Sunday, June 16, 2013

The Great (film) Debates vol. 84

Taking a date to a movie is an American tradition... like drag racing or watching football or polo.

Best date movie?


Panelist: Tennessee Jed

Well, You've Got Mail has the requisite amount sappiness, but I'm going to go with a surprise choice . . . the recently released This Means War with Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine is excellent in this regard. A little Bond, a little Reese, a little tenderness, a little sex. It's all there folks.

Panelist: ScottDS

Anything by Richard Curtis a.k.a. the man who makes it all look easy. Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually, not to mention the underrated Pirate Radio. Needless to say, he seems to have cracked the code AND he once said something that's still relevant today: "If you write a story about a soldier going AWOL and kidnapping a pregnant woman and finally shooting her in the head, it's called searingly realistic, even though it's never happened in the history of mankind. Whereas if you write about two people falling in love, which happens about a million times a day all over the world, for some reason or another, you're accused of writing something unrealistic and sentimental."

Panelist: T-Rav

Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don’t know of another movie that gives such a prominent role to the nutritious date, and what better figure to advertise the fruit than Indiana Jones?

Panelist: BevfromNYC

From a woman’s perspective, any movie that is scary enough to make you want to “clutch on” to your “very strong and protective” date, but not so graphic and gross to be sickening.

Panelist: AndrewPrice

An Inconvenient Truth. It's dull enough for interests to turn elsewhere... fast. It's scary to be surrounded by zombies, so you get the whole scary movie effect, which works well on dates. And it's just pure fantasy which is great for sending the mind to creative places.

Comments? Thoughts?

26 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

gotta love that Bev for her well known specificity. Ah geez, Andrew, that's made me laugh out freakin' loud. Scott - loved Notting Hill. Didn't realize at the time it had that great Downton Abbey connection. Rav - I had never thought about "Indie" that way, but hell ... why not!

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, I'm all about the scientific approach. :)

I have to say that I enjoyed This Means War a good deal.

tryanmax said...

IMO, if you can remember what movie you saw, then it wasn't a very good date.

Dave Olson said...

I like to go old school. Well, not really THAT old; call it middle-age school. It's hard to go wrong with Somewhere in Time, Chris Reeve's first role after Superman. It was a box office dud, but it came out at just the right time to get regular play on cable and home video and has become a bone-fide cult classic. It also introduced me to the lovely and talented Jane Seymour, which is noteworthy in and of itself.

For hardcore old school (no not THAT kind, it's a date for cryin' out loud!), I recommend either Singin' in the Rain or City Lights. And for a different twist on a date movie, try Always, an under-appreciated gem by Spielberg. It's an action romance comedy drama.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, A solid point indeed!

AndrewPrice said...

Dave, Somewhere in Time has a very strong following, as does Always. Excellent choices!

BevfromNYC said...

See, 10J, Tran Max agrees! It isn't really about any specific movie. 'Cause if you remember it, then you didn't choose wisely! ;-D

T-Rav said...

Jed, thank you for being the only one to get my play on words there....I think. :-/

Incidentally, I had no idea watching polo was an American tradition.

AndrewPrice said...

10J? LOL! Now Jed has a rapper name! :)

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, What? You never watched polo? All Americans watch polo... and soccer.

P.S. Nice play on words!

Tennessee Jed said...

nutritious dates ... and that reminds me of another great date move, Animal House. I'm sure Fawn would agree.

K said...

Speaking of nutritious dates, I believe this won the coveted Palme d'Or at Cannes for best date movie.

AndrewPrice said...

K, He's the Juan Valdez of dates!

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, Fawn would certainly agree. LOL!

AndrewPrice said...

BTW, as for nutritious dates, I do need to point out that T-Rav's has erred. Those were definitely bad dates. An dates that result in dead monkeys are bad dates.

T-Rav said...

Andrew, first of all, clearly you've never met many monkeys. Have one fling its poop at you and then get back to me. Second, they weren't bad dates until patch-eyed motorcycle guy poured poison on them. Indy and Marion were even munching on some before she got kidnapped, with which that had nothing to do. So there.

Anonymous said...

Andrew -

I see you already beat me to the Raiders reference.

Now... what's your serious answer? :-)

Anonymous said...

Jed -

I still need to see This Means War. Redbox doesn't have it anymore but I'll get around to it one day.

And I also have yet to see You've Got Mail, now that I think of it.

Anonymous said...

tryanmax -

IMO, if you can remember what movie you saw, then it wasn't a very good date.

Well said!

(Years ago, I went to see the second Austin Powers flick with a cute co-worker. Nothing happened and I've been kicking myself in the ass ever since!)

Anonymous said...

Dave -

I enjoyed Somewhere in Time a great deal and I only saw it for the first time maybe 5 years ago... glad to see it's still a cult favorite.

Always is one of the only Spielberg flicks I have yet to see.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, That would be annoying to be pooped on. I guess that justifies a mass killing. :D

Good point about the other dates. It was just the one bad one. And it wasn't even the date's fault, it was the poison placed on the date... date tampering.

AndrewPrice said...

Scott, My serious answer?

Anonymous said...

Yes, if this weren't a political site, what do you really think is the best date movie?

:-)

AndrewPrice said...

Scott, I would say that horror movies are always the best, especially if they aren't too serious. Something like Scream.

5minutes said...

Somewhere in Time is a nightmare. When a couple of chicks insisted me and a friend watch it back in the early 90's (93 or so), I said out loud: "I want those 2 hours of my life back and I kinda want something bad to happen to Christopher Reeve for starring in that steaming pile of crap".

I'm being serious.

Perfect date movie? Depends on the woman, but the one that worked for me and got me my wife... Titanic (at the $2 theater). Then I made it stick with "Runaway Bride" and "You've Got Mail".

And she made it stick with every sci-fi action flick we could come across. Good woman. :)

AndrewPrice said...

5Minutes, Science fiction is good. :)

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