Friday, February 9, 2018

Thursday Movie Picks #187: Romance



Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Romance

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I'm picking favourites.

Love Me If You Dare (2003)
Two childhood friends continue their game of dare into adulthood making them second guess their feelings for each other at every turn. It's quirky with a visual style like Amelie but has a much less sweet story. 

Before Sunset (2004)
Picked this countless of times before for other themes; it's my favourite of the Before series. It's two people just talking at its best.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) 
I suppose this could be a sort of anti-valentine movie since it is about two people who have broken up trying to erase each other from their memories.

Becoming Jane (2007)
The movie imagines Tom Lefroy as Jane Austen's once great love (he may not have been) and I enjoyed it. The leads had great chemistry and there were lots of wonderful banter and passionate dialogue much like an Austen novel.

Jane Eyre (2011)
I think I had picked this for a theme very recently, but whatever, Jane Eyre is what comes to mind immediately when I think of Romance movies. This one is such a beautifully done adaptation too.

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16 comments:

  1. Before Sunset and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are two of my favourite romances as well! I didn't love this version of Jane Eyre but I still enjoyed it. I haven't seen the others.

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  2. I've been meaning to see Love Me If You Dare since it came out. Thanks for the reminder!

    If I had been cleverer this week, I would have chosen Before Sunrise, Before Sunset (my favorite, as well), and Before Midnight. But I've been so tired I wasn't thinking very creatively last night.

    Eternal Sunshine is one of the greatest films ever made IMHO.

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    1. I agree with Eternal Sunshine...great story and the visuals as well.

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  3. Love Me If You Dare.... that movie ruled!!!! Marion Cotillard and her real-life boo. Oh, that was such a fun film. All of these choices are great.

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    1. So glad there people here who have seen Love Me If You Dare...I want to rewatch it so bad.

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  4. I liked Becoming Jane and Jane Eyre well enough, though I prefer the 40's version of the latter, but hate both Eternal Sunshine and all the Sunset/Sunrise films. I've always been mystified by the love for the first and both Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are performers I don't care for so that series started with a big disadvantage for me.

    I've never heard of Love Me if You Dare but I'm intrigued. I'll have to track it down.

    I also went with favorites.

    Waterloo Bridge (1940)-A distinguished officer walks slowly across London’s Waterloo Bridge one evening during WWII pulling a talisman out of his pocket he falls into a reverie of his great lost love. On that same bridge in WWI then young soldier Roy Cronin (Robert Taylor) meets ballerina Myra Lester (Vivien Leigh-fresh off GWTW) when they are forced into a shelter during a bombing raid. Falling almost immediately in love they plan to marry but Roy is called to duty before they can and Myra pledges to wait for him. Having stayed out with him beyond curfew she is dismissed from the ballet and when Roy is reported killed in action full of hopelessness she falls into a life of degradation. On the stroll a year later in Waterloo Station Myra meets Roy, recently released as a prisoner of war and he whisks her off to his family estate in Scotland but is it too late for the pair? Beautifully directed by George Cukor, tragic and heart wrenching romance was the personal favorite of both Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor of their respective filmographies.

    The President’s Lady (1953)-In 1789 newly appointed Tennessee Attorney General Andrew Jackson (Charlton Heston) seeking living quarters at the farm of the Widow Donelson (Fay Bainter) meets her daughter Rachel Robards (Susan Hayward) recently separated from her abusive husband Lewis. They strike up a friendship and after an abortive attempt by Rachel to repair her marriage fall in love. Word soon arrives that Lewis has divorced her and the pair marry. Two years hence they discover that Lewis never finalized the papers and their union is bigamist, he is now suing on the grounds of adultery however. Truly free they remarry but scandal plagues them for the rest of their days as Andrew rises higher and higher in politics towards the presidency but their love remains strong. Tender romance with a very strong central performance by Susan Hayward looks at the mores of an earlier time and shows that mudslinging and the damage it causes are nothing new.

    Love with the Proper Stranger (1963)-Young naïve Angie Rossini (Natalie Wood) finds herself in quite a predicament after letting her guard down once and having a one night stand with feckless musician Rocky Papasano (Steve McQueen)….she’s pregnant. Seeking Rocky out she finds he at first doesn’t remember her but he steps up to help with the situation and despite interference from her very Italian family, his former showgirl squeeze and Rocky’s fears an attraction slowly blooms but there are bumps ahead before romance triumphs. Two movie stars at their peaks make this both gritty and swoony at the same time.

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    1. The 40s's Jane Eyre was such a disappointment for me. I love Joan Fontaine in Rebecca which pretty much is modern Jane Eyre...but as actual Jane Eyre...nope. She was quite flat I thought.

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  5. I've only seen Eternal Sunshine and Jane Eyre and I really like both. I need to get around to the Before trilogy.

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    1. I think you'd probably like the Before series...it has that indie thing going on.

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  6. Absolutely LOVE your picks. Love Me If You Dare and Jane Eyre, in particular, are two favourites of mine.

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  7. Ah!! Great picks (apart from Becoming Jane - sorry but this insults me so much) and funnyily enough I was going to pick Love Me If You Dare - one of my first DVDs I bought

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    1. Becoming Jane - Why? Did you find it just a bad movie or was the whole made up romance thing?

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  8. I've only seen Eternal Sunshine, but it's so phenomenal it's more than enough.

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  9. Eternal Sunshine is one of my favorite movies, it was beautiful.

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  10. I haven’t seen any of these. I do want to see Eternal Sunshine and Jane Eyre. I never was into Before Sunset or Sunrise even though it is European Locales because it’s just Romance.

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    1. I just never saw the Before series as being just romance. Like I get it's two people with a romantic connection but it is so unlike most romance. 90% of the Before series is just them talking to each other and I just love talky movies.

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