100 Straight From The Heart: My Fave Romance Flix

A steel mill welder by day, a sexy dancer by night,
Alex (short for Alexandra) is on a mission to make her dreams come true.
With a determination that's fierce, a boyfriend who's her boss , and a pit bull that likes to watch, she's out to prove that when it comes to living on a wire between will and what will be, she's a maniac, maniac.
On the dance floor.



Movies about moving your feet was a craze that was really hitting its stride in the 80's.
Flashdance is one of those dance flicks.
And yeah, I realize that it's considered a bad flick at that.
But, boy,
that Jennifer Beals.....
....what a feeling.
She's definitely what I'd call a guilty pleasure.

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.

  Here’s a story about a time traveler and his wife.

  And if you are a time traveler, just what exactly do you do in order to keep the spice in your married life? For me, I’m gonna say just keep proposing to her. 

Every time you do or say something stupid or that pisses her off, just go back in time to the day that you proposed to her. That way, she’ll still look at you with a gleam in her eye, and she won’t remember anything about what you did to get her angry. Because, in reality, it never “happened “.

   TBH, now that I think about it, if being married to her reveals just how much of your personality continues to keep pissing her off, then you have the option to go back to a time before you two ever met, and just completely avoid even meeting her in the first place.  Then you can just keep doing this to every woman you ever date and end up with a life where you never to have to keep sleeping in the “dog house “. But then again, that would mean that the title of this movie would have to be changed to something more like “The Time Traveler’s Wives“. Or maybe even “The Time Traveler’s Total Lack of Commitment “. 

  Which then would mean that this movie would not be a romance flick.

So, if you’re reading this and notice that this movie is not on this particular list,  then that means that you are living in a parallel universe.

  Kinda blows your mind, doesn’t it?

   It did to me when I first thought of it. It also makes me wish that I was a time traveler. It sure would help me save a lot of money on alimony, that’s for sure.

Despite what seems like a direct movie title,
this is actually more of a love story with a backdrop of giant alien monsters, of which we probably don't see enough of.
I gotta give credit to this movie for trying to do something different by intermingling a romance "road trip" plot within the setting of a War of the Worlds type premise, without getting too many of the tentacles all tangled up.
A journey through a world in the process of alien invasion, it's a tuetonic tale that borders on far reaching aspirations of using it's "monsters" as a metaphoric device to help two people from different worlds find love. For my tastes though, I think I would've preferred seeing the makers of this movie make the matters of the heart material go more major in it's proportions. Still, in the end, it was worth seeing such a serious effort by all involved, including the actors, putting in the effort required to push a "little love story" to go a bit bigger.

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.

Throughout the entirety of cinematic history, there is a certain type of phenomena that occurs only every once in a blue moon, in which a small film becomes an unexpected enormous hit. Easy Rider, Rocky, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding are all examples of movies with samll budgets that surpriseingly made it big in different decades. And in 2008, such an event occurred in the form of a film fittingly entitled Slumdog Millionaire. Directed by Danny Boyle, it is a western take of a Bollywood film and tells the story about a young man from Mumbai who participates a "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" type of gameshow. During the procedings, he discovers that by pooling into the events of his hardknock life, he is able to successfully answer the questions presented to him on the show.
Of course, this wouldn't be a romance movie if his ability to do this was based just on the experiences of his accumulated struggles. It also gotta be fueled by the "eternal love" that he has for the girl of his dreams, who he first met back during his youthful troubled times pn the streets and who he must now traverse through various obstacles so that the two can be reunited in that typical dramatic and marketable Hollywood/Bollywood fashion.
Otherwise, this muddy Slumdog never woulda raked in the millions that it ended up making.

This is one of those artsy foreign flicks that takes the use of "artsy" both literally and allegorically, and utilizes it quite effectively and efficiently, on it's most basic level. Using all the methods that films like these use, it tells the story of a burnt-out artist who finds his muse thus reigniting his motivation for his art in a manner that affects his life and of those around him.
In other words, La Belle Noiseuse is the kind of cinema that will bore the mainstream escapist to tears and yet provide the thought-hungry connoisseur to his/her ecstatic fill.
In a movie season that saw one of the biggest blockbusters of the 90's (T-2: Judgment Day) and also featured the last film to sweep the Palme D'Or (Barton Fink), this is either one of the best films of the year or one that should be avoided at all costs, depending on which side of the theater screen you prefer to sit on.

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.

How does a movie have a female dwarf play the role of a male dwarf and pull it off? Easy. Film it on the year of living dangerously.



Mel Gibson, riding on a fast train to super stardom, teams up once again with fellow Aussie mate, director Peter Weir, along with another rising star, Sigourny Weaver, in the international melodrama depicting the Indonesia Coup of 1965.
And I gotta admit, I'm one of those people who knew absolutely nothing about any Indonesian coup from the sixties until I saw this film.
I guess if I spent more time studying foreign history than I did watching movies, then I'd be more knowledgable about this kind of stuff.
But then again, that would probably mean that I wouldn't be here on this site, enjoying and sharing fave film lists with all of you wonderful people.

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.

Minnesotian rock star Prince soars to 80's iconic status in this semi (very semi)-autobiographical yarn about a Kid and his music.
The leader of The Revolution, he plays at a club that acts as a stepping stone towards stardom for any musical act with dreams and ambitions of making it. And one such act comes in the form of a voluptious singer named Apollonia. Who, after a failed attempt of purification, ends up riding with the Kid, both on his bike and on his journey to a Purple Reign.

After losing his father to alcoholism, his mom to cancer, and finally his dead-end job to his bottled up emotions, Evan is a young man who needs to straighten out his head.
So, on the spur of the moment, he takes off to Italy to see if he can make some sense out of this chaos we call life.
Eventually, Evan meets a young beautiful woman, Louise, and with a little persistence, convinces her that he's worth a date or two.
But, as the couple find themselves connecting more and more, she begins to show signs of being more that she is.
More than most men can handle. Or, more specifically,
much more than any man can handle.

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.

Miles and his buddy Jack are two middle aged men who finally are starting to see that they are just aimlessly wandering through life. So, the hopelessly humdrum duo decide to do what two guys, at any age, tend to do whenever the boredom of their existence seeks to overwhelm them....
they take a road trip. And despite it being in the more sophisticated pastures of California's wine country, this road trip, just like any other road trip (or any other road trip movie), ends up becoming a journey of self-discovery, particularly for the aptly named Miles.
But what they discover is that, after a certain age, a man's journey of self discovery, instead of forward, will most likely tend to move more sideways.

Christopher Reeve, the guy who played Superman, stars in this film as a playwrite who comes to learn that writing plays is not his only gift. But also, that he possesses the super-human ability to self-hypnotize himself through time, and thus capture a heart of a love that exists somewhere else in time.
Or maybe the superpower is on the ravishing Jane Seymour's end. A classical actress who's luminous beauty is enough not only to stop time but to travel through it, too.
Hey, there's an effective bar pick-up line in their somewhere.

On an Italian island so small that there are no automobiles, a local and dissatisfied fisherman looks for other, more "exciting" forms of employment. So he becomes the island's sole postman. With only one customer: a famous poet from Chile exiled to the island for political reasons. A friendship soon develops between the two, and the postman soon finds out the power that poetry has to change one's life. Including, for the purposes of this list, one's love life.
A small piece of cinema about quiet people in remote circumstances who yearn for more expansion, not so much in their physical surroundings, but in their hearts, minds and souls.

Sally is involved with two military men.
Her husband, who is out in Vietnam fighting,
and a returned soldier whose war inflicted injuries has left him confined to a wheel chair. Married to the first, in love with the second, she must confront her her ambling life direction and decide which principles she will stand for. The hawk-like dedications of her betrothed or the dove-like protests of her beloved.
Coming Home is an emotionally intelligent movie for grown-ups that is full Academy Award winning performances, triangulated drama, and statements of after effects of conflict that can result both from the battlefield and from the home front.

  A priest takes part in a medical experimental that goes awry and ends up transforming him, into a craven vampire. But what he lusts for isn’t just for the life fluid that flows in human veins. It's also,  coincidentally enough for the purposes of this list, for the love of his friend’s betrothed and all the forbidden passion that would entangle such a scurrilous affair.

  Directed By Korea's most acclaimed filmmaker, Chan-wook Park, Thirst is a torrid tale of terror and twisted romance between a man of the cloth and his longing for love, blood and the kind of sensual satisfaction that his faith had forsaken back when he was "alive". Unlike many of today's similarly themed vampire films that try to incorporate romance into the lore, this is a movie that takes the concept of the centuries old legendary creature, and twists it into the blood chilling love and lust contradiction that such an erotic downward spiral of darkness would cause a pursuer of the Divine Faith.

Ryan Bingham's (George Clooney) makes a living out of telling people that they're fired.
Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) is a young upstart who's new ideas threaten to outmode Ryan's role in the profession.
But as they both take flight to learn from each other's paradigms of the business, they both begin to learn that each of their lives isn't as grounded as either of 'em might have thought.
Can you see the "Up In The Air" allegory coming in for a lending yet....?



A smart in-depth story the delves into the various aspects of life such as jobs, life purposes, marriages and family. And why in this current state of social flux, the success of any of those aspects constantly seems to be up in the air.

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.

Every once in a while, for some actors, there comes a role that defines their career, their talent or both. For Jill Clayburgh, it was that of an unmarried woman.
Erica Benton(Clayburgh) is a successful modern-day woman who seems to have it together. Until she suddenly finds herself no longer married. And thus begins the emotional roller coaster that will show her that she was never as together as she initially thought. A realization that she eventually finds makes her feel more liberated than any 70's national movement could.

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.

Love triangles are a very complicated thing. That is, they are when it's between human beings. But when a highly advanced A.I. robot is a part of the mix, then no amount of scientific data, high-powered computer calculations, or superpowered relationship counseling is gonna be able to make sense fix that relationship, no matter how mant times you ask 'em "How does that make you feel?".



Released in the midst of the summer movie season of 2015, a period of time that included puffed up cinematic biggies like Age Of Ultron and Mad Max: Fury Road, Ex Machina is a very different kind of summer film (i.e. it's not an explosive action film). Still, as someone who can get bored with the formulaic themes of one typical blockbuster after another, I found Ex M a smart and genuine sci-fi alternative to the typical big explosive same-ol' same ol' that tends dominate the theaters during that bloated time of year.
A thinking man's psychological thriller of the future that asks the big questions when it comes to the subject of artificial intelligence but also has the good sense not to allow itself to get bogged down by the answers.

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.

  A classic tale of romance and jealously when an established singer  whose drinking habit has brung his limelight down to a dim, but meets an aspiring young songstress with a star that is about to be born, and the internal struggles that follow as a result. I've seen the previous ASIBs, and to be quite honest, I thought we had reached a point where it was almost impossible to make any more newer versions that could raise above the height of mediocore. Therefore, when this 2018 adaptation came out, I pretty much ignored it. However, when I saw all the accolades it was recieving, including a couple of Oscar noms, I finally decided to give it a try. And while it doesn't too stray too far off from the standard storyline of it's predecessors, it does demonstrate that a star can still shine brightly no matter how many times it may be born.

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.