Happy Singles Awareness Day

To celebrate Valentine's Day (ugh), I decided to dedicate a post to anti-Valentines flicks. You know, good movies to watch after a break up or when you just want to gag from all the heart and flowers crap and sappy chick flick displays clogging up the aisles at your favourite stores. Below are my list of recommendations for anti-Valentine's flicks. This is for you, Dave....

Swingers

I discovered this film last week. I believe movies, like people, are meant to come into your life at a certain point for whatever reason. Jon Favreau (writer and stars as Mikey) wrote this film based on his experience moving from NY to LA after a break up and his struggle to get over it. Directed by Doug Liman, Doug wanted to cast Favreau and his friends Vince Vaughn and Ron Livingston, but the studios wouldn't fund it. They financed it independently. It was rejected from Sundance, so they held a screening for distributors and it took off from there. The film launched the careers of Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston, Jon Favreau and Doug Liman.

This is a great anti-V-Day movie because it focuses on Mike (Favreau) and his depression six months after his long term relationship ends. She has moved on with someone else and he is getting used to a new city, feeling down and having trouble moving forward. There are a few great scenes between Mike and his friend Rob (Livingston), who has gotten over the slump Mike is in now. His friend Trent (Vaughn) tries to cheer him up by taking him to Vegas and when they go back to LA, they hit the neo-lounge scene with their friends Sue (Patrick Van Horn), Rob and Charles (Alex Desert). The guys all try to encourage Mike to meet women and get back into the dating scene. Mikey, after a few false starts, finally meets a girl who he connects with and finds they share some things in common. I don't think the couple formation at the end is solid or the important part of the movie. It's that yes, things are crappy for awhile, but they will get better....and probably when you least expect it. Keep hope alive.

Best exchange in the movie between Rob and Mikey, when Mikey is asking Rob how long it will take to get over the pain......

Mikey: How did you get over it? I mean, how long did it take?
Rob: I don't know. Sometimes it still hurts. You know how it is, man, it's like, you wake up every day and it hurts a little bit less and then you wake up one day and it doesn't hurt at all. And the funny thing is, this is kinda weird, it's like, it's like you almost miss that pain.
Mikey: You miss the pain?
Rob: Ya, for the same reason that you miss her. Because you, you lived with it for so long.

High Fidelity

I loves me some John Cusack. Based on a novel by Nick Hornby, this flick is another great anti-V-Day movie because Rob Gordon (John Cusack), a music geek, is going through a break up with his girlfriend. Rob, a chronic list maker, recounts his top five worst break ups, then confronts those women to find out why it didn't work. His misery is excellent and is amped by his two socially inept employees Barry (Jack Black) and Dick (Todd Louiso). He still wants to make it work with Laura (Iben Hjejle). Rob is forced to look at his past and behavior find out why he can't seem to make his relationships work. To be honest, I haven't seen it in awhile, but may revisit it in the near future. Lots of great lines, but I will go with this one......

Rob: I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and... I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments.

Under the Tuscan Sun

This is a great break up/anti-VDay movie for women. Starring the beautiful Diane Lane as Frances, a fiction writer and critic who discovers her husband is cheating on her and wants a divorce. Based on a novel by Audrey Wells, Frances goes to Tuscany for a vacation to get her mind off her divorce (at the insistence of her friends). She decides quite spontaneously to buy a villa in Tuscany and live there. She starts over in a new country all on her own. What's great about this movie is that it doesn't feed into that whole "he was a jerk, here comes a great, charming too good to be true guy to show that great woman there are great guys out there" crap usually found in those movies. As a matter of fact, there are some false leads in this film regarding romantic interests. What's even greater is that as she is still hurting from her divorce, makes a small list of things she would like and thinks she has to meet a man before she can get them. One of her friends, later on, points out to her that she has them all, and didn't need a man to make it complete. It's a great movie that makes me want to go on a gay tour of Tuscany. One of the best exchanges in the film......

Frances: Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you. Like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly. You shouldn't have to wake up day after day after that, trying to understand how in the world you didn't know. The light just never went on, you know. I must have known, of course, but I was too scared to see the truth. Then fear just makes you so stupid.
Martini: No, it's not stupid, Signora Mayes. L'amore e cieco.
Frances: Oh, love is blind. Yeah, we have that saying too.
Martini: Everybody has that saying because it's true everywhere.

Sliding Doors

This is a great movie and one I intended to purchase for Valentine's Day. Starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Helen Quilley, a woman who is involved in a long term relationship with a free-loading, cheating boyfriend, Gerry (John Lynch). This film is unique in that we see two parallel stories involving Helen. One story happens when Helen gets fired and catches the train home early to catch Gerry mid-tryst with Lydia (Jeanne Tripplehorn). She leaves Gerry and moves in with her kick ass friend, Anna (Zara Turner) and begins to build a new life for herself. The other story is what happens when Helen gets fired and doesn't catch the train home early. She just misses Lydia and doesn't know Gerry is fooling around on her, although she suspects something is up. John Hannah is the ultra charming and righteous James that Helen meets in the first story. The two stories jump back and forth and Peter Howitt (writer and director) does a great job in making clear which story is which and seeing what is happening in each story at any given time.

What's great about this movie and what makes it a good break up movie, is that it clearly demonstrates that it's better to be alone, hurt and slowly recovering from the pain than in a relationship with mistrust, suspicion, fighting and unhappiness. I normally hate the couple formation in these movies (I truly believe you need time alone before moving on), but James is too fucking cute, charming and funny. Yes, walking in on Jerry with another woman hurt, but is it better not to know and always suspect, never really being sure whether something is going on and thinking you may be crazy, or to get really hurt and know for sure and start moving ahead? Did that last sentence make any sense at all? In any case, I recommend it if you haven't seen it.

Helen: (flipping through the paper) Bollocks to him. I'm over him.
Anna: (skeptically) Oh. You're over him.
Helen: Yes. Totally and utterly and completely over him.
Anna: No you're not.
Helen: I am.
Anna: You're not.
Helen: Anna, I'm over him! What do you mean I'm not? How do you know I'm not?
Anna: Well, two things really. One, you're still counting how long you've been apart in days - and probably hours and minutes - but the big-flashing-red-light way of telling you're not really over someone is when you're still reading their horoscope in the hope that they're going to get wiped out in some freak napalming incident.

Upon googling "break up movies", I stumbled across this page on www.eFilmCritic.com with even more suggestions for good break up movies.....I'll have to check some of those out....

Happy Valentine's Day.....more ramblings to come......