Guest poster Fergus is looking ahead to the dark days when, faced only with a bleak landscape of reality TV and reruns, we must turn to our Netflix accounts for comfort. Today’s Friday 5 suggests flicks that both genders can appreciate.
5. Truly Madly Deeply. It could have been awful…a grieving Juliet Stevenson, her various deranged would-be suitors, classical music and a man so in love that he hops along a road. It’s the deft script by Anthony Minghella and the presence of Die Hard’s magnificent Euro-baddie Alan Rickman as the recently departed Jamie that lifts this potential ten-Kleenex fem-bomb into the mid-reaches of male acceptability.
4. Gone With The Wind. By spectacularly and smartly torching the city of Atlanta, director Victor Fleming managed to conceal the fact that this was a ‘woman’s picture’ at all, although the book had been a huge seller. The inclusion of rogueish Clark Gable (the 1930’s man’s man) ensured that a long line of smartly dressed, hat-wearing gentlemen accompanied their strictly stay-at-home wives to a movie that actually lasted 8 times longer than the Civil War Battle of Mine Creek.
3. Four Wedding & A Funeral. Hugh Grant swears, stumbles and gaffes his way through the aforementioned gatherings in his all-around-the houses pursuit of Andie MacDowell, Rowan ‘Rubber Face’ Atkinson does Bean in a dog-collar and America goes wild for it. It locked the UK film industry (and Hugh Grant) into many years of repeat performances, but maybe it was worth it for John Hannah’s funeral oratory…enough to cause even the straightest, hardest men to find a piece of grit in their eye.
2. When Harry Met Sally. A boy and a girl meet at college and hate each other. Over the years, through relationships and break-ups they discover that what they in fact have is LOVE. Mingled with interviews with old married couples, this would have taken a solid hour’s male sleeve tugging but for the cuteness of Meg Ryan and the towering wit of the (never better) Billy Crystal. Baby fish mouth?
1. How To Make An American Quilt. A group of women gathered at a rural quilting bee reflect on love, life, romance, sorrow and sacrifice as the youngest of their group prepares for her…wait a second. How did THIS get in here?
Do you agree? And what films would you add to this list?
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December 7th, 2007 at 8:51 am
My resident guy says:
I agree with you on Four Weddings and a Funeral, all the guys in the tattoo shop loved that movie.
I don’t know any guys who like Truly, Madly, Deeply.
He suggests replacing How to Make an American Quilt and Truly, Madly, Deeply with: Any movie by Pedro Almodovar; Eat Drink, Man Woman.
December 7th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
WHAT? Almodovar films are not chick flicks!
December 7th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Actually I know a lot of men who like the Bridget Jones’s Diary film. I’m fairly sure it’s because Colin Firth is attractive in a normal man way, not an unattainable way, and because Hugh Grant finally looks like a tw@t and they all feel a little avenged.
December 7th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I’ll add Thelma and Louise because of the wonderful lead actresses. Bridget Jones, because lots of guys seem to like it, and “Bring it on” because it’s just funny and cute.
December 7th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
My hubby loves While You Were Sleeping, Sleepless in Seattle, 10 Things I Hate About You, Clueless, Never Been Kissed, and WHMS. Actually, he’s pretty much cool with any chick flick that falls more on the “funny” side of the scale than the “romantic”.
He simply cannot tolerate Hugh Grant though, so Bridget and FWAAF are out for him.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Oh, I second the mention of Clueless! My husband loves that movie, maybe because he grew up in L.A. Also, it has a great cast — Dan Hedaya!
December 7th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Even though I’m a chick, I tend to hate “chick flicks”. Things don’t usually blow up enough in chick flicks.
But I do agree with most of your list. I’m iffy on 4 Weddings because Andie MacDowell is such a bad bad bad bad actress but she’s better than Wynona Ryder and the movie is funny…
I think I would have to add:
Like Water for Chocolate (Fantastic love story for the her, naked women for him)
Playing by Heart (Just tell him it has Angelina Jolie in it)
And delete:
Gone With The Wind (whiny, far too whiny)
How to Make an American Quilt (Wynona Ryder…bleck)