I would put most screwball comedies over any of the recent films
If you haven't seen it, check out It's Love I'm After. Bette Davis and Leslie Howard play a bickering pair of stage actors (think Lunt and Fontanne with serious problems getting along offstage). Olivia deHavilland plays an heiress who falls for Howard's character, then invites the pair to weekend at the family mansion. Comedy ensures. Boy, does it ever.
Another great screwball that also qualifies as a rom com is My Man Godfrey, but that one doesn't qualify as "unjustly forgotten."
Katharine Hepburn? Well, there wouldn't have been a movie without her (the role was specifically written for her, IIRC.)
The story I've heard goes further than that. In the late '30s, she appeared on a list of "box office poison" actors/actresses. So she got Philip Barry (the Neil Simon of his day) to write the play, The Philadelphia Story, specifically for her. The play was a Broadway hit, and when MGM came around to buy the movie rights, one condition was that she play Tracy in the movie.
Hmmm. Would the re-make of
The Thomas Crown Affair
be considered a rom-com?
don't think so...I'd call it a "caper, with romantic and comedic elements."
Great movie, though.
What counts as a nihilistic action film? I suspect I love or hate them.
Skipped a bunch, so this may have been answered, but since I made up the term I guess I should 'splain myself. I like action films, so it's not the shoot-'em-up that gets to me. It's the shoot-'em-because-there's-a-hole-in-my-soul that I find dreary.
Bleak. That's it. Action + Bleak - any Happy at all = nihilistic action film. The Dark Knight. I know, I know, Heath Ledger's last film. But I hated it all the same.
(And now please forgive me for not defending my shallow, Pollyanna tastes. I'm not being avoidy, I just need to get some grading done.)
Bleak. That's it. Action + Bleak - any Happy at all = nihilistic action film. The Dark Knight. I know, I know, Heath Ledger's last film. But I hated it all the same.
Hey, I am All Batman, All The Time, and I loved Batman Begins and bought it on DVD the day it came out.
I have no desire to see The Dark Knight again, nor do I want the DVD. You're spot on -- it is bleak. Bleeeeeeeak. With a side of why god why.
Aha. I do love the nihilistic action film. I love the cheery action film also, but Batman needs a hole in his soul, and I adore him to bits.
eta:
With a side of why god why.
Because he can! The only reason I haven't bought it yet is because I don't have a Blu Ray player, and it deserves Blu Ray.
Batman needs a hole in his soul, and I adore him to bits.
Batman *does* need a hole in his soul, and yet, I can't quite get past the monolith of bleakness that The Dark Knight was. (For me, of course. I know other people didn't find it as unrelentingly bleak.)
The bleakness of
Dark Knight
is one of the reason I love it. Almost everything the "good guys" do doesn't work out.
I have no desire to see The Dark Knight again, nor do I want the DVD. You're spot on -- it is bleak. Bleeeeeeeak. With a side of why god why.
See, me? My only complaint is that James Gordon Had a Daughter. Damn it.
(Which, err. Apparently wound up leading me to write my most commented-on piece of fic outside of that Dean/Victor piece for SPN.)
But it was FABULOUSLY WONDERFULLY PERFECT IN ITS BLEAKNESS. And NOT ENTIRELY WITHOUT MOMENTS OF LIGHT.
I have no desire to see The Dark Knight again, nor do I want the DVD. You're spot on -- it is bleak. Bleeeeeeeak. With a side of why god why.
I'm glad to hear it's not just me. I think I'm too thin skinned.
