Your favorite romantic comedy... or one you hate?

Just checked my BR/DVD collection and there is not one rom-com in there.

 

Definitely When Harry Met Sally... But honestly, other than that, I can't think of another except maybe I Love You, Man.. But that's mostly because Rush plays a big part in the movie.

ETA: Looking at other's lists, I guess I think of some of them (Princess Bride/Coming to America) as just comedies, not Rom-Coms... But I did forget about Splash... Brilliant movie!

 

With respect to Coming To America:

The whole story begins with Akeem's quest to find someone he loves and respects, instead of an arranged bride trained to obey his every command no matter how absurd. Then it revolves around his courtship with Lisa McDowell, and it ultimately climaxes with their wedding. So....

Granted, it does focus on Akeem way more than Lisa.


With respect to The Princess Bride:

I don't even know where to begin, it's so obvious.....

Twu wuv, twu wuv....

 

FYI, in Coming to America, the kid in the barber chair is Cuba Gooding Jr. I think it was his first movie role.

 

Most are mediocre-at-best and with pretty annoying characters. I did love Kate & Leopold because the romance was a significant part of the relationships and story but it didn't dominate the movie or feel forced, it was one believable, natural aspect of a larger relationship.

 

Wow. Yet another thing for us to disagree on. I loved Moonstruck. It's one of the few romantic comedies I like without reservation.

The other two are The Goodbye Girl and The Butcher's Wife.

 

I totally forgot about The Goodbye Girl. I remember seeing that in the theatre - a double feature with Oh, God! (the first one of the trilogy, with John Denver and Teri Garr).

 

I caught it on TV one day and only stayed mainly because it was written by Neil Simon, who is usually a genius, but even at that I expected to change the channel after a few minutes and instead was hooked and laughing all the way through.

 

I'm not a big romantic comedy fan, but I like Bringing up Baby, Roxanne, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Notting Hill. I totally despise Love, Actually.

 

I like you already.

 

I'm usually not a fan of the romantic comedy, but I love the movie The Invention of Lying with Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner. The setup about a world where nobody knows how to lie is worth watching it alone. Like the first time Ricky Gervais' character picks up Jennifer Garner, she tells him she'll be down in a minute because she's masturbating

 

As many times as I've seen it, I never picked up on that. Good lookin' out.

Yeah, Roxanne's a good one.

 

I adore both Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Midnight is....well, it is what it is.

It's not so enjoyable, it's not so romantic, but it's real. People fight, and sometimes it gets ugly. That's life. I remember that the girl I watched it with (who loved the first two when I introduced her to them), hated Midnight. I didn't love it, but I appreciated it as a film.

Here's something out of left field...a Hindi romcom. There are sooooo many good ones, but my favorite from recent times is Mere Brother ki Dulhan.

Cheesy? Yep. Predictable? Yep. But fun. Just....fun. And the best part? No melodrama! No "plot enforced tension in the middle of the story that has to be overcome by the end." It's pure fun....I literally never get tired of it. It's silly and breezy and makes you root for the couple quite easily. I wish it was still on Netflix.

 

Adore rom-coms. Sad to see dislike for 500 Days, as that's closest I think Hwood has come to old-school classical format in recent years.

Personal favourites.
Anything with Doris Day (yes, even execrable 'Caprice') and Katherine Hepburn.

 

Several years ago, someone in this forum went on a rant about how they hated anything in black and white. As it turned out, there was a Katherine Hepburn movie marathon that weekend. I'd only seen one of her movies before (Summertime, which was in color). Some were pretty funny. It's a shame how so many younger people hold the older movies in such contempt. It's the story that matters, and the truth is that some shows look better in black and white.

If anyone disbelieves me, just have a look at the colorized version of the 1950s Robin Hood series (starring Richard Greene). It's a fun series in black and white. In color it just looks ridiculous.

 

It's not the black-and-white that gets me when I watch older films....it's the pacing. Their pacing was glacial back in the day. Even movies that clock in at 90 minutes seem so slow. I like older films. I'm not against watching them, and I enjoy quite a lot of the classics. Many times, the stark imagery adds to the mood/atmosphere. But they certainly had a different idea of how to pace the story.

 

I guess people had longer attention spans then, and didn't need loud noise that passes for "music" and shooting and explosions every few minutes.

 

I doubt it was that. It was probably because movies were more of an "outing" than a "distraction." Television was a rarity at least until the mid-late 1950's. People's entertainment came from the radio. So going to the cinema to see a movie was a big deal.

 

It's not just an attention-span issue. There's also the fact that, over time, audiences have become more familiar with certain story-telling tropes and conventions, so they require less exposition. Plus, as the cinematic vocabulary has evolved, movies have become less like filmed stage plays and more adept at conveying information visually rather than through expository dialogue.

Take vampires for instance. As late as the 1970s, vampire movies still felt obliged to contain a scene where somebody explained what a vampire was, what the rules were, that they could be destroyed by sunlight, etc.

Nowadays, modern audiences already know that stuff, so a quick shot of a character flashing fangs, or their skin sizzling when a sunbeam hits it, and we're good to go.

Personally, I love old b/w movies, but, yes, they were paced differently, and the problem isn't necessarily that modern audiences have shorter attention spans; it's that modern audiences are in some ways more pop-culturally savvy and that modern films are further removed from live theater and the stage.