Valentine's Day: A Cruel Picture
Feb 14 '05
The Bottom Line The anti-romance films for Valentine's Day. They show love at their darkest, happiest, most troubling, or violent, and that you are not a cliched romantic if you watch them.
"The man who tells a woman he doesn't celebrate or believe in Valentine's Day is not rewarded or applauded; he is branded as a terminal cheapskate and a thoughtless oaf."
-Richard Roeper
This is my first year in my entire history of receiving my membership card in the dating world, that I am able to spend Valentine's Day all alone. That's right, it's a whole day of me being single, and not just being single, but a day in which if I go out to my favorite pub to visit with all of my friends and we will have couplehood thrown in our faces. If we try to pick up a girl, odds are we will be punched, as she is dating some man named Dolph and for some reason he just cracked his fingers. I don't think I have to worry about that tonight though. My friends are single as well. It's an all night apartment booze and porn fest.
But anyway, enough about all of that. Valentine's Day is an insanely cliched holiday; you could call it the Anti-Halloween. Women know what to expect when it comes to Valentine's Day, and the men do it for them. They give them exactly what they want, ie flowers, chocolates, teddy bears, the works. You'll rarely run into someone who gives their Valentine something that doesn't fall into that category. When was the last time you ran into someone who crafted a nice lawn gnome with their own bare hands all for their Valentine? Doesn't happen.
Given that Valentine's Day is insanely cliched, and I cannot stress that enough, the only part where you can bring in some sort oddball originality to this commercial holiday is to seriously think long and hard about what movie you are going to watch that night. That's when you get to actually use your mind to find that perfect movie. Of course, you're thinking some screwball flick from the golden age of motion pictures, or a Hanks/Ryan flick, but that's not the way to go. Neither is Ronald Reagan and a monkey. If you're going to go that route, you might as well actually watch a movie about teddy bears and chocolate. You want your significant other to know just how your mind works and how devilishly crazy you are, so show her some of these flicks I have listed. She'll either slap you or think that you're the coolest freak on the planet, but the point is is that with these flicks, you'll have a lot to talk about. These are my counteractive Valentine's Day films to compete with all the bubble gum romantic comedies that will indeed be missing from the video store shelves today.
These are films that show romance and their darkest and at their most unpredictable. Sometimes very funny, very romantic, or very very disturbing and graphic. In either case, it all revolves around some form of passion, be it love or lust.
American Gigolo
Check it out, on the surface, this thriller appears to be just some shallow story about vanity and sex and lust and greed and murder and corruption, all revolving around Richard Gere who plays Julian, a male escort who courts the rich, elderly, and sometimes beautiful in California. Without wanting any pay, he begins a relationship a politician's wife, played by Lauren Hutton. When one of his clients is murdered, he begins to expect that he has been framed, all while dodging the police who want to pump information out of him concerning his clients. This is a brilliant, moody, atmospheric Paul Schrader film, where we have all of these tense and paranoid scenes, when in the end it's left on a simple note that this is a man who wants not only to be loved, but to also hear it.
Audition
A fantastic film about love and torture and how the two of them seem to kind of intertwine just a little bit. It starts out all nice and romantic as if you want to show it to your current love interest, but then it does a complete 180 and gives us some of the most harsh, graphic, and downright disturbing scenes of violence and fright ever put on film. Most notably the very long torture scene involving a high squeaky voice, needles, and some piano wire. I never thought I would say this about a movie, but it really is "You've Got Mail" intertwined with "Mulholland Dr," "Fatal Attraction," and "Last House on the Left." It'll make me very careful of who I fall in love with, if indeed I ever fall in love again.
Coupling
If the rest of these titles make you a little worry-some about watching them on this "cherished" holiday, then don't worry, this is a safe pick that you can go with. I absolutely love the BBC's "Coupling," it's one of my absolute favorite television shows, and it is simply amazing that with each episode, the writing is still smart, we are constantly knowing more about the characters, and it never strays away from being as freshly original as when it premiered. This is one of the only television series where all the episodes are classics that you can watch again and again. The series revolves around six characters (three men, three women) and their theories on life, mainly that being sex, love, and couplehood. Kind of like a cross between "Friends," "Seinfeld," and "Sex and the City," the series is funnier and more truthful than all three of those put together.
Eyes Wide Shut
Stanley Kubrick's final film is an absolute masterpiece of lies and lust in New York City. Cruise and Kidman play a married couple who seem to be happy, and they seem to have everything they need, and that nothing can bother them. That is until the two get stoned one night and accuse eachother of infidelity and question their own opinions on the subject matter. Cruise angrily leaves and spends one psycho sexual "After Hours"-like odyssey in the darkest corners of the city. Eventually he gets caught up with a hooker, a costume designer and his nympho daughter, and finally a cult orgy which might have ended in murder. This is a brilliant, brilliant film that gets more mysterious whenever I watch it.
House on the Edge of the Park
This is my favorite exploitation film of all time. Ruggero Deodato's masterpiece is a psychological thriller involving a serial rapist (David Hess) and his half wit best friend (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) who are invited to an upscale party in the wealthy section of New York. Once there, Hess quickly turns the party into a wild orgy of violence and rape. This movie is a lot more though than just psychos at a party. The movie is smart, witty, and it is tense as hell, complete with fantastic cinematography and an excellent, sometimes beautiful musical score. There is one scene in this film where Hess finally beds party goer Annie Belle, and it contains some of the most raw passion ever put into a love scene on film. As it starts out, it seems like rape, but when it goes on, it turns into these two characters really really "wanting" each other. When you're watching it, you would swear that these two are actually, and savagely, having sex on film. According to an interview with Hess, they were.
I Spit On Your Grave
About 4 years ago I was dating this girl, who I went out with for a couple of years, and she heard about "I Spit On Your Grave," either from me talking about it, or simply its reputation. She told me that she wanted to see the film, and this was before I owned it. So, Valentine's Day was coming up, and I didn't know what to get her, and of course, I don't like buying the usual gifts. So, I bought her her own copy of "I Spit On Your Grave," special edition naturally, since, you know, she wanted to see it. Well, she wasn't amused. She thought the gift was funny, but she also thought I was a dork for getting it. Once she watched it, she thought I was an even bigger dork. I really don't know if she liked the movie or not, but my getting that for her was a constant topic of conversation. The movie has absolutely no romance in it at all, no happiness or passion either, but I got this movie for a girlfriend on Valentine's Day. It goes on my list.
Last American Virgin
Now here's a movie that will leave you and your significant other laughing hysterically in the first part of the film, then when it gets to about the last third, you will be crying in each other's arms, wondering what kind of schizo film you just watched. Seriously, the first part of the film has comedy on par with "Porky's" or "Screwballs" and has a soundtrack with the likes of "Shake It Up" by The Cars, but by the end of the film (where the song that keeps playing is "Open Arms" by Journey) you'll probably form a suicide pact. The movie's plot has to do with three high school guys simply wanting to get laid, but surprisingly enough, when they do, it turns into some serious and dramatic consequences. Wow, you don't see that everyday in a teen sex flick.
The Night Porter
Here was have it: the most disturbing love story ever made. You're not sure if you want to cry, or simply take pity, or maybe a little bit of both. Some people will just plain shut the movie off before it's over. The movie is about a former nazi (Dirk Bogard), awaiting trail, who works as a night porter in a fancy hotel. One of the wealthy guests turns out to be a beautiful former prisoner of his concentration camp (Charlotte Rampling), whom he carried on an affair with, and even gave her a severed head as a gift. The two rekindle their masochistic union (one scene involves broken glass) all while other former nazis try to kill off the both of them, with Rampling being a witness and Bogard protecting her. I absolutely loved this movie. It's some deep stuff, and there's a lot of great emotions and inner conflict that go through each of the characters, especially in a scene where Bogard wants to kill her for showing up at the hotel, prompting her to phone authorities, but then they remember just what they meant to each other. It's like they've accepted what their fate is, and it's pretty damn depressing.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
I know, it's weird putting a James Bond movie on here for Valentine's Day, right, but check this out. This is the BEST James Bond movie and my absolute favorite Spy film of all time. This movie is brilliant, simply brilliant, for several reasons. One, it is the only Bond film where we see Bond, not only as this invincible hero, but also as a real human being with real feelings, and that is thanks largely in part to the fantastic script and also to the great lead performance by George Lazenby. This is the Bond movie where we actually see Bond fall in love, amidst all the daring stunts and the evil plot by Blofeld to take over the world with mind control. Bond's scenes with Diana Rigg are quiet, romantic, and incredibly human, resulting in the film being, of all things, a love story with great chase sequences. All of which makes the ending all the more shocking and absolutely gut wrenching. It's a Bond film that absolutely breaks your heart into several tiny edible pieces.
The Pick Up Artist
Another safe bet to go with this Valentine's Day, if in fact that you feel "I Spit On Your Grave" is a very very bad choice to go with. This movie is like scripture, it's like the Holy Bible to me, and I grew up going to religious schools, but I didn't get into all of that, do you know why? Because I had "The Pick Up Artist." When I first saw this movie it taught me all I needed to know about life and love and how they cause both sadness and happiness, but at the same time it taught me to be cool, and how to speak an absolute mile a minute about nonsense, yet still come across like you know exactly what you're talking about. Did it work for me as well as it worked for Robert Downey Jr in this film? That's my secret, but I will say that I got dirty looks whenever I ran into someone who new what both a Botticelli and a Degas were.
She Killed In Ecstasy
This is an INCREDIBLY erotic film, most of it done with extreme softcore sensual activity, but it isn't so much the body of lead actress Soledad Miranda that gets the blood pumping (even though she is an absolute 10), but it is her eyes. Most of her acting in this film is done with a cold gaze, that works well in the violent scenes, and works incredibly hardcore in her scenes of ultimate seduction. The movie is a revenge flick from Jess Franco, where Miranda's husband commits suicide after his reputation as a doctor is ruined, prompting Miranda to systematically seduce and kill the medical board members who terminated his research. What makes this movie work so well, is that it's a film more about the seduction, then the actual art of her killing these people. It's a very erotic film.
Soft Beds, Hard Battles
Also known as "Undercovers Hero," this was quite a hard movie to find until its release on an R2 DVD a couple years ago. It's one of those 70's Peter Sellers flicks that basically just came and went and were never really heard from again, but I've always found this film to be quite hysterical. It's dumb, yes, and undeniably stupid, but the parts in the film that are funny are an absolute riot. The movie is about a brothel in WWII that is turned into a center for the French Resistance. Nevermind that though, the film has Sellers playing 6 different characters, one of them being Adolf Hitler!! Highlights include a bed in the brothel that flings the men into a deep pit that cracks their necks, and a scene where a large group of enemy soldiers are killed by a deadly laxative. A sexploitation comedy that isn't "good" by any means, but it's got some crazy sophomoric laughs.
Thriller: A Cruel Picture
Widely known as the ultimate feminist revenge picture, it's a movie that definitely lives up to its harsh and brutal reputation, but let it be known that this movie is also simply cool as hell. This is a damn fine flick, certainly one of the best exploitation films I've seen. It's definitely hard to watch in many many places, especially if you get very emotionally attached to the character as I or anyone would. Christina Lindberg turns in such an innocent yet oddly savage performance as a young mute girl who is kidnapped, tortured, and forced into a life of drug addiction and prostitution. When she isn't having hardcore sex for the sole purpose of drugs, she's learning how to use a gun, how to defend herself, and also how to use a car. All of which she uses as the climax shows her extracting her revenge on her captors and all those clients who have abused her. When you watch this with your girlfriend, it may put her in a very happy mood to simply root for this person, but she may just hate your guts afterwards, because, of course, men are pigs.
If your romantic partner loves you for showing them "Thriller" or any of the other movies on this list...marry them. Simply put, get down on one knee and propose. This is your ultimate test, for men and women. I don't care if it is cliched that you're proposing on Valentine's Day. Think of it this way, you're not proposing because of what day it is, you're proposing because they absolutely dig "House on the Edge of the Park" or "Thriller" or "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." That's the sign of true love, my friends.
Happy Valentine's Day.
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Epinions.com ID:
caligula79
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Member: Brad
Location: Long Beach, CA
Reviews written: 141
Trusted by: 21 members
About Me:
Reside in both Long Beach, California and Springfield, Illinois. I'm region-polar.
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