Romance Film

"I love you" - "Diddo" (Ghost)

"I love you. You..... complete me." (Jerry Maguire)

"I’ll never let go, Jack. I’ll never let go." (Titanic)

"Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while." (The Princes Bride)


Okay, let me say up front, I am not a huge fan of romance films. However, in the honor of a man marrying people behind an evil kings back and then getting his head chopped off for it, this is my toast to Mr. St. Valentine.

The questions I pose to you, my fellow MoFo, are:

1. What makes a good romance movie?
2. What are some of your personal favorite romance movies?
3. What are some of the best and most cliche romance lines?

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Saw the title of this thread and it made me think of something I saw a couple of days ago. I thought it might provide some debate or ideas.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/f...tic-movie.html

Good little article thanks for the read. I have yet to see these Love Actually, Notting Hill, The Notebook, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Love Story Am I missing anything. Eternal seems to be a gigantic favorite amoung many people. I should give that ago. My list would look quite different but I see why there amoungst the best sellers.

Love Actually is a terrific film. I am biased as I love movies like that. But it is good despite that, as is evidenced by this list.

I'd still vote Dirty Dancing above Ghost. Never been a big fan of Ghost for whatever reason. Benny and Joon should be on this list as should To Have and Have Not and The African Queen as well. In fact, I'd drop at least seven of the bottom ten. I haven't seen Dr. Zhivago yet so it could be eight.

Anyway, so many romance films can be totally subjective can't they? I love a ton of them that I know many can't stand.

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1. I tend to like Romantic movies more if I am attracted to the Actress. The story might be really good, but if I don't like the Actress (Kate Hudson for example) then I have a hard time really enjoying the movie. Realistic Interactions between characters are important

2. Last of the Mohicans (not quite a romance, but I love the interactions between Madeline Stowe and Daniel Day Lewis

Pride & Prejudice (the BBC Version)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
The Notebook
The Time Travelers Wife
Wedding Crashers

3. You had me at "Hello".

It's always struck me as odd that so many people think Ghost is an outstanding love story--even though the film "pastes in" Swayze's image for the last embrace with Demi Moore, in reality it would be Whoopee Goldberg that Demi was hugging and kissing. Which is fine if someone wants to kiss and hug Whoppee--I'm sure someone does. But it's a cop out in the picture. Swayze's spirit may have pocessed her, but the outer form would still be Whoopee.

Plus the phallic symbol of the clay modeling scene was a little bit over the top. My biggest objection to the film was did anyone not know who was responsible for Swayze's murder as soon as it occured? Talk about telegraphing a plot element!

On the other hand, I did like The Princess Bride--"even the kissing part."

Someone else has mentioned Love Actually, a particular favorite of mine for its exploration of love on so many levels. Another romantic movie on something of the same type was Unconditional Love starring Kathy Bates. I also like Daddy's Dying, Who's Got the Will, in which the fat girl was the one who gets the guy! I like it when romantic couples look like real people instead of magazine models. Liked Four Weddings and a Funeral because it was sweet-as-sugar romantic and also because one of the most romantic couples were two gay guys with no particular social problems or hang ups--depicted as just regular people.

One of the most romantic films I've ever seen is The Goodbye Girl, partly because I used to date a lady who looked exactly like Marsha Mason, same red hair, same bright smile.

But my vote for the most romantic film is Pure Country, the only film that country singer George Strait has made. In it he proposes to his romantic interest by singing "I'll Always Be the Man in Love With You." Sometime after that Strait was the headline act at the Houston Rodeo--my girlfriend and I were guests in one of the big corporate suites at the top of the Astrodome where they had plush seats down front for watching the rodeo and a little kitchen area in the back where people produced food and drinks for the guests. During such occasions, my lady and I would always go up in the kitchen area and dance while everyone else was sitting watching the stars (I've never been one to listen to concerts--seeing a star means nothing unless you're dancing to a live performance). So Strait does the opening chord to that tune and I pull my lady up to go dance. George is pouring it on and I'm singing along in her ear, and after the first chorus, I asked, "Lois, will you marry me?" She stopped and said, "What did you say??" I laughed and repeated the question, and she grinned and said, "You betcha!!!" We put together a great wedding for our families and friends, the shortest sermon ever--the preacher followed my instructions and boiled it down to 3 paragraphs, and I crossed out the middle one--followed by one of the biggest parties you ever saw. We had a dance floor and a jukebox full of our favorite country tunes that we had danced miles to, and the first one we danced was to "I'll Always Be the Man in Love With You."

I have a problem with "romantic" films like Pretty Woman and Breakfast at Tiffany's because they're about whores (they try to clean up Holly Golightly, but in the book, she's a whore). Hollywood has this silly notion of prostitutes with loving dispositions and hearts of gold which is totally out of touch with the people picked up by the vice squad on the police beat. There is nothing attractive about whores (although the Mexican women in the the brothels across the Rio Grande in my youth seemed to have skin like velvet along with the usual sexually transmitted diseases). And no guy would ever kiss a whore--like a MP so aptly remarked in Germany, "Who wants to be a c**ksucker by proxy?"

Far be it for me to defend Ghost, a blockbuster which I have just about zero use for, but even I have seen it on cable TV enough to know that the final kiss between Demi and Swayze is not with Whoopi-by-proxy, rather in that moment when his spirit is finally going to "Heaven" (or wherever the good afterlife of the movie is), in that moment he temporarily becomes corporal again and they share one last Earthly moment before he passes on to the next world, a soul kiss of the highest magnitude.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

And far be it again for me to defend a mainstream blockbuster, but in Pretty Woman they get around all that by it being the Julia Roberts' character's first night on the street when she meets Gere's businessman. But the hooker with the heart of gold goes back to, oh, I don't know, Mary Magdalene?...or at least Miss Kitty.

So ruffy, are you confessing that you caught STDs from velvety Mexican whores?

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According to the time and season , good timely post. Do u watch all the movies ? I watch most of them and i appreciate your choice.

I knew that was coming. Nope, never had a sexually transmitted disease in my whole life. One thing all Texas boys know is never ride bareback across the border. Besides you don't have to pay Mexican whores to fondle their mammaries when they're walking around naked hustling drinks--that's part of the sales pitch. Hey, I was only 15-16 at the time, back in the 1950s when it was harder to get layed because Good Girls didn't do sex except for a little touch and tickle, so cut me some slack. It wasn't like today when half of the high school class is pregnant.

Wouldn't you know my remarks about whores would draw the most comment, rather than the sweet and tender story (I think) about proposing to my wife!!! Just no romance in this group.

Actually, saw The Time Travelers Wife last night and found it to be fairly good.

Before that, I would take The Notebook though.

Does a woman actually have to accept money for sex to be a whore? Or is it enough that she's willing to take money for sex? Technically, she's committed no crime up to the point she takes the money (at which point the vice squad can bust her for solicitation). But would you feel any better if your significant other said she was only thinking about taking money to have sex with another person? Or would you consider her to be a whore at heart?

Yeah, I know the whore with the heart of gold and a feeling of kindness for mankind in general is a great staple of fiction, like the Grinch's heart growing 3 sizes in a day. There may even have been some whore some where at some time who really was the salt of the earth. There is always an exception to every rule. But you should see the women hauled in by the vice squad. They're all junkies or drunks or both, too dumb or lazy or mostly just too strung out to hold a job, and turn to prostitution to feed their habits. All they care about is the money. If they can grab the John's wallet and run without having to do anything, they will. They are uniformly unattractive and often smell bad. Cops generally won't even touch their arms without putting on rubber gloves because you can't tell what they just wiped off or whether they have communicable diseases.

Years ago when I was working the police beat for a daily newspaper, word came down to the press room in police headquarters that the cops had arrested a "white" whore vs. the usual sweep of black and Hispanic prostitutes. Well this was a novelty, so most of us reporters went up to check her out. Come to find out, she told the cops she had a teaching certificate. So I asked her, "Is that right? Are you a certified teacher?" Yeah, she said. "So what are you doing whoring?" I asked. "I make more money and it's all cash," she answered.

I admit, I have an extremely low opinion of whores based on the ones I've seen.

I know the world loves Pretty Woman. That's fine with me. But I don't like Julia Roberts, I generally don't like Richard Gere (although he was good in a supporting role in Chicago), and I don't buy into the fantasy of the "good" whore.

So like the possession of one person's body by someone else's soul is not fantasy enough, Whoopi changes into the actual body of Swayze? Where does her body and soul go in the meantime, I wonder? I don't think even true believers in possessions and reincarnations would buy into that argument. Besides the shining light all around Swayze in that scene telegraphs that this is supposed to be his imposed image, not his corporal self.

I think it's more like Lily Tomlin on the inside and Steve Martin still on the outside in All of Me. To cite another example, in Heart and Souls where four ghosts are linked to Robert Downey as the means of fulfilling their corporal destinies, when Charles Grodin steps inside of Downey to sing on stage before B.B. King opens, its Grodin we supposedly hear but it's Downy we see. When Alfre Woodword steps into Downey to hug her grown son, now a city cop, she's giving the emotional embrace, but its Downey that we--and the startled cop--see. That's the way traditional possession is supposed to work in the movies and the way it works with Whoopi and Swayze too up to that last scene.

Of course, Hollywood has to cop out and make it look like the physical Swayze to thrill the unimaginative pre-teens who love Ghost rather than show Demi and Whoopi in a soul-kiss.

I don't.

Me either.

The only thing I like about him is when David Letterman made fun of him for being cheap.

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One film that I've always thought to be one of the most romantic ever is Two for the Road with two great stars Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn exploring in flashbacks and flashforwards the development of a romance as this couple travels through life together through the mishaps of the first meeting, the surpise discovery of love, the early joys and pains of marriage, the disappointments when the fires of passion die down and a couple drifts apart, the hurt of later affairs, and yet through it all love still remains, with the lesson being that love has to be cared for and nurtured like a tender plant and can never be taken for granted. Like I said, this to me is the ultimate romantic film, with the ultimate romantic score by Henry Mancini, and yet none of the women with whom I've ever shared it have liked it. All they see is Albert Finney is a jerk!

Is that the half of the high school class that can get pregnant? Or half of the high school class?

And, of the half that can, are the ones that aren't pregnant still virgins or are they just using protection?

Heart and Souls is a great flick. Nice one Rufster.

Ok anyone who knows me knows I am obsessed with

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