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The witty and likeable, lightweight, old-fashioned romantic comedy, When Harry Met Sally... (1989) was intended to answer the sexual politics question, "Can two friends sleep together and still love each other in the morning?" The engaging, episodic film keenly observes romance, relationships between males and females, friendship and sex. Two long-time acquaintances Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) and Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) grapple with this question over a 12-year period (beginning in the spring of 1977), as their relationship grows and matures. Their love is not "at first sight" but takes years to develop.
Their contrasting names reflect their polar-opposite attitudes toward life: the dark, angst-driven, eternally pessimistic but warm nature of the male, with the bright-eyed, perky, fresh-faced, effervescent and happier character of the female. In fact, Harry says early on, "When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side." He is basically sexist and irascible, while she fights back in a persnickety, eccentric, feminist way. link
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Contrary to popular perception, not all chick flicks are full of frivolity with little or no substance. In fact, this genre covers a wide range of movies which became popular beginning in the 1980's, with this trend accelerating in the past few years. They often feature strong, independent-minded female characters. While many focus on relationships and appeal largely, though not exclusively, to younger women, it is not a given that such films inevitably have happy endings. An excellent example would be Terms of Endearment (1983) which received Academy Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
Is the slang term "chick flick" a dismissive and, perhaps, even a mildly derisive term? Not necessarily so
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'Chick flicks' have often been put down as trite, sappy, emotional, soap-opera-ish, cliched, melodramatic, weepy, and trivial. Often considered an all-encompassing sub-genre, they mostly include dialogue-laden, formulated romantic comedies (with mis-matched lovers or female relationships), tearjerkers and gal-pal films, movies about family crises and emotional catharsis, some traditional 'weepies' and fantasy-action adventures, sometimes with foul-mouthed and empowered females, and female bonding situations involving families, mothers, daughters and children.
Actors and actresses typically associated with 'chick' flicks include Meg Ryan, Barbra Streisand, Hugh Grant, Mel Gibson, Emma Thompson, Renee Zellweger, Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Witherspoon, Drew Barrymore, or Julia Roberts, among others. From the following list, it appears that 'chick' flicks have become a prominent staple of films beginning in the mid-1980s and after. Compared to the earlier "woman's film," film critic Molly Haskell has written that the:
"chick flick", chirrupy and upbeat, sings a different tune, more defiant and ironic, postmodern and post-feminist, like the growling braggadocio of "grrrl power". Where "grrrl power" says "I can be cute and assertive too", "chick flick" says: "I'm emancipated but it's OK to long for romance, to get hung up on a guy, to obsess about mothers or children."
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In the kitchen while preparing food, real-estate attorney Meg Jones (Mary Kay Place), who had always wanted a child, commiserated with Sarah Cooper (Glenn Close) about the lack of available men, during a reunion with other University of Michigan graduates:
Meg: They're either married or gay. And if they're not gay, they've just broken up with the most wonderful woman in the world, or they've just broken up with a bitch who looks exactly like me. They're in transition from a monogamous relationship and they need more space. Or they're tired of space, but they just can't commit. Or they want to commit, but they're afraid to get close. They want to get close, and you don't want to get near them.
Sarah: It can't be that bad.
Meg: I don't know. I'm goin' easy. I've been out there dating for twenty years. I've gotten where I can tell in the first fifteen seconds if there's a chance in the world.
Sarah: Well, at least you're giving them a fair shot.
Meg: Yeah, that's easy for you to say. Married to Harold, the perfect man. I don't know. Sometimes, I think I don't even want a man anymore. So here I sit on my ticking biological clock, and the only thing I've known in my entire life is that I want to have a child. Don't remind me. This probably was the right thing to do at the time.
Sarah: So, what do ya do?"
Meg: I'm gonna have a baby.
Sarah: What? link
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Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon play Thelma and Louise, two working-class friends who together have planned a weekend getaway from the men in their lives. Thelma's husband, Darryl (Chris McDonald), is an overbearing oaf, and Louise's boyfriend, Jimmy (Michael Madsen), simply will not commit. Though the road trip starts out as a good time, the pair eventually wind up at a bar. A tipsy Thelma ends up in the parking lot of the bar with a would-be rapist. Louise shoots the man dead. The two decide that they have no choice but to go on the run. They eventually meet up with a young criminal named J.D. (Brad Pitt), whose cowboy spirit rubs off on the timid Thelma. The pair is pursued by a police officer (Harvey Keitel) sympathetic toward their plight. He chases them to the Grand Canyon, where the women make a fateful decision about their lives.
Directed by Ridley Scott, Thelma & Louise brought first-time screenwriter Callie Khouri many accolades including the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. link
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Friendship is the most difficult of all relationships to define in films that are not caper movies or adventure melodramas, in which action is the emotion, or in romances that lead to sexual fulfillment. Friendship is profound and mysterious. It defies close examination. In a movie, friendship is anticlimactic...
"Julia" is Miss Hellman's moving recollection of her childhood friend who was a rebel in the nursery, an angry recorder (with her Brownie) of the peasant's unfortunate lot when she toured Egypt as an adolescent, and a full-fledged anti-Fascist by the time she was a young woman studying medicine in Vienna when Hitler came to power.
But this more or less contemporary story, which has to do with Lillian's attempts to help Julia, the freedom fighter in the late 1930's (and particularly in a good cloak-and-dagger bit when Lillian smuggles $50,000 to Julia in Hitler's Berlin), is constantly interrupted by further flashbacks meant to demonstrate the relationship of the two girls. link
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The rest of the movies listed in the diary poll include such diverse story lines as The Philadelphia Story, Romancing the Stone, As Good As It Gets, The French Lieutenant's Woman...
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[This] is an intelligent, sophisticated, classic romantic comedy-farce (part screwball) of love and marriage, human growth and class distinctions... Typical of screwball comedies with an irreverent style and tone, the film emphasizes how the rich upper class have become blinded to the simple joys of life, during a time of upheaval and messy romances surrounding an impending marriage. link
Romancing the Stone is a silly, high-spirited chase picture that takes us, as they say, from the canyons of Manhattan to the steaming jungles of South America. The movie's about a New York woman who writes romantic thrillers in which the hungry lips of lovers devour each other as the sun sinks over the dead bodies of their enemies. Then she gets involved in a real-life thriller, which is filled with cliff-hanging predicaments just like the ones she writes about. link.
Misanthropic author Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) finally professed his love for single mother/waitress Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt):
I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer - 'Spence' - and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me.
Is that something that's, uh, bad for you to be around, for you? link
John Fowles made us stand at a distance from his two doomed lovers, Sarah and Charles. He told their story, of a passion that was forbidden by the full weight of Victorian convention... The French lieutenant's woman is one of the most intriguing characters in recent fiction. She is not only apparently the victim of Victorian sexism, but also (as Charles discovers) its manipulator and master. She cleverly uses the conventions that would limit her, as a means of obtaining personal freedom and power over men. At least that is one way to look at what she does... [it] is a beautiful film to look at, and remarkably well-acted. Streep was showered with praise for her remarkable double performance, and she deserved it. link. |
... The English Patient, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Bridget Jones's Diary, A Room With A View, Looking For Mr. Goodbar, and Sense And Sensibility.
A Note About the Diary Poll
A number of good movies could have as easily made it to the diary poll. As always, this list is not the "best of" such films. Several others like Casablanca (1942) and The Remains of the Day (1993) have been discussed in recent diaries that I have posted.
A few others include Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961); Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994); Dirty Dancing (1987); Nine to Five (1980); Barefoot in the Park (1967); An Unmarried Woman (1978); Grease (1978); Desperately Seeking Susan (1985); Notting Hill (1999); Pretty in Pink (1986); A League of Their Own (1992); Educating Rita (1983); Fried Green Tomatoes (1991); Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974); An Officer and a Gentleman (1982); Erin Brockovich (2000); Steel Magnolias (1989); She's Gotta Have It (1986); My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002); and Howards End (1992).
If your favorite movie is not mentioned in the diary, do look it up on these web sites
Don't forget to take the diary poll. Thanks.