Here are some romantic movies (or else they have a strong romance in the story) - perfect for a rainy day. This is a mixed bag for various tastes. I don't love everything on this list, except for the ones rated 4 stars. I prefer old movies where the lovers are have terrible odds to overcome, like death (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir), ugliness (Beauty and the Beast, Marty), or Amishness (Witness).
For example, I was bored by Pretty Woman and absolutely hated Twilight, but realize that a lot of girls love it. They both did phenomenally well at the box office, but I didn't find them romantic. Pretty Woman was about a ruthless business man (Richard Gere) who rents "lovable" hooker Julia Roberts for a week and they fall for each other, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. He had too much power over her, and that bothered me. As for Twilight, but I just don't get the appeal of a vampire who keeps repeating the twelfth grade a million times and is basically a narcissistic stalker. He has no sense of humour and acts like he's doing Bella a favour by simply deigning to notice her. And he sparkles in the sunlight. Give me Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) or Bill (True Blood) any day. At least they had some depth to their characters and actually graduated.
Please realize that this is just my opinion. And that I'm usually right. ;) Enjoy!
Coming-of-Age
Dirty Dancing (1987) * * *
Dogfight (1991) * * * *
Say Anything (1989) * * * *
Quiet Passion
Always (1989) * * 1/2
The Bridges of Madison County (1995) * * * 1/2
The Magic of Ordinary Days (2005) * * * 1/2
The Majestic (2001) * * * 1/2
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) * * * 1/2
The Remains of the Day (1993) * * * *
A Walk in the Clouds (1995) * * * 1/2
A Walk to Remember (2002) * *
While You Were Sleeping (1995) * * *
Fantasy
Beauty and the Beast (1991) * * * *
Ever After (1998) * * * *
Lady and the Tramp (1955) * * * 1/2
The Princess Bride (1987) * * * *
Shrek (2001) * * * *
Tangled (2010) * * * *
Twilight (2008) 1/2
Classics
Anything with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn
The Apartment (1960) * * * *
The Big Country (1958) * * * *
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) * * * *
Casablanca (1942) * * * *
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) * * * *
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) * * * 1/2
Hobson's Choice (1954) * * * *
The Importance of Being Ernest (1952) * * * *
In the Good Old Summertime (1949) * * *
It Happened One Night (1934) * * * *
The King and I (1956) * * * *
A Letter to Three Wives (1949) * * *
The Long, Hot Summer (1958) * * * 1/2
Love Story (1970) * *
Marty (1955) * * * *
Now, Voyager (1942) * * * 1/2
A Patch of Blue (1965) * * * 1/2
A Place in the Sun (1951) * * * 1/2
The Quiet Man (1952) * * * 1/2
Roman Holiday (1953) * * * *
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) * * * *
Splendor in the Grass (1961) * * * *
Wuthering Heights (1939) * * * 1/2
Foreign
Amelie (2001, France) * * *
Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) (1992, Mexico) * * * 1/2
Jeux d'enfants (Love Me if You Dare) (2003, France/Belgium) * * *
La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful)) (1997, Italy) * * * *
Le mari de la coiffeuse (The Hairdresser's Husband) (1990, France) * * * 1/2
Musicals
Gigi (1958) * * * 1/2
My Fair Lady (1964) * * * *
The Sound of Music (1965) * * * *
West Side Story (1961) * * * 1/2
Suspense
The Big Easy (1986) * * *
Body Heat (1981) * * * 1/2
Charade (1963) * * * *
Sea of Love (1989) * * *
Witness (1985) * * *1/2
Adventure/Epic/War
Atonement (2007) * * *
Brokeback Mountain (2005) * * *
Forrest Gump (1994, PG-13) * * * 1/2
From Here to Eternity (1953) * * * 1/2
Gone With the Wind (1939) * * * *
The Notebook (2004) * * *
Out of Africa (1985) * * * 1/2
Pride and Prejudice (2005) * * * 1/2
The Robe (1953) * * * 1/2
Rob Roy (1995) * * *
Romancing the Stone (1984) * * *
Slumdog Millionaire (2008) * * * *
Spartacus (1960) * * * *
Superman: The Movie (1978) * * * *
Somewhere in Time (1980) * * *
Titanic (1997) * * * 1/2
Water for Elephants * * * *
Urban/Modern Romance/Comedy
Annie Hall (1977) * * *1/2
As Good as it Gets (1997) * * *
My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) * * *
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) * * 1/2
Definitely, Maybe (2008) * * *
500 Days of Summer (2009) * * * 1/2
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) * * *
Love, Actually (2003) * * *
Moonstruck (1987) * * *
Pretty Woman (1990) * * 1/2
The Wedding Singer (1998) * * *
When Harry Met Sally (1989) * * * *
Working Girl (1988) * * *
You've Got Mail (1998) * *
February 12, 2010
February 03, 2010
AU REVOIR, LES ENFANTES (1987)
* * * *
French ("Goodbye, Children") PG-13 for mature themes
C-104m. France, West Germany
D: Louis Malle. Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejtö, Philippe Morier-Genoud
Twelve-year-old Julien Quentin, a pampered mama's boy who has bed-wetting issues, meets and wonders about the new student - Jean Bonnet, a thoughtful, quiet young man with a deadly secret. A friendship develops between two boys that is remembered vividly from long ago by just one of them. It is 1944, and Jean (Raphael Fejtö) is just one of the three new students who are given sanctuary by Père Jean (Philippe Morier-Genoud), the headmaster of friar-run Catholic boarding school for boys. Julien (Gaspard Manesse) eventually discovers Jean's true identity and he means to keep it to protect his friend. Not even their academic rivalry, nor a shared crush on the school piano teacher (Irène Jacob) could make Julien betray his friend. What happens is much worse because there is no guilty party. Just a conscience that is walled in and crushed by an innocent impulse.
Julien and his sullen older brother François (Stanislas Carré de Malberg) are sent back to boarding school after Christmas break. Neither is eager to return, and no wonder. The rooms are dreary and crowded, especially the one-room dormitory that houses about thirty beds in plot-like rows. Everyday is freezing, and their uniforms consist of thin shirts and short pants. There is barely enough room for these rowdy young boys to run around - just a small cement enclosure - no grass to roll around in. It resembles a prison yard. All of the boys naturally find ways to cope by calling the monks "monkeys", playing pranks on each other, and knocking each other to the cement while balanced on stilts. Yet despite the discomforts of living in overcrowded conditions, there are moments of pure joy, such as an impromptu jam session between Julien and Jean on the piano.
Because good food is rare, these young boys endure hunger, and their jam, one of the few treats they do receive from home, is promptly confiscated because they are expected to share it. The lesson that the friars were teaching is understandable given the conditions, but is charity truly an act of generosity if someone in authority gives away your food without permission? It encourages sneakiness -- hide your booty from adult eyes -- instead of adapting the pride of sharing with your hungry peers. The frequently enforced fasting, one of the drawbacks of Catholicism, doesn't help - it simply makes them more determined to protect their food, let alone share it. No wonder the enterprising few are tempted to sell their goods to the black market, thanks to a school employee. However, it is this greed that proves to be their downfall.
We discover with Julien that Jean's last name is really Kippelstein and he does his best to blend in with the other boys. Problems arise when a trip to the public bath house has a sign that reads, No Jews Allowed. This is Nazi-occupied France, after all. For Jean, ordinary acts such as eating, bathing, and praying become small acts of rebellion to remember and honour his true identity. As the shadow of the Third Reich looms overhead, there is disquiet in the air, but life goes on as usual. Germans aren't necessarily the villains here. They are just working men assigned to do terrible deeds. Although there are no ominous trains headed to Auschwitz or frightened crowds of people being pushed onboard, the menace is ever-present, even on an uneventful school day. With groups of patrollers marching everywhere, coming and going and arresting as they please, it is a hair-raising prospect if Jean were ever to get into their line of vision.
Louis Malle wrote, produced and directed this film, loosely based on an actual incident in his childhood in a boarding school when he was eleven. It is no wonder that the story of Julien and Jean propels so naturally and inevitably to its inescapable conclusion. The film is as haunting as the memory of one morning in January 1944 must have been for Malle for all these years. You never know who is listening, let alone who can be trusted. It was a life of quiet desperation. One mistake could doom many.
Au Revoir, Les Enfantes is one of those stories that stayed with me. The best and worst of human nature, bravery in the face of certain doom, and hope is exercised, even in those so young. This attitude was expressed by Anne Frank, who died at Bergen-Belsen at sixteen: "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart." Like Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), Au Revoir, Les Enfants is shown to high school students so the masses can comprehend how good people cope with such inhuman and unanswerable crimes. If Julien and Jean had been in such a lofty position today, they no doubt would have wept and walked each other home afterwards.
Also recommended: Spielzeugland (Toyland) (2007), which won the Academy Award for Best Live Short Film in 2009.
Twelve-year-old Julien Quentin, a pampered mama's boy who has bed-wetting issues, meets and wonders about the new student - Jean Bonnet, a thoughtful, quiet young man with a deadly secret. A friendship develops between two boys that is remembered vividly from long ago by just one of them. It is 1944, and Jean (Raphael Fejtö) is just one of the three new students who are given sanctuary by Père Jean (Philippe Morier-Genoud), the headmaster of friar-run Catholic boarding school for boys. Julien (Gaspard Manesse) eventually discovers Jean's true identity and he means to keep it to protect his friend. Not even their academic rivalry, nor a shared crush on the school piano teacher (Irène Jacob) could make Julien betray his friend. What happens is much worse because there is no guilty party. Just a conscience that is walled in and crushed by an innocent impulse.
Julien and his sullen older brother François (Stanislas Carré de Malberg) are sent back to boarding school after Christmas break. Neither is eager to return, and no wonder. The rooms are dreary and crowded, especially the one-room dormitory that houses about thirty beds in plot-like rows. Everyday is freezing, and their uniforms consist of thin shirts and short pants. There is barely enough room for these rowdy young boys to run around - just a small cement enclosure - no grass to roll around in. It resembles a prison yard. All of the boys naturally find ways to cope by calling the monks "monkeys", playing pranks on each other, and knocking each other to the cement while balanced on stilts. Yet despite the discomforts of living in overcrowded conditions, there are moments of pure joy, such as an impromptu jam session between Julien and Jean on the piano.
Because good food is rare, these young boys endure hunger, and their jam, one of the few treats they do receive from home, is promptly confiscated because they are expected to share it. The lesson that the friars were teaching is understandable given the conditions, but is charity truly an act of generosity if someone in authority gives away your food without permission? It encourages sneakiness -- hide your booty from adult eyes -- instead of adapting the pride of sharing with your hungry peers. The frequently enforced fasting, one of the drawbacks of Catholicism, doesn't help - it simply makes them more determined to protect their food, let alone share it. No wonder the enterprising few are tempted to sell their goods to the black market, thanks to a school employee. However, it is this greed that proves to be their downfall.
We discover with Julien that Jean's last name is really Kippelstein and he does his best to blend in with the other boys. Problems arise when a trip to the public bath house has a sign that reads, No Jews Allowed. This is Nazi-occupied France, after all. For Jean, ordinary acts such as eating, bathing, and praying become small acts of rebellion to remember and honour his true identity. As the shadow of the Third Reich looms overhead, there is disquiet in the air, but life goes on as usual. Germans aren't necessarily the villains here. They are just working men assigned to do terrible deeds. Although there are no ominous trains headed to Auschwitz or frightened crowds of people being pushed onboard, the menace is ever-present, even on an uneventful school day. With groups of patrollers marching everywhere, coming and going and arresting as they please, it is a hair-raising prospect if Jean were ever to get into their line of vision.
Louis Malle wrote, produced and directed this film, loosely based on an actual incident in his childhood in a boarding school when he was eleven. It is no wonder that the story of Julien and Jean propels so naturally and inevitably to its inescapable conclusion. The film is as haunting as the memory of one morning in January 1944 must have been for Malle for all these years. You never know who is listening, let alone who can be trusted. It was a life of quiet desperation. One mistake could doom many.
Au Revoir, Les Enfantes is one of those stories that stayed with me. The best and worst of human nature, bravery in the face of certain doom, and hope is exercised, even in those so young. This attitude was expressed by Anne Frank, who died at Bergen-Belsen at sixteen: "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart." Like Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), Au Revoir, Les Enfants is shown to high school students so the masses can comprehend how good people cope with such inhuman and unanswerable crimes. If Julien and Jean had been in such a lofty position today, they no doubt would have wept and walked each other home afterwards.
Also recommended: Spielzeugland (Toyland) (2007), which won the Academy Award for Best Live Short Film in 2009.
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