As romantic as an evening of watching movies with your special somebody on Valentine's Day can be, it can also be just plain heartwrenching looking for that perfect film she/he hasn't seen ... or that doesn't flat-out suck.
Try going beyond the typical litany of "Love Story," "Harold and Maude" and "Benny & Joon" by choosing from some delightfully unique romps of love, lust, romance and — why not? — animalistic prurience.
"Turkish Delight" (Holland, 1973)
"Basic Instinct" and "RoboCop" director Paul Verhoeven may surprise you (as he would with the majority of his early, European films) with this utterly erotic, uber-bohemian jaunt down a cinematic rabbit hole; it may also let you forgive him for making "Showgirls." Frequent creeper Rutger Hauer plays an ebullient, Swingin' Seventies Euro-artist who falls for equally free-spirited Monique van de Ven as they run lovingly amok together through the streets of Amsterdam without a care in the world except for the creative spirit and each other. The film remains as one of the most successful in its country's history (27 percent of the population saw it upon its initial release), it was nominated for the Academy's Best Foreign Film and, in 1999, was named by the Netherlands Film Festival as the Best Dutch Film of the Century.
"Like Water For Chocolate" (Mexico, 1992)
Dancing gracefully with its special brand of magic realism in the same manner as it does with its characters' (and, most likely, audience members') emotions, this luminous and dusty folk tale-cum-rousing-epic from director Alfonso Arau (yes, "Three Amigos"' villainous El Guapo) quickly picked up almost every award imaginable for a Mexican film upon its release and also earned the rank as highest-grossing Spanish-language film of all time in the States (up to that point). After wide-eyed and innocent Tita is ruthlessly kept from following her heart by her demanding and literally haunting visage of her dictatorial mother, she'll discover that perhaps her almost mystical gift for the culinary arts may make the tried-and-true adage of "the best way to a man's heart is his stomach" more apt when it comes to rugged love interest Pedro ... despite his being Tita's brother-in-law.
"Brief Crossing" (France, 2001)
Longtime queen of France's dark-realist erotic cinema Catherine Breillat (Palme d'Or nominated director of such modern masterpieces as 2001's "Fat Girl") spins an intoxicating tale of lust-at-first-sight between an aging but still radiant American woman and a youthful French boy as they travel across the ocean together, after meeting serendipitously on a cruise ship whose licentious voyage will present viewers with the most carnal of insights, along with a few twists that keep this theater-as-film narrative effortlessly steamy.
"Crash" (Canada/UK, 1996)
Viewers will forget all about the lackluster Academy Award winning snoozer from 2004 of the same name when they experiment a bit with this unabashedly lurid NC-17 film from mad scientist cinema auteur David Cronenberg ("Naked Lunch," "Dead Ringers"). WARNING: "Crash" — based on the highly popular and scorchingly scintillating JG Ballard novel — may not be for everyone. Particularly with such revealing reviews (promoted by the film's own poster) as "... sex and car crashes..." along with tagline "Crashing the barriers between sex and danger ...", this film is a headlong adrenaline rush into the frantic wildness that takes over when James Spader, an unlikely Holly Hunter, Rosanna Arquette (sporting singularly salacious S&M-wear) and Elias Koteas combine their talents for an exuberant rush of sex and car crashes in a psychological thriller that definitely hits on all six cylinders.
"David and Lisa" (U.S., 1962)
"Mommie Dearest" helmer Frank Perry (in his directorial debut, which he often cited as one of his finest works) adapts Theodore Isaac Rubin's novel with a script from Perry's wife, Eleanor, in a true love story of two misfits who find each other amidst the literal insanity of an early '60s "Cuckoo's Nest"-esque psycho ward. Rendering their opus in ethereal black-and-white, the Perrys both earned Academy Award nominations for their respective contributions to this unpretentious independent film. It tells the simple story of mercurial David, who recoils from human touch, and his steady falling in love with child-like Lisa, who can only speak in cloying rhymes. Connected only by the ineffable attraction they clearly feel toward one another, David and Lisa soon learn that finding true connection with another human being may be the only thing in this mixed-up world worth fighting for anymore.
"Ali: Fear Eats Soul" (West Germany, 1974)
Considered by many to be the greatest filmmaker of all time, Rainer Werner Fassbinder put the "pro" in provocative with the astonishing glut of films (not to mention plays, books, essays, etc.) he produced over his short, stimulant-fueled life. Winning multiple awards at that year's Cannes Film Festival, "Ali: Fear Eats Soul" was (at the time) a contemporary pastiche of melodrama maven Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows" (which was similarly "pseudo-remade" via Todd Haynes' "Far From Heaven"). Sixty-year-old cleaning lady Mira discovers that when she falls for a muscular Arab less than half her age (and, he for her), she's launched into a swirling torrent of rumors, lies and harsh disapproval by everyone, from her closest friends to her own family.
"Sunrise" (U.S., 1927)
Though the German director is best known for 1922's horror paragon Nosferatu, F.W. Murnau's paean to love in the "modern age" (1920s) sends swooning audience members down a circuitous memory lane, speed-bumped by some of the most mesmerizing moments of cinema in its long-storied lineage. Winning an Academy Award for "Unique and Artistic Production" at the first-ever Academy Awards in 1929 and named the fifth-best film in history by the British Film Institute, Valentine's Day viewers in search for something with a smattering of substance mashed with pure oomph should give a close look especially to the quintessential "Sunrise" scene in which the two lovelorn paramours embrace on a dangerously busy metropolis street, as Model As and motorized buggies impossibly bee-line around them in a world gone mad by industry but nearly forgotten by amour.
"F**king Amal" (Sweden, 1998)
Also known by its slightly less objectionable (but also deceptively saccharine) English-language title of "Show Me Love," Lukas Moodysson's ("Together," "Mammoth") playful dalliance focuses on two teenage girls who are as different as can be but for their nascent common interest in each other. It will take any Valentine's Day viewing couple back to a hopelessly nostalgic time of first kisses, first heartaches and, of course, first true love. When outcast hoyden Agnes falls for popular cheerleader Elin, she's taken on a new journey into the very realm of what it is to be loved, as both girls soon find that the only thing they have to lose in their conservative small town lifestyle is each other.
"Flannel Pajamas" (U.S., 2006)
Jeff Lipsky's tiny, almost completely overlooked little film starring Julianne Nicholson and "Weeds"/"Angels in America" star Justin Kirk mercilessly displays the building, sustaining and ineluctable disintegration of a contemporary marriage. It's filmed with the tender realism for which Lipsky's work was often praised by the few critics who cared to acknowledge him as a scion to the canon of American independent cinema godfather John Cassavettes.
"Betty Blue" (France, 1986)
Also known by its original title of "37°2 le matin" ("37.2°C in the Morning," with 37.2°C being the temperature of a pregnant woman), this Academy Award-nominated celebration of the unsparingly lubricious adventures of two young lovers falling headlong into each other's very souls has been a perennial favorite of "Boogie Nights"/"There Will Be Blood" master craftsman Paul Thomas Anderson. And he's not alone in his praise for the film whose three-hour-plus director's cut is worth every hot and heartfelt moment. When writer/artist ne'er-do-well Zorg indulges in an affair with the manic and lusty Betty, he finds that nothing will ever be the same (or, thankfully, as routinely dull) with a woman he loves by his side ... no matter where his life might be going.
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