Snuggle up with necrophilia and madness this Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day may be a time for love but it’s also the season for dull Hollywood romances. Don’t settle for the usual dreck — Fast Forward’s writers are here to save the day with some less obvious love stories.
• The Science of Sleep (dir: Michel Gondry 2006)
In his characteristic way-too-talented-to-be-human fashion Michel Gondry shows us love through a metaphor of mental illness without being ham-fisted or juvenile. Starring Gael Garcia Bernal as Stephane the love-blighted hero Gondry’s characteristic visual style accentuates Stephane’s inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality (or between love and madness) while maintaining the fetching surreal esthetic he’s known for. At once uplifting and profoundly tragic The Science of Sleep shows that when you’re in love you may very well be crazy but asks if it would be half so important if you weren’t.
KYLE FRANCIS
• Punch Drunk Love (dir: Paul Thomas Anderson 2002)
With all of the abysmal and endless clichés found in romance-comedies there is really only one rom-com worth snuggling with your sweetie in front of on this Valentine’s Day — and it stars Adam Sandler. Not 50 First Dates Anger Management Mr. Deeds (Sandler’s been in a lot of rom-coms) but Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love (2002). After sitting through the two-and-a-half-hour Oscar-nominated There Will be Blood many viewers might doubt that Anderson has a romantic bone in his body. Yet in Punch Drunk Love the writer-director captures both the romance and comedy of a good love story with a level of hyper-reality. Struggling toilet plunger wholesaler and pudding snack collector Barry Egan (Sandler) is one of those characters that does not know exactly what love is but knows he has a lot to give. A not-so-chance meeting with the quixotic Lena Leonard (Emily Watson) leads to what can only be described as a whirlwind romance captured beautifully through Anderson’s sweeping camera movements.
COLIN SMITH
• Bride of Frankenstein (dir: James Whale 1935) and Harold and Maude (dir: Hal Ashby 1971)
Bride of Frankenstein — Karloff reprises and surpasses his role from the original. All he really wants is to be loved but alas it’s never that simple is it? Elsa Lanchester plays both The Bride and author Mary Shelley along with a colourful cast of supporting characters. The creature’s encounter with a blind hermit is a moving thinly veiled allegory for director Whale’s homosexuality. Worth a watch on your big screen for the lighting alone.
Harold and Maude — A young and morbid Bud Cort falls hard in love with a life-loving septuagenarian (Ruth Gordon) a week before her 80th birthday in this dark existential comedy. Harold attends random funerals and stages elaborate mock suicides. Maude steals random cars and liberates trees from inner city planters. The future Yusuf Islam contributes some heart-thumping tunes to the soundtrack. Even after 36 years this film defies and denies clichés and stereotypes of every stripe.
Both are great date movies. They’re funny poignant unconventionally romantic and stand up to repeated viewings. Watch them with someone you really like (or someone you would like to really like). Bunion rubs and neck-bolt polishes optional.
MD STEWART
• Kissed (dir: Lynne Stopkewich 1996)
If there is one rule when it comes to love it’s that there are no rules. And no movie proves that better than Lynne Stopkewich’s haunting debut Kissed . Molly Parker stars as a morgue employee who takes her relationships with the recently deceased further than most would find comfortable. What makes the movie such a brilliant success is the fact that Stopkewich never judges her heroine and Parker never once plays this character as a freak or a perv. This almost-forgotten film may not be a date movie but it does explore the complexities of emotion with a sensitivity few films have the courage to display. Just don’t tell your sweetie it’s about necrophilia before you sit down to watch it. That might be a bit of a turn off.
JASON LEWIS
• King Kong (dir: Peter Jackson 2005)
Remember in Splash when Tom Hanks whined to John Candy that he didn’t expect love to be perfect but “for God’s sake it’s usually human?” Not always. One of the most romantic movies out there is full of passionate red-hot monkey love.
Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of King Kong is a big — and I mean big — love story. Forget the 1933 original with Fay Wray and that hunk of moving clay or the 1976 update in which the overgrown ape gets to second base with Jessica Lange. Jackson’s version with Naomi Watts being gazed upon adoringly by Kong like she’s a six-foot banana is the absolute fluffiest. The big cuddly primate does something macho like tear the jaws of a dinosaur apart then turns around and goes figure skating in Central Park with his woman? Now that’s love. Can’t wait for the sequel where Kong beats the crap out of Godzilla then holds Watts’s purse while she shops at La Senza.
JASON ARMSTRONG
• Secretary (dir: Steven Shainberg 2002)
Romantic comedies don’t have to be the cinematic equivalent of prostate exams — stereotypical suffering inflicted on the male demographic. Naturally you’re skeptical. Who wouldn’t be? Rom-coms are so deeply mired in formula that they’re virtually interchangeable.
So if romantic comedies insist on following time-worn formulas the least they can do is follow Secretary ’s far superior example. In the interests of public service I invite would-be filmmakers who are so inclined to use the one provided below.
Step 1: Cast Maggie Gyllenhaal or equivalently cute star.
Step 2: Have her wear bondage gear receive a spanking and/or masturbate.
Step 3: Profit.
JEFF KUBIK
