--that's coming out next year, and will be another "chick flick" to remember.

Whew--so that's the connection. I thought it was pretty d*mn cool. And there's also Clueless, which was very loosely based on Austen's Emma and which I thoroughly enjoyed as well.

Mary Lo

I know it's not a romance, but is Rain Man a chick flick? How about Kramer vs. Kramer or An Officer and a Gentleman? I love all three of those. Pretty Woman is definately a chick flick, and I liked that a lot. I didn't care for Steel Magnolias. I think a chimp could have done a better crying job than Roberts in that film.

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I always thought I had an open mind when it came to "chick flicks". I guess I don't.

No, seriously, there is absolutely no reason for these films to be made.

HAHA! Just kiddin', folks!

For real this time...

For some reason these movies don't appeal to me all that much. I dunno, maybe it's because they are targeted to a specific group that I'm not a part of (well lemme make sure... nope, not a female).

Still, I'm sure there are some good ones out there (probably even some I'd like), but I sure wouldn't know too many of them.

See? Threads like this can be good. They can educate people about movies they wouldn't normally have interest in. Maybe I'll go out and watch a "chick flick" just because this thread interested me in a movie. It may not be likely, but it *could* happen.

I'd have to say that my all-time-favorite "chick flick" would have to be Terms of Endearment. I remember seeing it in the theatre as a youngster. It's right there with Empire Strikes Back and ET. Movies that had a great emotional impact on me as a child.

I consider Moulin Rouge to be a bit of a "chick flick", and I thought it was a very well-made movie.

A lesser-known movie, Dancer in the Dark, by Lars von Trier, could *possibly* border on being a "chick flick". I wouldn't actually label it as a "chick flick", but it does have have some characteristics of one. Mainly, it's an all around great movie for either sex; therefore, I believe it's one of those movies (as Mary spoke of) that transcends the title of "chick flick" (if it could be considered that at all).

Oh, I just thought of a stinker. Hope Floats. Pee-ewe! Well I thought it was a stinker anyway.

And another thing. I think Julia Roberts is a fine actress. She is truly one of the elite actresses in the industry and everything she has been in has been top-notch.

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We've met before, haven't we?

Alright MM, point made. Don't take it too far. D

I guess Riding in Cars With Boys is a chick flick...but for some odd reason, I actually enjoyed it. Don't ask me why...I guess the utter sappiness of most of it penetrated my defenses somehow. Go figure.

Sh*t floats, too... Good pick!

Terms of Endearment is also a great choice as a good chick flick. It's one of the best mother-daughter relationships put on film. The part near the end, when they're in the hospital and Shirley MacLaine starts yelling at the nurses... well, it's just really great.

I dunno about Rain Man or Kramer vs. Kramer as chick flicks, but they are both excellent films. An Officer and a Gentleman is definitely chick flick material, although it does "straddle the fence" as it were. I know I liked it.

And ditto on the Steel Magnolias--just about every woman I know loves this movie, but I just can't get into it. It's a collection of one-liners (which are funny) that seems to want to jerk the tears straight from the eyes. Maybe I should try to watch it again, I don't know.

I'm an idiot! I remember now, noticing all the P&P names, and mentioning it to my husband......but completely forgot, because it didn't go beyond basic characters....not much plot carry-over, like there was in Clueless---which, by the way, is a pretty good chic flick, although I would have had the step--brother character made older, because Mr. Knightly was so much older that Emma.

Ive always thought of chick flicks as movies such as Bounce or She's All That where the main theme of the movie is romance (See most Meg Ryan movies).

Some of these can be worth watching but one of the worst i think ive seen was definitely Three To Tango, I nearly fell asleep at the cinema watching this. Or She's The One, with Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston, just awful.

Im quite a sucker for no-brainer teen chick flicks (So shoot me!), a la Ten Things I Hate About You, Bring It On or Get Over It, but some of these are just a little too cheesy for me.

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No way!..I thought that was an extremely funny movie! The puking scene with Matthew Perry and Neve Campbell was classic(I kid you not.)

The soundtrack to Three To Tango, is excellent. If you like Swing, give it a whirl.

My favorite "chick flick"...Sliding Doors.

I need to see Sliding Doors--it's one I always forget about, though, when I'm in the video store.

At the beginning, there were several of those teen chick flicks that were pretty d*mn good, especially 10 Things I Hate About You. That movie was smart and fun and, most importantly, introduced the non-Austrailian world to Heath Ledger.

The mention of Bring It On brings to mind an important sub-category of the Chick Flick: The Dance Movie. A couple of favorites are The Turning Point, Flashdance, Center Stage (a completely fun teen ballet movie--see it if you haven't already), and, of course, Dirty Dancing. My sister has watched that movie over sixty times (she's lost count).

Ah, I love a good dance movie. There's nothing like watching impossibly good-looking people dancing about with impossible grace... and falling into impossibly cliched love along the way... Man, I've got to go to the video store right now.

Mary Lo

-- because it has a story and beautiful photography: Terrence Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN.

Women will enjoy the romance and costumes and beauty that drips off of this movie. Not to mention Richard Gere, before he was 'Richard Gere'.

Also, open-minded men will enjoy the romance as well.

Frankly, a chick flick to me is the same as a d!ck flick: it's a movie where one half of the audience has been overly catered to. Films that literally alienate the other half of the audience.

To me, that makes them worthless. With care, you can take a crappy d!ck flick and turn it into TERMINATOR 2. With care, you can take a hateful chick flick and turn it into an ELIZABETH.

So in some ways men are right to say, "Egad.. not one of THOSE movies," since women do the same thing with, "Oh my god, not one of HIS movies again.."

PEACE

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