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Rom Coms! I hated this genre, but ended up taking a film class on it in college and it made me a little more open to it. It's great if you're the kind of person who likes to tear into bad movies, and also gets a kick out of unexpected gems. We actually covered You've Got Mail in the class for out final, and I wrote a paper about how it's about the patriarchy reasserting power over the sacred fem through a combination of covert aggression and deception so that women are stockholmed into accepting its perversion. It's actually based on Shop Around the Corner which I think is one of the real foundational films of the genre, like It Happened One Night, and anyone with an interest in the film history should check it out. As for what I've watched recently, Netflix provided me with a Hugh Grant retrospective that I only partially regret. About a Boy isn't really much of a romcom, but it's a good film and you get to see baby Nicholas Hoult. Four Weddings and a Funeral was pretty cute and had a fairly modern for the time perspective on relationships. Which is only significant because I watch Nine Months after it which is probably one of the most regressive, immature, and mean-spirited piles of poo poo I've seen in a long time. Pure hatewatch material if anyone is into that. It's gross. Good films that haven't been mentioned yet: Bringing Up Baby, Benny and Joon, and Saving Face
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Dec 22, 2016 00:44
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Jenner posted:Because that insight on You've Got Mail is very sad and totally ruins it for me. Gosh! (No sarcasm, thanks for the insight. gently caress that movie forever.) Bwahahahah! But seriously, that paper was one of those ridiculous things you write for school sometimes. Without seeing it again, I'm hesitant to say You've Got Mail has worse gender politics than the genre, influenced as it is by a patriarchal culture, does in general. The filmmakers definitely employed a little male/female symbolism to add to the dichotomy of the characters, like the tall skyscraper for Fox? books vs. the dim shop that you had to step down into for Ryan's store. They also did something neat with the ending. Traditionally rom-coms end in sex, usually implied, but there's always a big kiss, or a wedding, or riding off into the sunset while sucking face. There's also hitting the fast forward button and showing a pregnancy/new baby months later. You've Got Mail needed to skip ahead to show what Ryan was up to now that her shop had closed, and they had her engaging in an act of creation by writing a book. As for non-traditional rom coms, I'd actually like to recommend and inde film called Timer that's up on Netflix. In the near future you can get a timer implanted that will tell you the exact moment you meet your soulmate, and the story follows a woman who's timer is blank. It's not perfect, but I liked that it was striving for some deeper questions about love and the value we put on relationships which you don't often get in something that isn't lifetime sappy or some kind of tragedy.
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Jan 2, 2017 13:26
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Anyone else not like Stardust ? The way they handled whatshisname's first love interest just soured me on the whole thing.
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Jan 2, 2017 21:41
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precision posted:I'm sure there are people who don't like it, as it "only" has a 77% on RT. The film makes Victoria more shallow. In the book she agrees to Tristan's quest to get him to leave her alone, but when he comes back with the Star she wants him to let her out of her promise because she genuinely loves the guy she's going to marry. In the film she's suddenly interested in Tristan when she find out he has the star, and is only marrying that other guy for money/status/whatever. And just to rub in how lovely a marriage that is, the dude is probably gay because he's flirting with Shakespeare at the end. So in a story about a man going on a journey to acquire an object only to discover that that object is actually a person and he will only get her when he accepts that and treats her like one, instead of seeing that as a parallel for how he treated Victoria, throwing his feelings at her and extorting her hand in marriage via bullshit she never cared about, he's just too good for her because she didn't love him back before he had anything.
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Jan 2, 2017 23:35
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xeria posted:I can't believe I forgot about But I'm a Cheerleader. LGBT movie history is clearly so terrible that it's polluted my brain and made it hard to remember the few gems. It doesn't help that a lot of queer films, especially the ones with money behind them, are dramas and art house dramas at that. I wouldn't say My Own Private Idaho is a bad film, but it's not something you throw on for a fun movie night. And it's not a rom com, but anyone looking for a fun LGBT film should try and find a copy of Killer Condom.
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Jan 5, 2017 01:14
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Shirec posted:If anyone else has any great LGBT romances with happy endings (I'd love romcoms but I know those are almost entirely hetero) I'd love to hear them! One of my fave LGBT movies is Weekend and it's sad and lovely. The other day I was thinking of some movie and thought "at least Best Friend's Wedding made her apologize and be sorry for what she did" and now I'm really annoyed that I can't remember what it was that BFW was marginally better than. Yeah, that one is a real stinker, and one of a couple of Julia Roberts films where her character should be the villain, but because it's Julia Roberts you get this incredibly sympathetic framing that makes you wonder what kind of drugs the filmmakers were on. Runaway Bride is another one, and probably even worse because it's a genuinely awful heroine backed by a whole community of toxic busybodies who we're all just supposed to love because they're all just such quirky characters!
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Jan 6, 2017 05:58
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Shirec posted:If you ever want to vomit with anger, watch Babycakes (1989) in that vein. It might make a good romcom hate watch. It's a TV movie starring Ricki Lake, and she is a fat girl and thus deserves to be ridiculed and the idea she could ever attract a man is hilarious!!!!! I think the We Hate Movies podcast did Babycakes and that was enough. I like hatewatches but that seems like it'd just be enraging. Rewatched Saving Face tonight and it's still great so I reiterate my recommendation. I know a lot of queer people have a problem with how being in the closet dominates a lot of gay romance films with a character being unwilling to tell friends and family making up the major conflict. This movie helped me realize why that setup works in some films and why it doesn't in others. When being in the closet is used as an excuse to avoid commitment, with the conflict being between the lovers who are fighting over what their relationship is, it's fine. But all to often it's used to frame the story around the relationship between the queer person and their friends/family instead (see Jenny's Wedding for an example.) Coming out and dealing with the expectations of your family/community are a big part of Saving Face but it's not at the expense of the romantic relationship.
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Jan 7, 2017 09:51
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It was apparently one of those scripts that was in development hell for a while, and what was conceived as a thriller and then softened considerably.
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Jan 11, 2017 15:26
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Does Fast Times at Ridgemont High count? It's pro in the sense that girl isn't shamed or punished for having one, even if it's set into a kind of conservative "don't be a slut" narrative. Also that movie kind of reminds me of a Catherine Zeta Jones one where she catches her husband cheating, moves to the city with her kids after the divorce, and end up dating their 20-something nanny. The guy is a little to perfect and pitiable in some ways, but the actor had good chemistry with Jones that made up for the week characterization. I thought they did a good job of showing realistic obstacles for a relationship with a big age gap between and older woman and younger man. Big plot point spoiler. They end up breaking up over a pregnancy scare. He's a little panicked but quickly switches to being excited by the idea of being a dad because he always wanted kids. But she already has two children and is not interested in having any more so late in life. It makes them realize that they're just at different points in their lives and the relationship doesn't have anywhere to go that doesn't mean a big sacrifice for one or the other. But despite all that, the film has one serious flaw. I guess it was too short, because they added in like 10 minutes of nature stock footage towards to end for the flimsiest of reasons. It's ridiculous.
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Jan 16, 2017 07:17
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Shageletic posted:A recent article on Birth.Death.Movies went into this, but there's some fantastic A/B analysis to be made in the attitudes re sex between Fast Times and Clueless, especially since they were made by the same director ten years apart. I'd love a link to that if you have it handy. American Pie only comes off more juvenile in comparison to the more conservative film period that proceeded it. It's pretty much on par with stuff like Hamburger the Movie or Porkey's which came out only a year before Fast Times.
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Jan 16, 2017 17:31
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