Gold Watches

I promise I haven’t abandoned you, friends! Let me explain briefly what’s happening and why I’ve been neglectful.

But first, an amendment to the list. I happened to review THIS MEANS WAR for Philadelphia City Paper. It was (to put it mildly) a total stinker that featured most of Hollywood’s worst romantic comedy cliches. Reese Witherspoon plays a girl who, despite being gorgeous as hell, works too hard to find love. Chris Pine is a manchild who needs a woman to finally grow up. And, picking up on a common screwball comedy thread (A Philadelphia Story uses this to great effect—more on that coming), Tom Hardy stars as a divorcee whose appalling sexual interludes are okay because, really, he’s sensitive deep down. And he has a kid, so how bad can he be?

I mention that because it reminded me why I wanted to do this in the first place. Romantic comedies as a genre have become such watered down, predictable fare. They weren’t always this way, though, and it’s interesting to trace that development. Personally, I blame the neoconservative Ephron fare of the ’80s and ’90s, but that’s just me.

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Sincere apologies for being away so long. Real life has sadly interfered with my ability to watch movies, and certainly to write about that. Rest assured, I will pick things back up again shortly.

Hollywood would make far more money if today’s romantic comedies were more like A Philadelphia Story. It’s charming, it’s smart, and it has an edge, which all sums up to show that it isn’t scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Today’s flick was Kissing Jessica Stein, a movie often hailed as being far more progressive than it actually is. It’s still worth checking out for its indie twee cuteness, but it’s not quite the alternative fare you might think.

Anyway, as we approach toward the end of the first week of February—and the first week of this watch-29-romantic-comedies-in-29-days-project—it seems like a good time to take stock of how things are going.

It’s day 6, and I’ve watched 5 romantic comedies… and written about 2. I didn’t plan to go this route, but I’m glad I started with some of the genre’s classics. City Lights and It Happened One Night really lay the foundations for what comes next, something I’ve come to appreciate as I now skip around from decade to decade. For example, I always knew that You’ve Got Mail (movie three) was intertextual, but I didn’t appreciate that referentiality until I learned more about the screwball comedy formula.

It’s also helpful to consider how Harold and Maude and Kissing Jessica Stein create alternative patterns for the heterosexual romantic comedy while still reinforcing those traditions. But more on that later, when I get around to writing them up.

Movies watched: 5 of 29
Days remaining: 23.

Three other things I noticed that could easily get their own lengthy posts, but which I’ll only mention briefly.

First: It Happened One Night is an early example of a road movie, but I think it differs heavily from many of its post-war predecessors. The road is not the vessel through which Ellie or Peter obtain their agency. Rather, it’s the vehicle by which Hollywood can turn its lens on social injustice and economic hardship as the romance between two glamorous characters plays out.

Second: For all of its social critiques, the movie turns out to be incredibly paternalistic. Seriously, Ellie has very clear daddy issues. She starts the film by fleeing from her controlling father, only to eventually capitulate to the protective and controlling Peter. The fact that Peter behaves so carefully around her and keeps her safe is what causes her to fall in love with him. Seeing the lengths to which he will go to assist her is what eventually causes her to give in and quit her bitchin’.

Third: I’m sure I’ll touch on this when it comes time to watch Philadelphia Story, but screwball comedies are often called sex-less sex comedies. Because of Hollywood’s (largely self-imposed) Production Code, films had to find clever ways to display risque or untoward content. It Happened One Night actually uses that to great effect by using a blanket on a clothesline to symbolize Peter and Ellie’s initially sexless relationship… and their eventual post-marital union.

Chaplin and City Lights were certainly responsible for intertwining romance and comedy, but it wasn’t until It Happened One Night (1934) that Hollywood began to crystallize the romantic comedy formula.

That said, the formula utilized in Frank Capra’s Oscar-winning farce is hardly that of romantic comedy as modern audiences recognize it—because it’s inextricably tied to class.

By way of explanation, a brief history lesson:

In 1929, the stock market collapses, and the economy plunges. Life becomes hard for the masses, and the demand for escapist-oriented entertainment surges because they desperately want to be rich. At the same time, many folk resent the wealthy elite either for causing the economic crisis or for continuing to live a relatively lavish lifestyle in the midst of so much suffering. Thus, Hollywood aims to create films that critique the wealthy and expose the very social injustices that audiences are trying to escape. (Roughly 80 years later, we find ourselves in a similar economic situation. This time, Hollywood isn’t immune from economic pressures and is forced to take a fairly different aesthetic approach. But I digress.)

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It’s RomCom Bowl day! I’m trying to get three movies in before the pigskin kickoff, since I want to regain some shred of masculinity today, but we’ll see how the impending chaos happens. Here are some quick notes from today’s viewings, updated after each movie:

12:50p: I just finished Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934) and realized with dismay that most of my notes again revolve around the concept of capital and class-conflict. Again. I’ll try to keep most of that out of the full write-up and focus instead on how the concept of the “meet-cute” really crystallizes in that movie.

Next up is You’ve Got Mail (1998), a movie which I’ve never been entirely crazy about (the line “152… insights into my soul” basically sums up why). But it’s referentiality is fairly interesting, as is its reliance on contemporary technology as the vehicle for which these characters Find Love in a Hopeless Place.

3:15p: The last time I watched You’ve Got Mail, I thought it was completely hokey and tacky. I guess I’ve come around some (although it does contain some of Nora Ephron’s schmaltziest moments), especially because I couldn’t stop thinking about how much New York has changed between 1998 and 2012. At one point, one of Meg Ryan’s employees laments the fact that she might have to move to Brooklyn. Now, what independent bookstore employee doesn’t live in Brooklyn? It’s basically a prerequisite for the job.

More than that, I keep wondering if this movie sparked the online dating craze. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure people were doing it. But if anything, it emphasizes that online dating is safe and has a huge pay-off. At the same time, though, the fact that Kathleen and Joe (that’s Meg and Tom, FYI) live in the same community and same neighborhood would seem to undermine the global connections the Web makes possible. Food for thought.

5:25p: I’m torn on Harold and Maude. It’s got the existential crisis and generational conflict of The Graduate (and most of New Hollywood), and yet…

Harold and Maude are delightfully eccentric, but I also find them inexorably creepy. And the movie seems to have a far more neatly-wrapped-up ending than it should. I’m still not quite sure on how life-affirming it is—and if it is, is that a Hollywood cop-out?

It’s Feb. 4, and so far, I have watched one flick (real life’s kind of a bitch) and spent entirely too much time writing it up.

But what a flick to spend time with.

I didn’t intend for City Lights to be my first foray into this project, but it’s an important movie, and it just seemed impossible to discuss the other 28 movies without watching this first. Apologies for getting all geeky and pseudo-Marxist in my first write-up, but there’s just so much under the surface in Chaplin’s movies, and I wanted to bring that to light. I promise to keep things lighter moving forward, so stick with me!

My goal is to watch three more movies in the next 24 hours (one tonight and two tomorrow), which means, by the end of the weekend, I’ll only be one movie down. We’ll see how that goes.

DAYS LEFT: 25
MOVIES LEFT: 28 

Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) announces itself with a relatively austere title card that heralds the film as “a comedy romance in pantomime.” 

That description, while apt, is deceptively simple.

For a silent film released well after the talkies had come clamoring into theaters, City Lights is stunningly innovative. Despite the perceived demise of the silent films, the writer-director-actor steadfastly refused to submit to conventional pressures. Instead, he released City Lights, a voiceless homage to the pantomime that made him famous. It was a smart decision, since the movie became one of his most acclaimed and successful pictures. (You might consider this foreshadowing for the 2012 Oscars.)

More relevant to this project is City Lights’ role in developing the romantic comedy genre. Often billed as the first rom-com—though it’s not—City Lights was responsible for helping popularize the nascent notion of a “comedy romance.” Despite numerous entertaining diversions, the film’s plot is propelled by the central characters’ meet-cute, and their final union is what brings the story to a satisfying end.

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Due to some surprisingly counterproductive procrastination (talking about doing something is totally the same as doing it, right?), the last day of January became my own personal Selection Sunday.

And it was tough.

The full list of the 29 romantic comedies I’ll be watching in Februaryafter the jump. Be sure to let me know what you think. 

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(Consider this a methodology of sorts.)

I’ll wholeheartedly admit that I’ve been putting off the creation of the list for days, mostly because of the logistics involved. And so, in a particularly impressive display of procrastination, I’m going to go ahead and explain those.

My definition of romantic comedies is going to have to be expansive. I can’t hold steadfastly to Wikipedia’s assertion that

[r]omantic comedy films are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals.

Instead, my definition will probably be a little closer to Shakespeare’s. Call me a snob, but I want films that address romance from a variety of different cultures, different gendered perspectives and, of course, movies that explore non-heteronormative sexualities. And it might make me selfish, but frankly, I’m not spending a month essentially watching 27 Dresses 29 times.

The other key limitation is availability. My main movie-watching medium these days is Netflix. Cable is a close second, and other methods fall behind that before we get to purchasing movies. So while I make this list, I’m trying to figure out is available, and how long it will take Netflix to turn around my next envelope. (That is made even more complicated by my inability to watch exactly one movie a day—which means Internet streaming will be the primary source of my movie-watching.)

All that said, I want you guys to get as much out of this as I do. So limitations be damned. In a survey of the romantic comedy genre, which movies do you think I have to watch?

Ah, the romantic comedy. Is any genre more lampooned, yet more beloved? Or, for that matter, more ubiquitous?

These movies offers us the satisfaction of a pair of mismatched individuals suddenly coming together despite initially being at odds. The comfort that two long-lost soulmates will eventually find each other. The reassurance that our destiny is to couple up and fall in love, and that the cards will fall into place no matter what.

And yet romantic comedies present us with crazy women who will stop nothing to get a man. Or, on the other hand, they depict women who are clearly fooling themselves into thinking they can be happy living life alone. Usually, the male-oriented flicks star guys who are practically infants and need a woman to help them grow up. Almost all of them lamentably suggest that the only key to happiness is a heteronormative family.

In other words, heterosexual love is a many-splendored thing, and it is all you need ever.

In honor of February—a month typically associated with heartfelt Hallmark cards, bitter singles and intimate candlelit suppers followed by passionate bedroom romps—I’ve decided to take a closer look at this guilty pleasure genre. By challenging myself to watch 29 romcoms (we’ll get to that term soon) in 29 days, I’m hoping I can find what lurks beneath the surface of these often-formulaic films.

Perhaps I’ll learn something, and perhaps not. But either way, it’ll be a damn good time.