Valentine's Day Movie Guide


	SITE SPONSOR

Valentine's Day Movie Guide

By Gayden Wren
c. 2003 Gayden Wren

There’s nothing more romantic than a Valentine’s Day movie for two, unless it’s two movies for two. So this Feb. 14, why not fire up the VCR or DVD player and try one of these romantic double features, each pairing a high-profile contemporary film with a classic that you may have missed?

And don’t worry if you feel like kissing in the balcony — no one will complain!

DOOMED LOVE

Sometimes the most enchanting love is the love that can never be, whether it’s the yearning look in Francesca Johnson’s eyes as Robert Kincaid drives away in the rain at the end of The Bridges of Madison County (1995) or the self-sacrificing nobility with which an Englishman masquerading as a prince says goodbye to the princess he’s come to love in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 or 1952).

For a perfect — if lengthy — double feature, try pairing Titanic (1997) with Roman Holiday (1953). Let the black-and-white beauty of Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn and those breathtaking Rome vistas set the mood, and sail on to Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and James Cameron’s stunning evocation of the ship that even God couldn’t sink.

FORBIDDEN LOVE

Forbidden fruit always tastes the sweetest, especially in the movies. For a fun and thought-provoking double feature, start with last year’s surprise-hit Kissing Jessica Stein, in which two women (stars/co-writers Heather Juergensen and Jennifer Westfeldt) hesitantly experiment with a lesbian relationship. It’s funny, fast-paced and surprisingly sweet, and not at all prurient.

Follow Kissing with Love — Love Field (1992), with Michelle Pfeiffer as a repressed wife in 1963 Texas who, on a cross-country trip to attend John F. Kennedy’s funeral, tries to puzzle out her attraction to a black man (Dennis Haysbert) who gives her a lift along the way. Pfeiffer was Oscar-nominated, and deservingly so.

LITERARY LOVE

Sometimes the best love stories are about people who write stories. It’s hard to go wrong with Shakespeare in Love (1998), in which the Bard of Avon (Joseph Fiennes) tries to figure out the plot of his new play Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter while dallying with a lovely, young and completely stage-struck aristocrat’s daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow). Tom Stoppard’s witty screenplay and Paltrow’s luminous, Oscar-winning performance make this one for the ages.

A more recent but oddly less modern writer, C.S. Lewis, is the unlikely hero of Shadowlands (1993). Bookish and withdrawn, Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) comes alive when brassy American poet Joy Gresham (Debra Winger) bulls her way into his life. Sometimes slow but always involving, it’s the best Merchant-Ivory film that Merchant-Ivory never made.

MAGICAL LOVE

Love is magical, of course, but sometimes magic is love, too. Remember Tom Hanks and a mermaid in Splash (1984) or Christopher Reeve following Jane Seymour into the past in Somewhere in Time (1980)?

Perhaps the best-ever romantic fantasy is Ghost (1990), with a spectral Patrick Swayze clinging to existence out of love for Demi Moore. Both leads are at their best, and Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar for her hilarious turn as a bogus psychic who starts seeing real dead people.

For a double feature, try Steven Spielberg’s underrated Always (1989), with Richard Dreyfuss and Holly Hunter as a couple so perfect that you know they can’t last. It’s Spielberg’s most romantic work by a long shot, and Audrey Hepburn, in her last film, has a charming cameo.

MUSICAL LOVE

There’d be no musicals without love songs — think of Gene Kelly dancing outside Debbie Reynolds’ window as the skies open in Singin’ in the Rain (1952) or Judy Garland singing "The Man That Got Away" in A Star Is Born (1954).

Start with the peerless Top Hat (1935), clever enough to be counted among the classic screwball comedies if it weren’t for the distraction of the dazzling Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers dances and Irving Berlin’s wonderful score.

Songs by everybody from Jule Styne to Lennon/McCartney and Madonna are heard in Moulin Rouge (2002), and director Baz Luhrmann makes it all work beautifully. Nicole Kidman is a knockout, Ewan McGregor proves to be a wonderful singer and Jim Broadbent bellows ‘‘Like a Virgin’’ as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

ON AND OFFSCREEN LOVE

Does it matter if onscreen lovers connect offscreen as well? Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman never really clicked on the big screen, after all, and Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger never set the world on fire.

But for a life-imitates-art double feature, try Adam’s Rib (1949) and To Have and Have Not (1944). In the former, longtime companions Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn do their patented comedy/drama blend, with a nice turn from Judy Holliday as the aggrieved wife whose case pits defense attorney Hepburn against prosecutor Tracy. In the latter Humphrey Bogart meets Lauren Bacall, and even after 60 years you can still see the sparks. It’s not much like the Hemingway novel, but it’s a classic.

Why, it’s enough to make you forget Tom Green and Drew Barrymore ...

TEEN LOVE

Don’t sneer — after all, the most iconic love story of them all, Romeo and Juliet, is the definitive teen romance.

10 Things I Hate About You (1999), however, draws on a different Shakespearian source. This clever reworking of The Taming of the Shrew features career-making performances from Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger in the lead roles, but the supporting cast — especially Alison Janney, Larry Miller and Larisa Oleynik — is equally good.

The little-known Dogfight (1991) makes a soberer matchup, with River Phoenix at a career peak as a young soldier who meets a gawky folk-music fan (Lili Taylor) in Vietnam-era San Francisco. He comes to mock her but stays to know her, and ultimately it’s one of the most achingly believable films ever made.

TIMELESS LOVE

But who says that young love is the only love? Check out Laurence Olivier and Katharine Hepburn in Love Among the Ruins (1975) — between them they’re 136, but they still make this tale of an aging actress and the barrister who once loved her as charming as any 20-something romp.

Then add How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), in which a 40-something executive (Angela Bassett) and a 20-something Caribbean stud (Taye Diggs) prove once and for all that age is only a number. Most 40-somethings aren’t as toned as Bassett, of course — but then, how many 20-somethings are as chiseled as Diggs?

Valentine's Day Guide Home | Utah Holiday Guide Home