This is a pretty funny riff on Romancing the Stone style adventure films. Really, it’s a direct parody of Romancing the Stone and its sequel, in many ways.
Tag: Romantic Comedy
Working Girl (1988, Mike Nichols)
This is a pretty funny romantic comedy with ridiculous hair (and some insane eye shadow) and more craft than I would have ever guessed when I was younger.
Private Fears in Public Places aka Coeurs (2006, Alain Renais)
This is an incredibly stagey French adaptation of a British play. I’m not familiar with the playwright but I can’t imagine getting excited about seeing one of his plays, if this is faithful.
Palm Springs (2020, Max Barbakow)
This is a very funny romantic comedy inspired by the classic romantic comedy [redacted], and which has many similarities to the recent TV show [redacted], but which still manages a fresh spin on what is becoming a pretty tired concept. What is that concept? Well, I don’t really want to tell you. Rather, I suggest …
Love Actually (2003, Richard Curtis)
This is a romantic comedy about a whole bunch of people finding love (or not) around Christmas. Apparently it has inspired a whole host of similar films, something that I was completely unaware of given how little I watch romantic comedies or holiday movies. So it’s sort of the inaugural film of this type of …
Chungking Express (1994, Kar-Wai Wong)
This is a maddening, bizarre and provocative film that has dated really poorly from the time when it was greeted rapturously in the West.
American Women aka The Closer You Get (2000, Aileen Ritchie)
This is a mostly endearing little comedy about how, with some modifications, happiness is often looking you right in the face when you don’t even know it. the message of being happy with what you’ve got is a good one, though I’m not sure I want to live in the town depicted in the film.
Pride and Prejudice (1995)
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Jane Austen adaption, except for Clueless when I was too young to appreciate it. But somewhere along the way the culture forgot to impress upon me that Jane Austen is funny. (Imdb lists this show as a “Drama” and a “Romance”.) I find myself kind of incredulous that …
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, Mike Newell)
This film, which should really be called Threes Weddings, a Funeral and a Fourth Wedding, is one of the innumerable ’90s films I told myself I had seen as a teen, only to discover upon watching it now, that I’ve definitely never seen it before. (I probably watched five minutes of it when I was …
Certified Copy (2010, Abbas Kiarostami)
This is one of those movies where two people have an intense conversation in a pretty part of Europe. But with a twist. Think of it like a psychotic, mid life Before Sunrise, where the man is British instead of American. Mild Spoilers
Bull Durham (1988, Ron Shelton)
Somehow, despite growing up a baseball fan, and despite having seen a Tin Cup (which is the baseball Bull Durham, right?), I missed Bull Durham until now. I think I saw a scene sometime in my teens and decided I had watched it so never thought I should.
Notting Hill (1999, Roger Michell)
I have avoided this movie for nearly decades simply because I figured it was a typical romantic comedy. I made the decision that I had no interest in romantic comedies sometime in my teens. I’ve since come to realize that was maybe a little unfair to some of these movies, but I’m kind of amazed …
Don Jon (2013, Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
This is a romantic dramedy with a relatively unique conceit that goes a different direction than you would expect. Mild SPOILERS, I guess
10 Things I Hate About You (1999, Gil Junger)
I joined IMDB at age 16, if I remember correctly, rating anything and everything. For much of my late teens and into my early twenties, I would even rate movies I had only seen a scene or two of. I would watch part of a movie on TV (not necessarily the beginning), decide it was …
The Jewel of the Nile (1985, Lewis Teague)
Whatever charms Romancing the Stone possessed, are generally lacking in this bizarre, dated and probably offensive sequel.
The MatchMaker (1997, Mark Joffe)
This is a fairly amusing Romantic Comedy with a ridiculous premise. (But then, aren’t most romantic comedies driven by ridiculous premises?)
Broadcast News (1987, James L. Brooks)
This is a well-meaning satire of television news and where it was headed in the 1980s (i.e. where we are today with infotainment) that is hijacked by a love triangle, which prevents it from turning into the 80s Network, which is certainly could have been.
The Artist (2011, Michel Hazanavicius)
The hype around this movie was ridiculous and only increased with the Oscar wins (which are meaningless, but anyway…). I just want to address that before I actually tell you what I think of the movie. It’s not novel to take inspiration from silent films. Canada’s own Guy Maddin has been taking inspiration from silent …
An Affair to Remember (1957, Leo McCarey)
This is one of those “classic” bantery Hollywood romantic comedies with a Cary Grant-type – this time played by Cary Grant, here paired with one of his regular sparring partners, Deborah Kerr. It’s one of those movies where two unbelievably rich and self-assured people throw witticisms at each other – with a little tiny bit …
Warm Bodies (2013, Jonathan Levine)
From the very beginning, this movie – and presumably its source, the novel – violates many if not most genre conventions. So maybe it shouldn’t judged on the terms of those conventions. Because if it is judged on the conventions of the genre, it is bad. But I guess if it willfully violates the genre’s …
The Bostonians by Henry James (1886)
I haven’t fallen in love in the teenage / young adult sense in some time. The last time I was 26 I think. But that being said, I still think I have a good idea of what it is like.