Boy-being Meets Girl-being Under a Silvery Moon (Which Then Explodes for No Adequately Explored Reason): THE ROMANTIC COMEDIES POLL RESULTS THREAD

Midnight was my #2.

23. Say Anything... (1989, dir. Cameron Crowe)
4 votes, 1 no. 1 vote, 152 points
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvrj9mlTSD1r38d5m.jpg

always considered this inferior to Better Off Dead

xp Never realized that was the tagline.

[ 22. Ninotchka (1939, dir. Ernst Lubitsch)
4 votes, 160 points
http://www.impawards.com/1939/posters/ninotchka_xlg.jpg

21. It Happened One Night (1934, dir. Frank Capra)
4 votes, 162 points
http://pre-code.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/it-happened-one-night-movie-poster.jpg

Garbo's a drag pre-laugh, although her scowl is funny the first couple minutes.

you just don't like Communists

I'm an anti-fan of the genre, but even I'm surprised by how low IHON placed.

Say Anything... my number one. Pretty good list so far. Funny how there's a huge split in time period. Where's Pillow Talk to give us a bridge?

I'm not particularly fond of IHON but I haven't seen it since high school

it seems more agreeable and less classic every year. hence all those Oscars

I'm an anti-fan of the genre

thx for voting

underwhelmed by IHON when I saw it (only part i really loved is when they imitate a squabbling, long-married couple) but i can take on faith it was fresh at the time

I do think it's interesting that these poll results are split almost entirely between pre-war and post-80s, it's like the intervening three decades didn't even happen.

Reagan era, I meant, not post-80s

Going back to conversation upthread, one of the (many) reasons I didn't vote in this is that I didn't know what to do about A Matter of Life and Death. To me, it is absolutely not a romantic comedy - some light comic relief does not a comedy make - but it is an absolutely wonderful film, and I'd want to vote for it over a lot of the dross here. Pretty sure there were a fair few others in this boat that had been nominated, so my ballot would've focused on non-comedy romances or non-romantic comedies, and thus been completely pointless.

Still think Thundercrack counts, though.

20. City Lights (1931, dir. Charlie Chaplin)
4 votes, 163 points
http://www.movieposterexchange.com/poster_photo/71.jpg

19. Some Like It Hot (1959, dir. Billy Wilder)
5 votes, 165 points
http://noirwhale.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/film-noir-some-like-it-hot-movie-poster-via-movieart-net.jpg

I do think it's interesting that these poll results are split almost entirely between pre-war and post-80s

The James Harvey book I cited way up top diagnoses the genre as dying around 1948. So we have that bloc of scholarly voters, and then the ones who will watch very little pre-1984. Entirely predictable.

I'm an anti-fan of the genre

thx for voting

An anti-fan of screwball, not rom coms.

if ppl's ballots are anything like mine they are individually split between pre-war and post-80s. those are the two eras that best resonate w/ my aesthetics + taste in the genre. post-war romances that i considered nominating seemed more like melodramas than comedies.

also i'm rooting for clueless to go #1 overall

Entirely predictable.

yep - there are a few exceptions but even the noms list didn't include much in the intervening years, I had a hard time thinking of any myself (altho I do like Pillow Talk and What a Way to Go and some others).

18. The Graduate (1967, dir. Mike Nichols)
4 votes, 175 points
http://www.filmposters.com/images/posters/16430.jpg

Meh.

i know being dismissive of new movies is kinda morbz' raison d'etre but there's something genre-incoherent to me about damning all post-1980s rom-com film for it's lack of... what? seriousness? lol. maybe rom-com just brings out the cinematic poptimist in me. (idr morbz were you on the action thread complaining too? bc that seems like it'd be even worse in this regard.)

"one word. plastics."

Went with Virginia Woolf as a rom-com instead.

graduate is kinda an anti-rom-com which is why i think it belongs (and i voted for it)

TIE 17. All Of Me (1984, dir. Carl Reiner)
5 votes, 183 points
http://www.pastposters.com/cw3/assets/product_expanded/JamieF-TH/all-of-me-cinema-quad-movie-poster-(1).jpg

TIE 17. Trouble in Paradise (1932, dir. Ernst Lubitsch)
4 votes, 1 no. 1 vote, 183 points
http://www.filmsite.org/posters/trou3.jpg

this tie pleases me

the whole Doris Day Period is a divisive thing unto itself.

and then in the Classic Period commercially ambitious films did not take teens' amorous quandaries seriously (I don't mean in a drama vs comedy sense, I mean as something for the sole focus of an "A" picture). The Andy Hardy movies always found their ostensible moral center in his dad the Judge straightening his silly concerns out.

jesus christ i had no idea how bad taglines were in the 80s

granted now the nonsensical phrases of today won't age well either

The post-1980s rom-com pretty much has nothing to do with the 1929-48 repartee-and-slapstick-based romantic comedy. Different concerns, approaches, assumptions, style.

idk about that, i think the best movies from ever era have sharp dialogue, romantic banter, improbable plot narratives

"this is a movie where a great guy named Fred is going to have a wild adventure and you should go see it." vs "GET READ' FOR FRED"

i agree obv that the style of 1929 will obv differ substantially from 1999, but i like that 10 things i hate about you can appear in the same list as it happened one night

the whole Doris Day Period is a divisive thing unto itself.

these are p amusing and I'll watch them if they're on TV but they're hardly great. I did like that remake/ripoff w Obi Wan Kenobi in it, what was that called... Down With Love

all of me sounds terrible based on that poster

down with love...from the director of bring it on and the impending ant-man, as well as numerous superchunk videos

one major difference is that propriety allows ppl to make movies about relationships post-1980 that you couldn't do in 1942 when ppl were making divorce-coms.

all of me sounds terrible based on that poster

idk it kinda had me "Edwina Cutwater"

All of Me is the best Martin-Reiner film

probably

I did like that remake/ripoff w Obi Wan Kenobi in it, what was that called... Down With Love

Tony Randall was in it as the most explicit carryover, and he said while promoting it that they should've just re-released one of the originals, which i'm sure the producers loved.

16. Defending Your Life (1991, dir. Albert Brooks)
5 votes, 204 points

https://briansfilmlog.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/jamier-bx__defendingyourlife1.jpg

i voted for that even though i haven't seen it in maybe 20 years just on how badly i want to see it again

i've seen defending your life a lot. it's great. my #4 overall.

i mean, not so badly i'll pay money or remember to put it on my netflix queue, but i really want to see the name scroll by when i'm dvr-ing pay cable