Cajucom: Love flicks

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

HEY, it’s February again. I know, I know… all these Valentine’s day stuff have become really overrated, becoming more like another ploy of retail giants and even relatively smaller commercial establishments to entice (still) hopeless romantics out there to celebrate v-day.

But since it is the love month after all, we might as well find that romantic nerve in the deepest recesses of our being, and join the hype one way or another. It may be through a grand date, a weekend getaway, or just a stroll in the park. For long distance lovers, probably a virtual date (whatever that involves). Or for the dateless, or a dateless-girls-night-out to celebrate single-blessedness, a movie marathon is a great idea.

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Here are my top picks for movie marathon night this love month:

When Harry Met Sally (1989). I remember renting the betamax tape of this romantic comedy classic in high school and falling in love with love for the first time. Ok, there are two self-incriminating points in that last statement. Anyway, the story focuses on the question of whether men and women can truly be “just friends”. Decades later the conversations between Meg Ryan’s and Billy Crystal’s characters still make me LOL.

And then there’s Only You (1994), with Robert Downey Jr. and Marisa Tomei. In a childhood game of Ouija board, Faith (Tomei) was “told” that her soulmate is a certain Damon Bradley. Fourteen years later, as she was about to get married, she heard a recorded message from a guy with that name, announcing that he was on his way to Italy. She travelled all the way to Europe to find him, and met Downey. The film is fun, and with Venice as a setting, everything is downright romantic.

Serendipity (2001). If you are a hopeless romantic and still have not seen this film set in wonderful NY City, with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale in the lead, then you need to see it ASAP. It’s about fate, destiny, kismet, gloves, and Love in the Time of Cholera. I have seen it more than ten times and it’s the only film saved in my IPod Touch, just in case I get stranded in an island somewhere.

Of course, you also can’t go wrong with Mannequin, Ghost, Some Kind of Wonderful (*sigh*), Sleepless in Seattle, Ten Things I Hate About You, and other contemporary light chick flicks Letters to Juliet, Something Borrowed and Midnight in Paris.

If you are more of a drama queen and prefer those hard-core-slash-waterworks-type love flicks, there’s Shining Through (1992). This brilliant love story starring Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith is set in World War II, with Douglas as a top rank US military official and Griffith as an American spy employed as a nanny in a Nazi officer’s home.

To date, this film is a top personal favorite and I still get goosebumps and cry whenever I watch the climactic rescue scene. You can also go for The Notebook, Dear John and every Nicholas Sparks books-turned-into-films stuff. And oh, if you want to go overboard (literally and figuratively) there’s always Titanic.

Enjoy watching! (serendipity.couch@gmail.com)