stoutfellow

Hm. Haven't seen either of those. I do, however, have a lot of Grant's movies in my collection.

From:

pompe.livejournal.com

Well, I don't think you'd like Universal Soldier unless you genuinely like bad action and bad actors.

My Wife Is A Gangster is Korean and the humor is a bit odd, but rather funny, I think.

From:

p-o-u-n-c-e-r.livejournal.com

Bringing Up Baby. Hepburn and Grant

What's Up Doc. Streisand and O'Neal.

Much Ado About Nothing. Branaugh and Thompson.

From:

Yeah, Bringing Up Baby is great; the scenes at the jail are priceless. Still, I think they're better in The Philadelphia Story. I haven't seen the other two.

From:

You haven't seen What's Up, Doc???

Oh. My.

And you really do need to see Much Ado. Branagh, btw, not Branaugh [g].

From:

I guess I'm a lightweight, when it comes to romantic comedies. I know there are others that I have loved, but I can't bring them to mind, right now.

There are so many movies that style themselves "romantic comedies" when to me they are not. I don't find much funny in the My Best Friend's Wedding kind of movies, where the principals deceive their affianced or SOs, and end up with each other. It's one thing if the SO is a total jerk (or jerkette), but especially when the deceived is a decent person, I just can't empathize with the lead character doing the deceiving.

I enjoy witty dialogue, sweet romance, the second chance, mistaken identity, or the discovery of the rose in the one you thought a weed (where did THAT image pop up from?).

So, my current picks for delightful romances (that I can think of, and not in any particular order) are:

French Kiss – Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline

13 Going On 30 – Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner

Kate & Leopold – Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman

The Truth About Cats And Dogs – Janeane Garofalo and Ben Chaplin

Much Ado About Nothing – Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh

Say Anything – John Cusack and Ione Skye

While You Were Sleeping – Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman

The original Sabrina. Harrison Ford is a little long in the tooth to play the romantic lead with a young girl.

Sleepless in Seattle – Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, but NOT You’ve Got Mail

Green Card – Gerard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell

The Wedding Singer – Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler

High Fidelity – John Cusack

The Goodbye Girl – original, not remake, with Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason

Only You – Robert Downey, Jr. and Marisa Tomei

From:

I've enjoyed the ones from that list that I've seen - The Truth About Cats And Dogs, While You Were Sleeping, Sabrina, Sleepless in Seattle, and The Goodbye Girl. That last one rates very highly with me. (And I agree about You've Got Mail. I actually found that one repellent.)

Ford was 53 when he appeared in the remake of Sabrina; Bogie was 55 in the original. Just FYI...

From:

You'd probably like the others, as well, then.

Kevin Kline is wonderful (French Kiss) in the role of the *apparent* petty thief who uses unwitting fellow traveler Meg Ryan as a "mule," unknowing that doing so would change his life forever.

Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore characters are so appealing in The Wedding Singer; we've seen it numerous times, and it never fails to charm. Don't be put off by other characters Adam Sandler has played; this is his best role, IMHO.

"Ford was 53 when he appeared in the remake of Sabrina; Bogie was 55 in the original. Just FYI..."

Somehow the age difference in a previous era where it didn't seem to matter as much didn't seem so appalling.

BTW, why *is* Breakfast at Tiffany's considered a romantic comedy? I expected an evening of witty dialogue and fluffy romance, only to feel like I was watching the German film, Der Blaue Engel (NOT quite as bad (g)). It was a very depressing movie to me, watching someone continue to self destruct.

From:

I certainly wouldn't class Breakfast at Tiffany's as a comedy. Romantic, perhaps (although even that is doubtful), but nothing with that closing scene could possibly rate as a comedy.

From:

I wouldn't have thought so, either! It was more like a tragic character study. I like my romances to have hopeful, happy endings!

From:

You have an -- interesting -- definition of a romantic comedy. I wouldn't include either Lion in Winter or Roman Holiday on a list of romantic comedies.

But then romance novels, which is the angle I'm coming from, by definition need what the industry calls an HEA (happily ever after) to qualify, so that's at least part of what I base it on.

And I like It Happened One Night better than Roman Holiday, any day [g]. Roman Holiday had a depressing ending.

From:

Okay, I'll admit that The Lion in Winter is marginal at best, but I love it so...

I wouldn't call the ending of Roman Holiday depressing. I'm not sure I'd even call it sad. It was right that it end that way; for them to get together long-term would have been a betrayal, on her part if not on his. Even though it had to end, their romance was a good thing, making both of them better and, I think, long-term happier people. To me, that's a happy ending. Of sorts.

From:

To me it was just sad. She went back to her gilded cage, he lost her...

I like my romances to end with everybody paired off the way I expected them to be [g].

From:

countrycousin.livejournal.com

I enjoy How to Steal a Million, Peter O'Toole, Audrey Hepburn, light, funny, unbelievable fluff.

I've watched The Lion in Winter several times, and, no doubt, will again, but I don't regard it as a comedy, and while mutual respect and some occasional residue of affection appear now and then, I totally missed the romance :<). And I'm not even sure I like it, but I find the performance endlessly fascinating.

I agree with what I've seen of

hornedhopper's list. As I said in response to her post, DW likes You've Got Mail. I certainly don't find it repellent. What are we missing? The movie that inspired it, The Shop Around the Corner is a pleasant romantic comedy.

Liked Same Time Next Year.

Love at First Bite - more fluff, but very well done fluff. Both of the last two recently out on DVD.

From:

"I agree with what I've seen of hornedhopper's list." :)

"As I said in response to her post, DW likes You've Got Mail. I certainly don't find it repellent. What are we missing? The movie that inspired it, The Shop Around the Corner is a pleasant romantic comedy."

YMMV, and obviously many other people adored the movie, as well, as a romantic comedy. I liked the way a reviewer on www.imdb.com put it:

"Kathleen Kelly, owner of a little and famous bookstore for children's books, has an affair. Being together with Frank Navasky, a well-known journalist, she betrays him by e-mailing secretly and anonymously with a (also betraying) man whom she met in a chat room..." That pretty much sums up how I saw it. It made me uncomfortable to watch, and I couldn't empathize with the characters.

I'm afraid I didn't enjoy Same Time Next Year for the same reasons. I remember wondering where the romance was...many of the "romantic comedies" that came out during the '70s seemed to me to be premised on the breakup of marriages; I just missed the humor of it, I guess. [Maybe having a first husband who left out of the blue after two years, returned months later, and then left for good two years later sort of spoiled that genre for me.]

Another one I forgot to give a thumbs up (g) was A Walk In The Clouds. Keanu Reeves, Giancarlo Giannini, and Anthony Quinn. It's a beautiful, lush, romantic story, and although it isn't exactly a comedy, there are funny parts.

From:

countrycousin.livejournal.com

For Same Time Next Year, I agree with the assessment. For You've Got Mail IMO, both of those relationships are on the rocks; I don't see the on-line exchanges as contributing anything to the breakup. YMMV.

We've watched A Walk In The Clouds although I didn't get to see all of it. (DW can watch these things while ironing, sorting laundry, etc. I can't; I have to concentrate on what I'm doing.) I think she'd agree with your assessment.

From:

The Shop Around the Corner is an excellent movie. You've Got Mail differs from it in one crucial respect: the romance seems unearned to me. He - the chain-store fellow - harmed Kathleen, and never did anything, as far as I can tell, to make amends for it. That she so easily concluded that what she'd heard from him online revealed the real him, and what he'd done to her offline could be ignored, seems exactly backward to me. In the original, there were other events supporting the heroine's change of heart, and that makes all the difference.

From:

countrycousin.livejournal.com

Yeah. For the last few decades the chains have been driving out the independent bookstores - with, of course, the connivance of the book-buying public. There was a family engaged in that business in the DC area - during the decade we were there, they were warring among themselves. Hard to like, from the newspaper reports. The movie family wasn't portrayed all that positively, either :<). I thought there was an attempt to show the Hanks character as changing somewhat, but no doubt he'll recover in another decade.

From:

You've covered all the bases (even bringing up "It Happened One Night") - all that's left me are the teen chick flicks I watched over-and-over-and-over again when I had our teenage exchange student living with us.

I really did like "Clueless" and "10 Things I Hate About You" the first two or three times I saw them.

From:

Yes, Clueless was a delightful movie. I don't believe I've seen the other one. It must have been a *girl* exchange student. If it had been a boy, you'd be writing about The Matrix (as a romance (g)), Batman, Blade, the Die Hard series ... (g)

From:

Nah... We could've bonded over my extensive GN collection :-)

From:

Um, "GN" collection? It can't be Ghost Busters, Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Space Ghost...

From:

Graphic Novels (also comic books)

From:

I might have guessed that, given enough time (g)! Thanks.

From:

Clueless was a wonderful romance (which makes sense given the source material [g]). And how could anyone hate 10 Things? It was filmed -- well, at least the exteriors were -- in Tacoma!

From: