So, what's your favorite romantic movie? (re: American Film Institute (AFI) )

American Blue ^ | November 16, 2001

[marajade]

Dangerous Beauty

[BlueAngel]

Doc, your wife has good taste!

[MSSC6644]

How could I have forgotten "Love with a Perfect Stranger"? It reminds me of "Two for the Road." Just another real romance that most have forgotten, but it's a doozy: Audrey Hepburn and a young and handsome Albert Finney -- adorable.

[wayne_shrugged]

"When Harry Met Sally" has to be one of the best romance comedies made.

Better than "The Lady Eve" (1941)?

[Pinetop]

Gone With the Wind

[wayne_shrugged]

The Lady Eve

Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda (sorry about him)

Excellent!

The good part about this is the verbal sparring which suggested more...

[wayne_shrugged]

Debbi Does Dallas

Wanda Whips Wallstreet

Debbi Does Dallas Again

You don't have to get all high-brow on us. Geez -- I didn't expect to find someone of your esoteric, cultural background here on this post...

:-]

[BikerNYC]

Yes, that was a very good one.

[Richard Kimball]

So look for some homosexual or lesbian love story flick (I can't think of one) to finish in the top 5.

The Freep thread about the Century's best comedies is here.

The first thing I noticed was that cross-dressing movies took the top two slots. I think you're right. Expect something weird to be very high. I'm thinking "Last Tango in Paris" would be a high, except I think it's a foreign film. According to some reviews I've read, it is actually a homosexual movie, but they chose Maria Schnieder to play Brando's lover because they knew a homosexual love movie wouldn't sell. My bet is that "Philadelphia" comes in somewhere.

As far as what I'd vote for, Somewhere in Time, Tender Mercies, Angel and the Badman, The Quiet Man, and It's a Wonderful Life.

[KillerWabbit]

I thought of one - - "The Crying Game".

[Tall_Texan]

I knew I'd get this far down the list without seeing the only movie that had me openly crying in the theatre...."Forrest Gump."

Yes, I'm serious. Forrest's love for Jenny is undying and totally forgiving even though she brushes him off over and over. She sees him as a simpleton and knows she can "do better". She only comes back to him when she realizes she can't. And then she dies and he's left to raise their child alone.

It wouldn't come to the minds of many that this would be a "romance" movie because it is also a comedy and a metaphor of our culture and times. But the emotion that Forrest had for Jenny just hit me very hard. Love doesn't have to be complicated. Sometimes it can be quite simple.

[Richard Kimball]

Hadn't ever heard of it, but looked it up, and Roger Ebert gave it four stars, which means it MUST be lame. Fortunately, it's a British film, and won't be eligible.

[Richard Kimball]

I hadn't thought of Forrest Gump, but you're right. I wish they'd done something else with the dorm room scene. It seemed out of place, and, I think, damages the movie. Everything else in the movie, such as the violation of Jenny by her father, was suggested subtley enough that an adult could understand it, but without the explcitness that dropped it downward.

The scene where he tells her, "I'm not a smart man, Jenny, but I know what love is", and then walks out onto the porch and puts his hands on his hips is brilliant.

[oceanperch]

White Christmas and I thought well written re write of the Movie Whitney Starred in "Angel on my Shoulder"? I cannot remember the title but she was a preachers wife. So Bing and Whitney. What a pair that would be.

[Tall_Texan]

I think I understood the dorm scene. Forrest had just "defended" Jenny and Jenny was testing Forrest to see if he could really be the sort of man she wanted but, of course, Forrest didn't understand the invitation. The point was to show that Forrest loved her like 10-year-old friends on the school bus rather than as someone to have sexual relations with. This convinced Jenny that Forrest was not the answer she was looking for.

While I've enjoyed many other films, this is one of my all-time favorites because it speaks at different levels on a wide variety of subjects (romance, war, faith, promises, how society deals with the handicapped, fate, politics). It gets that rare compliment from me - a movie I can watch several times and pick up new things from it each time. Most Hollywood fare is so shallow and stale that I can only stand to sit through them but once (and sometimes not even once). If more movies were like "Gump", the industry wouldn't be such a cesspool.

[maxwell]

FULL METAL JACKET, DUDE!

"Me love you long time!"

[nonliberal]

I am surprised that none of our southern friends have mentioned "Deliverance."

[maxwell]

Debbi Does Dallas
Wanda Whips Wallstreet
Debbi Does Dallas Again

Excellent, dude!

[SCalGal]

Forrest Gump was wonderful.... I had the impression that Jenny didn't think she was good enough for Forrest, didn't think she deserved that kind of love and loyalty. Interesting, the different perspectives....

Also, the Princess Bride, Man from Snowy River, An Officer and a Gentleman.

[Joan_of_Argghh!]

Enchanted April.