80 Straight From The Heart: My Fave Romance Flix

In this intellectual remake of the 50's classic, Jeff Goldblum portrays a professor whose experiments metamorphisizes him into a large, hairy, decayed-flesh ridden, and just plain gross housefly. And in the process, still gets to score with super-fly 80's beauty, Geena Davis.
*sigh*....only in the movies, I guess.

A tale of romance and time travel that was hopefully successful enough to warrant a whole series of follow-up sequels (The Time Traveler's Kids, The Time Traveler's In-Laws, The Time Traveler's Mistress, The Time Traveler's Drunk Uncle, The Time-Traveler's Pet Retriever, The Time Traveler's Guy He Knows To Get High End Jewelry Below Manufacturer's Cost, The Time Traveler's Four People Who Lead Him To Kevin Bacon Under Six Degrees......
well....I'm sure you get the picture).

Here's a story that's place in the not too distant future about an alien invasion of monsters that put the human species on the cusp of extinction.
Well......
this is actually more of a love story with a backdrop of giant aliens monsters, of which we probably don't see enough of.
But still,
I gotta give credit to this movie for trying to do something in it intermingling of genres.
For my tastes it wasn't as successful in efforts as I would've like it to be, but I truly admire the quality in which this project was approached by it's creators.

That d00d from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure falls in love with Miss Congeniality after she displays the skillz to be able to drive a speeding bus that will not make any of it's stops, no matter how much you keep ringing the bell.

I guess that the main reason why I like this movie is b'cuz it shows something we rarely get to see on the bigscreen (or anywhere else, for that matter);
a partially naked Amish woman.
And let's be honest....
the image of something like that is just downright hawt.



Back in the 80's, Harrison Ford always seemed to get the best roles.

What many of today's young movie-goers don't know is that back in the 70's, there were a slew of films that were released strictly to fill the screens of the now practically extinct cinema venue known as the drive-in. While most were just something to pass the time away as adolecsent hormone-driven teens made out in the car, some of these movies were pretty entertaining.
Dirty Mary Crazy Larry was just one on the long list of sub-genre B-list flicks of crazy car movies who's main driving thrust was to let out a clarion call to all those in positions of authority to simply & unabashingly "eat my dust".
A sentiment that when shared by the two lead roles in this flick, made him crazy, & her dirty.
Or is it the other way around.....?

Two separate stories about two different police officers, each trying to deal with their situations of heartbreak.
Even though Chungking Express deals with matters of the heart, it's not really a romance movie. It's a film about dealing with the concept of love.
The usual formula of love isn't followed in the premise, and instead, it is left almost ambiguous on what the people involved are feeling towards each other. These are couples that are definitely looking for love, but in the midst of the dense crowds of Hong Kong, they are lonely rangers whose definition on how to couple are as jumbled & stagnant as the jungled buildings of the city in which they reside.
Express is a film that uses the visual imagery of background colors and the kinetic energy of a hand held camera to help charge this story of emotional yearning through the subtle yet tangled search for a "partner in crime".

If you're like Paula Dean and have a passionate love for butter, this might be the flick for you.

Okay, let's get this part out of the way now...
Sex.
This movies has alot of sex in it. And it's abrasive.
I mean, y'know, maybe not as much or as hardcore as other such controversial films of today, but for it's time, it had enough to raise more than just an eyebrow or two. Hell, it had enough to probably raise a few erections too.
But, whatever. The truth is, this is a movie directed by Bernado Bertolucci and starring the best actor living at the time. Two individuals who, between the two of 'em, bring a quality level of artistic workmanship and highest caliber acting to give such an emotionally raw picture such as this one it's reason for being. There's enough richness it's production and spacious room in it's storytelling that the viewer can make his or her decision on whether this Parisian tango is an erotic dance or just plain filth.

The source code is a code (duh-uh....!) that allows for a person to mentally have a second chance at contributing to the greater good before one's existance comes to an end. At least, that what's it supposed to do according to the math. However, as it turns out, in reality, what it really does is more than that.
I won't say anymore, for fear of spoiling, other than to say that one of the after effects of the source codes allows for a romance to "blossom" from where one doesn't expect at first.

Dustin Hoffman is perfect in his role as Benjamin Braddock,
a young graduate who at the crossroad of his life, is counselled into thinking about getting into plastics.
And in the end, he finds himself getting into Mrs. Robinson, instead.
Ah well,
for the era that this movie came out,
I guess that's close enough.

I'll be honest with you guys....while "beautiful" isn't exactly the word I would use to describe my mind,
I doubt that anyone would kick it out of bed for eating crackers.
Though, when I think about it,
it could probably stand to lose a few pounds.
Some lipstick probably wouldn't hurt it either.

Okay, after his intro in the first movie, Supes finally gets to take the kid gloves off, kick some real @ss and take names. Three rogue Kryptonians come to Earth to reveal to the Last Son of Krypton that he's not exactly the last son of Krypton. And though this isn't as good as the first one, it's still a pretty solid for a sequel, especially back when good sequels were rarer than last sons of Krypton.
The only problem is, his love for a mere mortal woman demands that his cape, tights and superpowers have all gotta go.
And so the fate of the world finds itself hanging in the balance as The Man Of Steel must decide between either his heart's desire of kneeling before Lois Lane,
or
his super-terrestrial duty of kneeling before Zod.
In the end, Kal-El discovers comes to discover that with great power not only comes great responsibility, but also, great sacrifice too.

A secretary finds that the responsibilities of her duties and her relationship with her boss have evolved (although some may say "devolved") from a brand spanking new job into just a spanking job.
Ahem.
Now, while I found this movie engagingly quirky and for the most part, kinda sexy,
it really would've been higher on my list if only (and this is definitely a spoiler alert!!) the lead character, at one point of the movie, wouldn't have taken a dump in her wedding dress.
Call me a stiff shirt, but in my opinion, I don't think that's very romantic.
Like, at all.

After watching this film, with it's innocent yet epic meanderings through through the human heart, I got so inspired, that I decided, on a whim, to go running all the way across the country for my one true love. However, by the time I got to the end of my block, I got so devastatingly winded, and I was weezing so desperately for air, that I thought for sure, my left lung had collapsed in on itself.
So, instead, I just reminded myself that "stupid is as stupid does", and went back into my house and ate an entire "box of chawk-letts".
Which, of course, is what life is kinda like.

If anybody out there reading this has a strong disliking towards the popular kids in high school, or just to girls named Heather,
then this is the film for you.
Christian Slater does his best "Jack Nicholson" slant in an effort to put some edge into this bad boy/good girl teenage love affair.
And back before Winona was stealing clothing accessories from major department stores,
she was stealing our hearts on the big screen as one of the major 'it" girls of 80's cinema.
In other words, two actors early enough in their careers and who haven't yet matured out of the quirkiness of their youth, to portray a "Mephistic" match made in heaven.

A 25 foot tall gorilla falls for a typical regular sized gal from New York.
Okay,
I can actually hear those of you out there reading this chortling out loud.
It's because you're thinking of certain specific logistics of this kind of a relationship, aren't you...?



Peter Jackson, the guy who was able to finally put The Lord of The Rings and the Hobbit series onto the big screen (at least, in a way that was successful), once again utilizes the latest in high-tech movie-magic to bring to life the most famous of big ass apes, as it travels over long distances and then rampages and terrorizes through the streets of 1930's New York, all for the heart of a woman.
Oh, and when I say "the most famous of big ass apes", obviously I'm referring to King Kong, not Jack Black.

What dreams, or nightmares, may come from the imagination of an eleven year old. Especially when those dreams can transverse into the real world of the awakened.
In a manner of true puppy dog romance, and with the use of pencil and paper, a little girl innocently experiences her first true dream love.
With the term "dream love" taken to it's most literal sense.

Jack Nick Kate Turn star in this tale of one hitman and one hitwoman who hit it off with each other.
In more ways than one.

John Connors is the hope of the future against the Age Of The Machines. But before any of that worldwide epic struggle ever started, he was nought but a gleam in the eye of a time traveling rebel and the woman that he had sworn to protect and then, grew to love.

The book may have based more on the "Ten Days That Shook the World",
but this movie is based more on the two people who changed each other's lives. Two people whose relationship was complex, passionate, & strong enough to allow then both the ability to journey from world of upheaval to the next & to get them not just through it all, but also through each other.
Emotional evolution set up against the backdrops of political revolution.

Since it's inception, the whole idea behind the concept of Spider-Man was that "With great power comes great responsibility".
A responsibility that often gets in the way of a passionate love relationship.
Proving that, even with superpowers, maintaining justice is easier than maintaining a girlfriend.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, indeed.

At one point in his life, just about every young boy in America fantasizes about living the life of a gigolo.
Then comes along this movie, and shows that being a ladies' man-for-hire, isn't as sexually glamorizing as one might think.
Even if one looked like Richard Gere and sported a wardrobe supplied by Armani.
Even a well-groomed, well-dressed male prostitute needs someone to count on during life's rough bumps.

I ain't 'fraid no ghost.
Especially if it takes on the form of a dirty dancing roadhouser like Patrick Swayze.
Ghost is a romance film whose supernatural twist plotline pulls at not only the right heart-strings, but also at the same time, at the just the correct amount of logistical levers of suspended-believibility that are required when entering into the world of cinematic escapism.
Swayze plays the perfect polarly opposite straightman to Whoopi Goldberg, who fills up the screen with her comedic charisma, while Demi Moore exudes the same effect, but with her angelic beauty. All this combined with a story that provides just enough Hollywood-scripted plausibilty to a plot-idea that hovers in implausibilty.
For me, all this was just the right mix of ingredients to allow my otherwise jaded hairy pimp-ass to sit still thru the entire run of this blatant but high quality chick-flick (which for me, is usually a rarity).

Ever have one those movies that as soon as you hear the title of said movie you think of a song that has that exact same title? And then the song with the same title ends up getting stuck in your head? And it's ends up getting stuck a lot longer than you would prefer?
Well, that's what happens every time I think about this movie.
Which is probably why this film didn't get a much higher spot on this list. It has nothing to do with the quality of the flick. It's just that it always makes me think of that damn song.
And if I don't want that damn song to get stuck in my head,
I should probably stop writing about it now....

A scientist creates an artificial man but dies before he can completely finish him/it. Eventually, it ends up with a pair of giant multi-blade scissors for hands. A year after scoring a massive hit with a modern take of the Batman on the big screen, Tim Burton follows up the 1989 global blockbuster about a hard-edged crime fighter with a "softer" quiet hit about a creature who's cutting edge is more on his "fingers", but crusades a gentle heart in his soul.
Edward Scissorhands is a quirky tale of how the product of outcasted abnormality can still learn to sculpt a niche in a world of suburban conformity.

Cary Grant gets chased across America by villainous spies, government agents, and the most dastardly of 'em all, a crop-duster!
In the same manner that Psycho made me start taking baths in order to avoid the "someone-sneaking-up-on-me" factor that is the natural result of shower curtains,
this movie made me always choose to live in dwellings within a crowded city instead out in the open country farmland, in order to avoid any chance of ever having to cross paths with any of these air-borne single engined bi-planal horrors.

Now here's a movie from Germany with a story that reveals how all we mortals are walking around this planet Earth with angels on our shoulders.
Well, actually, that we Earth bound beings have angels looking over our shoulders.
This is the "foreign" film which the box office smash City Of Angels was remade from. However, as is standard with most American remakes of cinema from outside their borders, the original subtitled version is the one to see since it's free of all the "Hollywoodifactions" that have a strong tendency to dilute all the conceptual aspects that gave the original it's distinctive flavor.

A biopic of Ritchie Valens, one of the musical artists who's aspiring career was cut short on the day that the music died.
It's not only a story of how a teenage boy rose from migrant worker to rock star by winning the hearts of the music world, but also of how Valens won the heart of the love of his all too brief life, which provided the inspiration for his biggest hit song "Donna".

Zed is a professional bank robber who gets into a caper which begins to go wrong (of course), and must turn against his fellow thieves in order to survive (as it turns out, thieves aren't as thick as the old saying would have you believe).
Can he save his own skin without killing Zoe.
"Who's Zoe?" you ask?
Zoe's a hooker who Zed slept with the night before and with whom he ends up developing feelings for...
and who, by sheer coincidence, works by day as a teller at the bank that's giving ol' Zed and his bank robbing buddies all the trouble.
Talk about a complicated relationship....!

Back in the day, quality sword & sorcery movies were incredibly rare. Ladyhawke (why the "e" at the end?) and Legend were the only ones I ever really liked (wasn't much of a fan of Willow), up until when LOTR finally got made many years later.
And while Legend focused more on it's stunning sets and character designs, this one was geared more thru it's storytelling and character development (although, this one's also was very appealing to the eyes).
A love story appropriated through the genre, it stars Ferris Bueller, Scarface's girlfriend and a very moody replicant.

Boy meets girl,
boy totes his tommy gun,
girl is swept off her feet,
together they go out on a spree,
and then go down (literally) into history.



A gangster flick in the classic sense of the genre,
depicting the story of the original gangstas
of the original on-the-run gangster couple.

A bank robber on the lam with a the sexy U.S. marshall "hot" on his trail. From the get go, this makes Out Of Sight sound like a typical formula pic. But with a screenplay based on an Elmore Leonard book (whose books were also the basis for other films like Get Shorty and Jackie Brown), this is a romance story that goes beyond its basic description. Through the very confidant hands of director Steven Soderbergh, wry dialogue, sly characters and not your typical situations, even for a cat and mouse type of manhunt, are all handled in a manner of such a "cool" atmosphere, that no matter what side of the caper they're in, everyone journeys their roles as though all of this was just everyday stuff.

Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs.
That does not include however, most of the people in the punk rock movement.
But that doesn't mean that despite their hard-hitting, grungy, spit-spewing image, these vociferously raw rebel rockers don't have a few old skool lovey-dovey moments in between slam dances. Yet, despite the genuineness of their love, early punkers Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen show that for a power rock couple, their relationship can have just as much jagged edge and sharp bite as the music that they love.

Love knows no bounds.
Even in the midst of an intergalactic war with a buncha Martians (in this case, they are particular type of Martian known as "Tarsians"),
this movie shows that as long as you've got a cell phone, a good distance carrier and a hell of a lot of patience,
long distance relationships can work.

And as most of us who've been stuck in a short distance relationship for awhile know,
sometimes, the idea of flyin' around in space in cool manga tech-gear and battling a buncha aliens, light years away from Earth, sounds a lot like heaven.

Two love stories intersect in this intelligent, straightforward and "martially artistic" film from the burgeoning genre of cinema known as wuxia.
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is a pure fun action flick merged into a story whose simplicity is hidden behind the human depth of a group of characters who each believe their respective struggles of love, honor and justice to be truly epic.

On the surface, Charles Driggs may seem like a just a boring banker, but there are signs that, underneath, he is a closeted rebel. All he needs is something wild to bring out his adventurous side. And that something comes in the person of a pixiesh wild thing named Lulu. But after a quick short car-ride adventure, he soon comes to realize that the deeper he gets into Lulu's life, that something wild that he was yearning for turns out to be something even more wilder than he can handle.



A quaint little comedy thriller with great early acting efforts from Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith & Ray Liotta.

Here's a movie that is remembered not just as probably the best foreign film of the year 1977, but also as a movie where two actresses alternatively play the same female lead character. Her name is Chica, a woman who happens to be a Sevillian flamenco dancer and at the same, an off-and-on temperamental tease. And when you think about it, two ladies making up one woman of that particular make up, it leads to a very profound and philosophical question;
is there any object of desire more obscure than that?

Covering ground that hasn't yet been covered in the myriad of other Las Vegas casino flicks that came previous to this one, The Cooler is a story that shows that no matter how good his "roll" in the game of gambling, even a sad sack loser can get lucky sometimes and win over the heart a hot babe.



Starring an actor whom's body of work I really like, William H. Macy.
For me, he's one of those actors that seems to make more right decisions than bad when it comes to choosing a part in a film.
And while it's always cool to see him in any movie no matter how small the role, when he's the lead character, it's usually even cooler.

During the period of his career when he often considered the king of comedy when it came to films, this is another effort by Jim Carrey to be taken seriously as an actor. An "estranged" romance story set in the not too distant future (as a matter of fact, Eternal Sunshine's future comes off so "not so distant", that it may "actually" be occurring in a parallel present-time reality) about the contradictory choice to forget an unforgettable love, if only the technology which exists would allow the human mind to do so.
An existential sci-fi rom flick that shows that even though it's absence that makes the heart grow fonder, it's absence of memory that makes the heart grow stronger.

An outsider police detective comes to town investigating a case, meets a prostitute who can probably help him, and naturally, the two fall in love.
In other words, imagine the movie Pretty Woman, except totally and completely different.
Klute is a film whose story was probably enhanced beyond it's premise by the high caliber performances of it's two lead actors, the always intelligent and distinctive Donald Sutherland,
and the even more intelligent and always beautiful Jane Fonda.

In just one afternoon, Harry has met the love of his life.
However, he misses out on their first date when a power outage prevents his alarm clock from waking him up thus causing him to over sleep passed the rendevous time.
And if that wasn't bad enough, in an effort to call her and explain, Harry discovers information which indicates that the world will come to an apocalyptic end in just a few hours.
Boy, I tell ya,
If Harry's luck with love was any worse,
then he'd probably be me.

Okay, so here's a movie about a guy who is a Holocaust survivor who marries his servant (who helped hide him during the war), begins having an affair with another woman who was also a survivor and then discovers that his first wife, who he thought died during the war, is, in actuality, still alive.
Three different women, all trying to deal with the feelings of suffering and survival that comes from the aftermath of one history's most horrific atrocities.
And to think, having a relationship with just one female with a boring background can be complicated enough.



Enemies: A Love Story is a film with a plot and a pacing that come off a bit clunky at times, but has some great writing, some great period sets and some pretty great performances (particularly from Angelica Huston) that make this forgotten little gem worth the effort of seeking out. And I should point out that whenever I discuss cinema, "forgotten little gem" is a term that I use very sparingly.

Tita and Pedro are a young couple deeply in love with each other. However, as the youngest daughter of a traditional Mexican family, Tita's clandestined obligations prevent her from ever entering the institution of marriage. It is a frustration which reveals itself as a preternatural ability for cooking food that, when consumed, results in not your normal post gastronomical behavior. Thus begins a complex, passionate, forbidden affair that flows like "water for chocolate". And what does that mean exactly?
To be honest, I don't know. But it sounds good. Particularly for a mystic tale of unrequited love from down below the border.

Wanna know how good Titanic is?
Because of this movie,
I have developed a lifelong hatred towards icebergs.
Also,
for a brief moment there,
this film actually had me believing that a man would actually allow himself to freeze to death in the icy ocean waters of the North Atlantic, just b'cuz he loved a girl so much that he couldn't bring himself to ask her if she could maybe scoot her fat ass over on the drift board just a little bit,
to make room for his skinny butt.

....godd@mn icebergs......!

Once upon a time, a guitar strumming street performer met a simple flower girl and the two quickly discovered that they had the potential to "make beautiful music together". But the big question is, just because they can, should they?



The down-to-earth tale of two strangers who find themselves coming together with a shared love for creating music,
but what they ultimately end up doing is creating a love for each other that they can never truly share.
A nice lil' no frills romance story without the typical cumbersome complications of the... uhmnn, well..... the romance.

I love the title of this movie (although that's not the main reason it's on this list.... it really is a good movie). It's a phrase that, for a film that is about love transcending distances, can easily be metaphorically analogous on so many levels. Even taken as a literal meaning, it works well in the context of a love story.
As a man, and I think I speak for alot of guys out there when I say this, I can honestly say that if a woman were able to take an X-ray snapshot of the map that makes up my respiratory system, she would instantly be able to recognize that the quickest route to my human heart, is through my stomach.

Take West Side Story, update it, take the outdateness and the musical numbers out,
then
take Midnight Run, take out the humor and the police,
then
add in some Colors (the movie), but from the other side of the border,
and finally,
add in some really good acting with a strong script,
sprinkle on some subtitles,
and
what you end up with is film that is Nameless
(or in Spanish, Sin Nombre).

Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in a "gritty" riverboat "journey movie" set along an East African river during WW II, and portraying two individuals, each with a mindset on a completely different side of the spectrum.
However, after confronting a series of obstacles during their quest, they begin the process of developing a relationship, which soon, allows the old romance adage of opposites attracting, to start to take affect. Eventually, the two people from two different worlds end up coming together, first for a common cause, and then for each other.

Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly.
God@mn.
Now, those are my kind of mob-scamming lesbians.



A made man's "goomar" and a "Jane of all trades" meet, fall in love, and decide that they're gonna run away together. But before they do, there's some mob money lying around that could be easy pickins. So they formulate a plan. And as we all know by now, in the movies, plans never go according to plan.

The only Barbara Streisand movie in any of my lists.
Seriously.
I promise.