Happy Valentine's Day Week

Happy Valentine's Day Week Everyone!

I have been really busy lately with school and more school and even more school. Because of all my work I haven't had a chance to watch a new movie lately so instead of writing about a new movie I have decided to make a list of my top 10 romantic movies. Two reviewers from my favorite magazine, Entertainment Weekly, wrote their choices for the best movies to watch on Valentine's Day which got me thinking about what I would choose. So here's my list:

1. Roman Holiday- The movie which I have previously written about takes the number 1 spot. What can seem more romantic than a handsome and kind stranger, a beautiful and charming princess and a city that is the setting for this perfect Cinderella story?

2. It Happened One Night- Another classic. This is one of the movies that really made a huge impression on me as a kid. The wonderful screwball comedy still resononates thanks to the wonderful chemistry of the two stars, their great comedic timing, and a great script with many wonderful scenes. Who could forget Claudette Colbert sticking her leg out in the street to stop a car or Clark Gable teaching her how to dunk a donut perfectly; a true artform which still reminds me of my grandfather.

3. When Harry Met Sally- This is a movie which I watch once a year when I'm in the mood. I'm not a huge fan of Billy Crystal but in this movie he is perfect. Meg Ryan's Sally is charming, sweet and totally neurotic. The journey of a relationship, which has a rough start, then grows into a friendship and ends as a relationship, never gets old. Especially wonderful are the short interviews with couples describing how they fell in love. 

4. The Notebook- While most movies made from Nicholas Spark's novels end up being cheesy and unrealistic, The Notebook seems genuine and sentinmentally perfect. It is easy to see that the actors Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams were really falling in love during the filming. The movie captures the essence of a budding new romance and tugs at your heartstrings in the scenes when the two characters have grown old. Is there a more heartwrenching moment in a movie as when the older Noah, played by James Garner, watches as his Allie, who is suffering from Alzheimers, come back to him for a second and then quickly slip away, lost in the disease? Every time I watch Garner fight back tears of pain and helplessness I'm left in tears as well.

5. Casablanca- "Here's looking at you kid". "Play it again Sam". Bogie. Bergman. The song, As Time Goes By. Every scene is memorable and dripping with romance. For a film that was rife with problems and was not supposed to be anything special it has become one of the most copied movies of all time. It's truly the ultimate romance.

6. Some Like It Hot- Not your traditional romance, two men dress as women and join a girl's music group to go on the lamb from the mob, but it's by far one of the most romantic movies ever made. Marylin is charming and sincerely sweet in a role that seems to have been the culmination of the trials of her personal life as well as all of her previous characters. Is there a funnier or more romantic ending to a movie as when Jack Lemon's character Jerry, dressed in drag, tells his male admirer Osgood that he's not actually a woman but rather a man only to have Osgood reply, "Well, nobody's perfect." It brings a smile to my face just thinking about it.

7. Jerry Maguire- Before Tom Cruise went crazy, jumping on Oprah's couch and kissing Katie Holmes all over the world, he was a private and believable movie star. In Jerry Maguire he is at his best as a sports agent who can only love himself. The movie has the right amount of cheese with lines like, "You had me at hello," as well as great moments of male comradery between Maguire and his only client, football player Ron Tidman (Cuba Gooding). And the cherry on the cake is Renee Zellweger's character's young son (Jonathan Lipnicki) who gives one of those perfect child perfomances. He's cute and funny and manages to steal every scene he's in, even from Cruise.

8. Sleepless in Seattle- Another Meg Ryan movie has made it on my list. This romantic comedy borders on the cheesy but keeps itself in check with great performances by Ryan and Tom Hanks. My admiration of Seattle has made me feel even more connected to this movie. The two actors only come together in the final scene but the journey they take to get to the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day is sentimental for all the right reasons.

9. Ikiru- You may wonder if a story about an old man who learns he has cancer and then tries to find the meaning of life is really a romantic movie but to me this is one of the most genuinely moving films I have ever seen. At first Takashi Shimura's Watanabe is a tragic character, a man who has spent his whole life doing nothing honorable and has had nothing to live for. It is at his funeral, which takes place in the second half of the movie, that we learn he is not tragic at all but rather more of a gentle hero. In his search to do something more with his life he has met a young woman, full of life and energy and through their friendship he has made a difference with the short time he had left.

10. Pride and Prejudice- While I loved watching the BBC version of this movie, my favorite is the Kiera Knightley version. In college my best friends and I watched this movie over and over and over. Knightley has the perfect amount of zest, brainiess and upper class elitism for Elizabeth Bennet. And while Colin Firth is completely to die for as Darcy, Matthew Macfayden, brings the stern Darcy a softer and gentler side. An interesting side note, An Education's Carey Mulligan makes an apperance in this movie as one of the Bennet sisters.

So that's my list. I'm sure there's some movies I have left out but these are the ones I come often come back to when I'm in a romantic mood.