Melodrama Recommendations

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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Thanks for the recs, guys.

Keep 'em coming!
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
If you're looking for melodrama, the best place to look is at the resumes of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Katharine Hepburn:
I feel like all these films, while often maintaining a lovely classicist allure, fail to achieve true greatness on the account of sticking to the stern formulae of Hollywood filmmaking. I feel like their melodrama is not sentimental enough, but instead, garish, posh, and calculated. They make me feel like I'm watching a woman's picture hit broadcast on a Sunday afternoon, continuously failing to invest myself emotionally.

Written on the Wind
But Sirk is something else. He elevates everything that makes these Hollywood melodramas not work and puts a fat layer of saccharine on top of them. This isn't true for all of his films, but it is for Written on the Wind, Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession, and, especially, All that Heaven Allows. These are just insufferable housewife's favorites that have this reeking artifice of a Harlequin book, absolutely not saved by a thin-layered social commentary.

Pauline at the Beach / ‘Pauline à la plage’
I find Rohmer's approach to romances too impure and carnal to raise over anything more than a `good watch` bar. His films appear too prolix, his characters too talkative, and his proverbial messages too on the nose. He's a wonderful, talented filmmaker, but he mostly wastes his energy on insipid writing that's too realistic to swoon over and too machinated to take at face value. I think he almost escapes these undermining qualities in some of his best output, but he never truly lets himself go. Of course, he's not a director of melodramas. Not that any of the rest you recommended are melodramas either...



Uhh...


Hard Soap, Hard Soap is a soap opera parody, so I suppose there are melodramatic scenes, just played for comedy.


That's all I got.

On this note, For Richer, For Poorer (1979) is more drama than melodrama, but it has a great Georgina Spelvin performance and an extended dream sequence in the middle.


On a completely different note, a lot of Bollywood hits melodramatic notes, but for most I've seen that would be out and out melodramas, it's been way too long since I've seen them and my memories are too hazy to give clear recommendations. One I do remember well enough is Anand (1971), which was kinda, sorta remade into the Shahrukh Khan extravaganza Kal Ho Naa Ho (2004). The former is probably more worth your time but I remember 13 year old Rock crying during the latter.



Hard to believe this is devolving into Minio just telling mofos how basic their tastes are. He’s back baby!
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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Hard to believe this is devolving into Minio just telling mofos how basic their tastes are. He’s back baby!
Lookee here, I'm just giving my thoughts on the recommendations to try and narrow it down for ya. If it's any help, @PumaMan's recommendations contain The Road Home (1999), and this is exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for (as far as the 'love' part goes). But I've already seen it twice already, and, come on, I need more melo stuff to feed on.



These are just insufferable housewife's favorites that have this reeking artifice of a Harlequin book
I interpreted your original request to mean that this was precisely what you were after. So you may as well disregard my De Havilland rec.
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My Collection



The Texas Chain Saw Melodrama



I'm wondering why he even started this thread...he's shot down very single recommendation.
It's very hard to recommend something to MrMinio he hasn't seen.



The trick is not minding
I actually liked the recs from cricket and PumaMan. Not my fault I've seen so many films.
Well, not that there is anything wrong with it, but yes….it is your fault you’ve seen so many films. They didn’t happen by accident haha.

I do wonder why you’ve made this thread, as you have the means of looking for melodramatic films via the internet, and are capable of finding recommendations of films you haven’t seen, or allegedly seen, on your own without the typical running commentary that comes from these types of threads you make.



The trick is not minding
It's good to get out of your comfort zone from time to time.
I find it hard to believe that, with the amount of films you have claimed to have seen, you haven’t already. Especially since you’ve already seen most of the recommendations that’s already been mentioned.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
I find it hard to believe that, with the amount of films you have claimed to have seen, you haven’t already. Especially since you’ve already seen most of the recommendations that’s already been mentioned.
I, for one, find it hard to believe that, provided you have Brokeback Mountain in your TOP 10, you have anything of value to contribute to this thread. Especially since you've already posted several times and haven't included a single recommendation.