DVDs for V-Day: Love Stories

I'm a hopeless romantic and as such, I can't help but be drawn to epic romance stories. I'm not too big on campy rom-coms (though I've seen too many of them) and I'm not into second chances (true love gets it right the first time). I'm into stories about deeply honest, pure love that goes to no ends to make sure that it is fulfilled. It also helps if someone tragically dies at the end.

This Valentine's Day, I'd like to ask you to suspend disbelief for a few moments and indulge in these moving, deeply emotional stories about love.

4) COLD MOUNTAIN

While Inman (Jude Law) and Ada (Nicole Kidman) are separated throughout most of the film, it's their enduring distant love that pulls you in. Although conscripted in the American Civil War, Inman can't help but follow his heart back to Ada, even if it means deserting the war. Meanwhile, as he treks his way back to her, Ada is left to worry about his safe return, while mourning the death of her father and trying to work the family farm without him. It's a story about hope and faith in a love that endures what feels like endless time to findally be reunited.

3) THE NOTEBOOK

It's tough to put The Notebook on this list without fear of being cliché, but I have to do it. There's a reason that this movie resonates as one of the greatest modern love stories of all time. It's about a guy, Noah (Ryan Gosling), who's unrelenting in chasing his true love, Allie (Rachel McAdams), when things being to fall apart after their picture-perfect summer. Through years of pain and waiting, Noah is unyielding, making for a very bitter-sweet ending.

2) KITES

This underrated Bollywood movie has been one of the most surprising movies I've seen in the past couple years. While it seems much of Bollywood dismisses it because it's so different from their usual fare (no dance numbers, a mix of languages, and extremely rebellious), it's gone mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world who don't look out for Bollywood exports. J (Hrithik Roshan) is an American who marries immigrant women to get them green cards, but when he marries Mexican woman Linda (Bárbara Mori), he feels there's something more there. Meanwhile, she's actually engaged to someone else and plans for divorce once the arrangement is through. But after discovering their true feelings, divorce is out of the question. Of course, her fiancé doesn't take it well and the two flee the country, running from guns and threats and car chases, until they can finally be alone together.

1) MOULIN ROUGE

This is my favourite movie ever. Of all time. Just watching the trailer nearly makes me teary. It's the most epic love story I've ever seen. Christian (Ewan McGregor) is a "penniless writer" who falls in love with Satine (Nicole Kidman), a courtesan and star of the Moulin Rouge night club. Of course, their love can never be; her job prevents her from falling in love, especially with someone who can't afford to keep up with her demands. But their love is destined to be and despite all odds, they see it through. Aside from being a beautiful story, it's also got some of the most stunning set and costume design, along with truly convincing acting. It is the most emotional movie I've ever seen.

DVDs for V-Day: Love/Hate Stories

I swear I'm not here to piss on love stories.

In all honesty, I have much love for more than a few well-known wistful weepies (see: the Brokeback Mountain still kicking around my bedroom wall). But, to build on an idea dreamed up by a possible plagiarist of an Englishman, I think love is much more interesting (not to mention real) when its either sprung from, or becomes remains steeped in, some form of highly repressed hate. And no, it's not because I'm perpetually single. (Although, I'm sure it helps.)

This Valentine's Day let's buck the happily ever afters and those til-death-do-us-part paramours, and celebrate the anti-romances we can't help but love.


4) WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

When I was in high school, I read the Edward Albee play which this 1966 film based on. Immediately, I compared it to my then-favourite movie, American Beauty. Looking back now, I admit there are some similarities between the two  - American dreams indefinitely deferred, fully grown couples acting like children towards one another - but this is much more heartbreaking. While American Beauty takes moments to grace our cheeks with rose petals and smidgens of helpless hope, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? laps up the irksomeness, focusing solely on an awkward dinner party between jaggedly jaded, long-married man and wife, George and Martha (real-life doomed duo, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor), and their clueless newlywed guests. Martha's words are so cutting towards her husband at times, her tongue ought to fly off.


3) BLUE VALENTINE

This 2010 drama was almost completely ignored come awards season due to its adverse effect on audiences, who apparently wanted to see Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling cuddle and make like Mr. and Mrs. Smith (no, not the Angelina/Brad kind) for two hours. What they got instead was something groundbreaking - an up close and too personal (both in script and suggestive shooting) exploration of a relationship that never really was and thus, never really can be, through the eyes of two, equally unremarkable characters. What they got was far too many people's harsh truth.


2) REVOLUTIONARY ROAD 

Before this film, an adaptation of the Richard Yates novel of the same name, was released, it was touted as the much-awaited Jack and Rose reunion we had been waiting for since '97. But unlike Titanic, which brought a fresh-faced Leo DiCaprio and a fire-haired Kate Winslet together through the bow of a boat and the belts of Celine Dion, Revolutionary Road doesn't even try for a happy, heaven-set ending.  Every aspect of this 1950s suburbia-set drama - the bleak coloured clothes, the slow-progressing storyline, and DiCaprio and Winslet's brilliantly vacant, Oscar-deserving (but not nominated) performances - is depressing. But then again, so were plenty of marriages back then, when divorce was a fate worse than death.


1) SID AND NANCY

This one takes the poisoned chocolate cake simply because its doomed subjects - who led destructive, drug- and dagger-addled side-by-side lives until one of them died in a hotel bathroom - were real. The 1986 biopic documents the way-highs and skin-crawling lows of the infamously short-lived romance between Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his peroxide-happy girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.

Vicious and Spungen's journey was a dirty, sex, suicide pact and syringe-filled one, a fact that is not only admitted in this film, but embraced with reckless artistic abandon. Director Alex Webb brings out an unmatched (unless you count this), brutally infected rawness in his stars, Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, making much of the movie, which is made up mostly of long-winded verbal and physical fights followed by rabid love-making, near-unbearable to watch. But there's also macabre beauty to all of it, like when Oldman takes to an empty, florescent light-covered stage to sing Vicious cover of "My Way" to his barbed wire crowned babe, or the bloody pair embrace in what will become one of their death beds.

12 Days of Festive Faves

The Cinefilles are back just in time to rein in the holidays, and what better way than with our 12 Days of Festive Faves.

To get you in the spirit over the next two weeks, we'll bring you our top picks of the season, from heart-warming classics for the family to crack-up Christmas disasters for Scrooges. The holiday countdown begins tomorrow!

P.S. Let us know what your faves of the season are!

Freaky Fortnight!

With two more weeks to Halloween, the Cinefilles are here to countdown the days as you costume-hunt, candy shop and carve ol' jack-o'. Each day leading up to the spooky night, we'll bring you some of our faves of the season along with our sugary suggestions and dress-up bests. It's time to get in the spirit with our Freaky Fortnight!

Michelle's Top 5 Summer Movies. Ever.

I'll be honest. My favourite summer-themed films of all time do lean on the cheesy side, but isn't summer all about guilty pleasures? While some would rather spend their time loading up on calories from cheesy chili dogs, a cheesy movie can be just as satisfying. (Actually, both at the same time sound even better...) It's not to late to get a little silly with these films before summer's over.

5) Beach Blanket Bingo

Hahaha! Haha! This film is hilarious because it's so ridiculously corny. Honestly, if you're looking for a good laugh to send your summer off then this is it. As if the hairstyles, outfits and dance moves weren't enough alone to do it, the close-up shots of butts shakin' it are just hilarious. Jokes are lame, the story is pretty pointless and it's all about good, clean fun. It's far from the way you expect a film about 20-something-year-olds kicking it at the beach to be nowadays but in the 60s, it was all about Frankie and Annette and their silly singing and frolicking on the beach. Now, it's comedy for a whole different reason.

4) Camp Nowhere

Do not tell me that I'm not fourteen anymore; I do not care. I don't know a single kid that wouldn't have dreamed of a summer like the one in Camp Nowhere: no parents, dozens of friends and very deep pocket change. What more could you have asked for? It's also impossible that there would be so many oblivious parents out there, but that's just part of the charm. For those who haven't seen this fantasy-of-a-film, kids tricked their parents into going away to supposed "fat camps" and "computer camps," led by Mud (Jonathan Jackson) and Dennis Van Welker (an all too fitting Christopher Lloyd), who they've blackmailed into supporting their shenanigans. Come on, don't tell me you still wouldn't go if you had the chance.

Photo: youtube.com screencap

3) Caddyshack

OK, number one reason to see Caddyshack is the "poo" in the pool. Seriously. It's become one of the most brilliant, fool-proof pranks ever. Aside from that, it's got a roster of iconic comedians: Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and Ted Knight. For me though, it's all about Chase. He plays the overconfident Ty Webb, one of the co-founders of the Bushwood Country Club where Danny (Michael O'Keefe) is caddying all summer to save up for college in the fall. Ty's subtle moves are hilarious, even after re-watches. He's like an insane man trapped in the body of a golf-garbed sane dude.

Photo: source unknown

2) National Lampoon's Vacation

Evidently, I'm a Chevy Chase fan, and Vacation is just one of his funniest of all time. Clark Griswold (Chase) has decided to take his family on a summer vacation to Walley World and will stop at nothing to get there. And make it on the rides. That includes trudging across the country in one of the most hideous cars ever, visiting Ellen's (Beverly D'Angelo) cousin's crazy family, getting stranded in the desert and ever-so-respectfully disposing of Aunt Edna's body when she passes away in the midst of the trip. It's an awesome, crazy mess.

1) Now and Then

Summer is really about spending time with people you have a good time with and who better than your best friends. This film is so underrated. A 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes is just sad. But then again, most critics were older men, not little girls. The film about four lifelong friends taking a look back on the summer they began to grow up. Now and Then has so much heart it just makes me feel mushy gushy inside. It's all about friendship, sticking up for each other and having someone to confide in. It's also a much lighter and more realistic take on that messy adolescent stage in life that so many films tend to either mock or over-dramatize. Not to mention, the late 60s soundtrack is also super groovy.

Photo: source unknown

Michelle's Top 5 of Summer '10

For me, this summer was all about trippy films, be it 3D, mind games or lab experiments gone wrong in every way. Most times it was about being charmed by a beautiful idea, but sometimes it just felt good to be a little girl again. It was like a unconventional summer stay-cation, visiting times and concepts and oddities. Don't forget to pack your thinker!

5) Toy Story 3

Definitely one of the most anticipated films of the summer, led-up to with Toy Story and its sequel and brought back to theatres in 3D. The first two successful films weren't originally done in 3D and it seemed kind of risky to put the third out in 3D given all the major 3D failures lately. It's just that much sweeter when a film rocks it against doubts. But this film couldn't have done it for me without Barbie (Jodi Benson) and Ken (Michael Keaton), cracking jokes about Ken's all too obvious unmanliness and his destined love with Barbie.

Photo: allmoviephoto.com

4) Despicable Me

Steve Carell and Jason Segel is more than enough to sell a film but when it comes to kids films, we expect something corny, especially when it's about a two supposed evil masterminds and three chipmunk-cheeked little girls selling cookies. Doesn't leave much room for jokes for the parents but for those of us who are still secretly a five-year-old version of ourselves, this film was just right. I mean, come on, silly faces and sounds are still funny.

Photo: allmoviephoto.com

3) Mr. Nobody

This film was all about possibilities. What could have been? What was? They're both meshed in this film. It's an idea so limitless-ly fulfilling that it's depressing, if that even makes sense. Not that it's easy to understand much of the film itself. It's a futuristic utopian/dystopian film set to make us appreciate the way we live our lives right now, but also reminding us of the choices we've had in our own lives. In other words, it's a film for those who hobby thinking.

Photo: teaser-trailer.com

2) Splice

This film's beauty was in its unpredictability. Like Mr. Nobody, the film played with a utopian/dystopian idea: What if we could create animal-human hybrids? The results were repulsive, sweet, terrifying and sexy. This idea was intertwined with the story of a young couple going through their young couple woes but totally shaken up by this new being in their lives. In simplest terms, this film is very, very weird and discomforting. But some of us love that kind of thing.

Photo: allmoviephoto.com

1) Inception

How awesome is it when your most anticipated film of the summer actually meets your expectations? Come on. Who doesn't want to a see a film set in imaginations of stunningly unfamiliar worlds where the earth can fold over above or people can die but don't really die or where you can pry through others' thoughts? Just wow. Beautiful idea, great execution and a cast that fits almost seamlessly together. What more could you ask for? And not that I'm an Ellen Page fan but I like to root for my Canadians and this film seemed like a step, albeit a baby step, away from her usual troubled teenager role and into the clever college student role. Who knows, maybe next we'll see her a struggling young adult.

Photo: allmoviephoto.com

Cinefilles take on summer '10

Photo: Thomas Hawk

Farewell toasty tans, goodbye patio nights - our sweet and sultry summer is almost at its end. But no worries. To help ease the tremendous pain of our most frivolous season gone by, Cinefilles is sending the summer off with our end-of-summer themed week.

In place of our Monday and Friday regulars, we'll sum up the last few months with our "Top 5 of Summer '10", sharing with you the films that really rocked our flip-flops. We're also rejigging our weekly "Don't You Forget About" to feature our top summer-themed films of all time so you can get your last fix of hot, golden sunshine with some rentals before the days get shorter.

Get ready for your last week to grab a snow cone and hit the flicks!

The Filles

P.S. - Feel free to chime in and comment with your faves too!