OK....I will do it...from a previous thread where I remarked "It appears that we need a thread called "Chick Flicks for Manly Men". The question would be, just what IS a chick flick? Anything from a Jane Austin story or a derivative like Bridget Jones Diary counts, Julie and Julia probably counts, but do the Alien movies?" Do guys ever watch these when they are not with a female partner? If they watch with a female partner, do they like the movies or do they just say they do to keep peace?
Any takers?
I love Jane Austen, and am generally displeased in proportion to how much they deviate from the original novels. My favorite version of any Jane Austen story on video is:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078672/
If you want films that do romance well, and are appropriate for manly men, you might want to take a look at Hitchcock's films. My wife loves
Notorious, which has the hallmarks of a good Hitchcock film, with plenty of suspense to the very end, well photographed and well acted, and with an interesting and believable story. The romance seems far more real than in most films, and it makes me want to say that Hitchcock seemed to understand romance as well as he understood suspense.
(I would say that Hitchcock truly understood romance, except for the stories I have heard about his infatuation with Tippi Hedren, which are very creepy, so maybe he only understood romance in the abstract and academically, but not in real life [if you want to read about that, just spend some quality time googling for it]. In real life, he seems to have appreciated romance about as well as a stalker.)
In
most of Hitchcock's films, romance is handled extremely well. Most people don't seem to notice it, though, as they seem distracted by the suspense.
From a quick online search, I see my wife and I are not alone in appreciating the romance in
Notorious:
http://www.filmsite.org/greatchickflicks.html
There are quite a few good films mentioned at that link. Sometimes, Google is your friend.
If you can find it,
Shanghai Express is an excellent film, with Marlene Dietrich (not to be confused with another film of the same title). I was lucky enough to see it on the big screen at UCLA some years back, and have it on laserdisc. It has never been on DVD or BD (at least not in the U.S.), which is too bad, as it is beautifully filmed, and a great film. The film is still in good condition, so it would look fabulous on BD. I have no idea why it is being held back.
