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