Another restless night—2:11AM on the digital, realize my son left a shower faucet not quite off and the lever that closes the bathtub drain on, so it’s slowly filling up, the PLOP PLOP PLOP waking me.
I fix the both, get back in bed wide awake, think of new alphabet list to lull my mind to sleep, a friend suggested I make a movie list for Valentine’s Day, so I do.
Almost finish it in my head before falling back to sleep, then, every time I wake again during the night and go back to it, books and songs keep coming up too. Decide to do a list for each of them as well.
Here’s the movie one—some romantic favorites alphabetized in the traditional way (not counting “a” “an” and “the”):
AFFAIR TO REMEMBER, AN (sappy but Cary Grant makes it work)
BLUE DAHLIA, THE (Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd, my favorite movie couple)
CASABLANCA
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO
ENGLISH PATIENT, THE
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY
GROUNDHOG DAY
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
JULES AND JIM
KING KONG (the original, where you gotta admit he’s pretty romantic with Faye Wray, in his clumsy naïve “monster” way)
LAST OF THE MOHICANS, THE (Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeline Stowe, whoa)
MOONSTRUCK
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
OUT OF SIGHT (George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, before she turned into Barbara Streisand)
PRINCESS BRIDE, THE (the first time I saw Robin Wright (now Wright-Penn) and was so taken I stayed through two showings, she and Cary Elwes made a perfect couple, and I predicted great things for them as huge stars, but I guess they were too quirky, though their performances in whatever they’ve done since are always great)
QUIET MAN, THE (sexist moments maybe, but still powerfully romantic)
ROB ROY (Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange, my new favorite movie couple after this, before her face work turned scary)
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet, just for starters, in a Jane Austen romance, thank you movie gods)
THIS GUN FOR HIRE (Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd together for the first time)
UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, THE (a little much, but definitely romantic)
VENUS (the one out now, with Peter O’Toole and Vanessa Redgrave)
WEST SIDE STORY (yes the “whites” are mostly miscast, as is Natalie Wood as a Puerto Rican, but it’s a musical, people burst out singing and dancing, if you can accept that you can accept the casting and give in to the romance of the Romeo and Juliet story it’s roughly based on)
XICA (okay, I was reaching for straws here, and had to look this one up)
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (cornball, but I always dug the romance of the “Cohans”—“For It was Mary, Mary”)
ZORRO (the one with Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, they were both hot in it)
Some favorite romantic books and songs to follow
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
I definitely think that the score played a major role in The Last of The Mohicans. Without the intensity of the score I think some of the performances might have seemed over the top and foolish.
I did enjoy the movie as a whole, but it's the film's music that gives me goose bumps.
Lal: Neat list. I've got another idea for you: a list of movies with scenes of blistering, authentic animal passion - woooooooooooo!
I haven't got a lot of time right now, but here's some to get everyone started on filling in the rest of the alphabet! I'll add more later.
~ Tom
B - Body Heat! William Hurt throws the lawn chair through the glass door followed by him and Kathleen Turner ravishing each other....
B - (honorable mention) Brokeback Mountain. When the the barriers finally crumble in the tent.
F - Fatal Attraction! Before Glenn Close gets around to boiling rabbits, she and Michael go at it amongst the appliances on the kitchen counter.
H- A History of Violence! Maria Bello and Viggo Mortensen on the stairs.
S - Sea of Love! Who knew Pacino could get that fired up, but Ellen Barkin will do that to a guy.
And as I said in a previous list: D for Don't Look Now in which Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie's lovemaking reminds me of why we do it, the pure joy is captured better than anywhere else, at least as I remember it.
M - for Monster's Ball. Halle Berry begging Billy Bob to "make me feel better." Her extreme emotional need makes it obscene in the truest sense of the word.
For romantic scenes, this one from The Kid's mother: when Eva Marie Saint drops the glove in On The Waterfront and Brando picks it up. This unscripted moment, says mom, was one of the most memorable romantic moments on film, in an era replete with them.
Your mother's right. The story was that it was an accident, which Brando took advantage of by picking the dropped glove up and famously trying to put this delicate white woman's glove on his meaty supposedly prize fighter's hand while continuing the with the dialogue, taking Eva Marie Saint by surprise and making the scene even more poignant with a real underlying tension as to where it was leading.
This animal passion list is an entertaining twist.
I'll contribute:
9 1/2 Weeks (doesn't really fit into an alphabetical list)
I- In the Cut
N- The Notebook
T- Thelma and Louise (Brad Pitt and Geena Davis)
"making the scene even more poignant with a real underlying tension as to where it was leading."
Hmm.That could be the secret to all the great love scenes, on screen and off.
I will predictably chime in with Black Orpheus, in which the romance between Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn) and Orpheus has moments archetypical as the rest of the film is in other ways.
Yeah, Black Orpheus was definitely in my mind originally too, but I opted for The Blue Dahlia because of the sentimental feeling for my childhood crush on Lake. I also thought of On the Waterfront, another of my top ten all-time favorite films, but put Out of Sight on instead because I thought it was pretty much overlooked or dismissed and I found Lopez incredibly appealing in it in a way I haven't found her to be since. Unlike Eva Marie Saint who I also got a schoolboy crush on and loved in everything since, even My Dog Spot or whatever that movie with Jeff Daniels was called.
I can understand boyhood crushes on almost anybody, but didn't Veronica Lake strike you as a bit of a joke after a while? Once she made a trademark out of the half-face hair, she became kind of unintentionally self-satirizing. What next? Lisabeth Scott? For the opposite of chemistry, how about Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity? Or Cameron Diaz and her pet monkey Leo in Gangs of New York? Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal in that laughable abomination known as The Fountainhead?
Did any man ever match up well in a movie with the young Rita Hayworth? Or Gene Tierney?
Another "B" movie competitor: Bonnie and Clyde. And Warren Oates and Michele Phillips make an interesting if rocky couple in Dillinger. And I've always felt that there was a lot of genuine tenderness between the Madeline Stowe and Bruce Willis characters in Twelve Monkeys.
For odd but not unappealing couples, there's always Tuesday Weld and Jackie Gleason in Soldier in the Rain. And so on.
Geez, I hope I don't end up siting up nights thinking about this kind of stuff. Thinking about sports in these terms is bad enough.
Take it easy, Lol.
Doodle
Nope. Veronica Lake never became a joke to me. I loved her in everything she did, including I Married a Witch or whatever it was called, and the one with Claudette Colbert where she plays an army nurse in WWII (made I think while the war was still raging) and was highly praised for (did she get nominated for that role?). I always found her self-awareness, that in-on-the-joke sparkle in her eye, a relief valve for any possible misintepretation of what to her was a job and a look forced on her by first her mother and then the studio heads and agents and inappropriate husbands. She never complained, did her job, comedy or tragedy or film noir combination, etc. with that twinkle that said to me as a kid, you get it right? And I always felt like I did.
Hey, this is getting fun!
Okay, a couple more animal passion entries:
U - Unfaithful! Diane Lane and hunky Olivier Martinez are VERY convincing. The added bonus is that Richard Gere is the cuckold!
C - Carbaret! How could I have forgotten the "three-way" that doesn't quite happen between Liza Mannelli, Michael York, and Helmut Griem.
Oh, lots of great ones you folks are listing: Halle Berry was blistering in Monster's Ball, and In the Cut was so weird and compelling I had to watch it twice.
And as for "odd but not unappealing couples," Burt Lancaster and Susan Saradon in Atlantic City, hands down.
~~ Tom
No! Let's not reduce the greatest all time celluloid couplings to a meaningless sports analogy! (Who was pitching, who was catching, who scored.) You're going to take all the beauty out of Lol's lists.
Tom - thanks for bringing up Unfaithful. That scene of her on the train, going home: I've never seen a truer depiction of the revolving joy and pain a woman feels following an ill-spent afternoon. Diane Lane is a genius as well as very easy on the eyes. She's def. the knock-out next door that you hope to run in to at the bank.
Here's an odd (or just personally revealing) nominee for on-screen passion; Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The scene in the bar where subtitles are used. The lighting is red and yellow; the music is loud and hypnotic; the girls slide under the table. Phew.
Another incredibly stimulating scene that doesn't include sex per se: the party in the apartment in Jacob's Ladder, before it turns demonic(a fantastic film altogether, one of my favorites for many reasons, not the least its success in recreating the look and feel of the 70's.) Tim Robbins' character is reluctant at first, but is persuaded to start dancing with his sexy Latina girlfriend; lets himself fall into the music as it accelerates and soon the crowd is transformed into one writhing mass of sweaty bodies.
Lol, your articulate loyalty has so touched me that I'm going to have go give Veronica another chance! Maybe I missed the twinkle beneath the mask. Of course, that still leaves the matter of Alan Ladd, but I guess that can be a different story.
Funny that you mention Veronica's twinkle. I was just remarking to The Kid that the photo of you on your site exhibits quite the cherubic twinkle itself. Are you the eternal innocent, or do you merely play him? If there's a difference.
Doodle
As to the weird but not unappealing couplings, Dennis Hopper and Jodie Foster in that almost unknown movie of his (the name of which I can't remember--it's got John Turtorro, Joe Pesce, Dean Stockwell, too) might deserve candidacy. As for the iconic but unreal, there's Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr in Samson. As with Hayworth and Tierney, was there ever a man who matched up well with Hedy?
Doodle
I'm surprised no one mentioned Damage, so I just did.
Post a Comment