you don't want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie, pt. 2
more movies that warped my sense of romance!
For some reason, I have to counter every Miss Serious dispatch with something frivolous and aggressively unserious. I can’t help it. Imagine the kind of things I could accomplish if I wasn’t, ultimately, a silly person! No, actually don’t! Anyway, here is another installment of films that give me terminal cases of “you don’t want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie” brain worm. To read part one, which is probably a much better assortment, click here. There is maybe a part three, but we’ll see. This one may have overstayed the format’s welcome.
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Deleting the apps to meet a man the old-fashioned way (he jumps into my car and I mistake him for a thief and when I find out who he is I insult him but our paths cross later at a party I’m working at and he mocks me so we’re even on the negging and then we eventually fall in love and save his talking picture together).
Funny Face (1957)
I already went deep into the fantasies of Audrey Hepburn rom-coms here but it would be wrong of me to not mention Funny Face in this brief list of movies I’d like to be in love within. Every single scene between Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn makes my heart swoon and I have to clutch my face to temper my big big smile, not just because I’m now conscious of getting wrinkles but also because it HURTS to smile that big that long. Incredible, in retrospect, that I really walked around 9th grade dressed like 1950s beatnik Audrey-in-Paris in my [unethical use of posthumous name licensing] black Gap pants falling all over myself romanticizing the scene where Fred Astaire says “When I get through with you, you’ll look like—what do you call beautiful? A tree. You’ll look like a tree” and then sings a song about how I’m kind of ugly, actually, but he likes that about me and wondering why boys weren’t out here doing the same. If I could crawl into and live inside this movie, in all its beautiful Paris-pre-bedbug infestation VistaVision technicolor Stanley Donen dreamscape glory, I would.
To Catch a Thief (1955) and North by Northwest (1959)
The amount of upkeep my hair would require would be a nightmare, I’m sure, but I would love to be a Hitchcock blonde, specifically one who is falling for Cary Grant. It’s nice to imagine myself as being icy and intelligent and flirty in a way that’s like “I’m actually very smart and I know you’re a criminal and I think that’s hot.” It’s nice to picture myself loving someone so much that I’d help him solve the crime he’s being accused of, whether that means gallivanting through the South of France or scaling Mount Rushmore while still carrying Dior handbag and wearing my stilettos. It would be so romantic.
I often find myself head over heels gaga for Cary Grant whenever I watch his movies and once went so far as to ask my old roommate upon one rewatch “Why can’t I just be with HIM!?” and she replied “Because he’s gay and dead, in that order,” which, fair.
Mary Poppins (1964)
For a very long time, my go-to in social settings where a “fun fact” about oneself was required was always “My first celebrity crush was Dick Van Dyke,” but I had to retire it because no one was ever really surprised. :( Did I sleep with a framed photo of him by my bed when I was like six? Yes! Here is where you will probably say: “Oh, because of Mary Poppins, right?” No! Mary Poppins was not my first exposure to one of our nation’s most handsome silly boys, one of the maybe five men in comedy who is not a toxic monster! I was raised on Nick at Nite, fell asleep to The Dick Van Dyke Show nearly every evening (a white noise that still, to this day, provokes a Pavlovian response from me), and genuinely thought I would marry Rob Petrie. Really, as a child, I was not wild about Mary Poppins—it’s kind of scary?—but watching it as an adult? That’s another story.
Here’s the thing: Disney knew what they were doing. They knew they had a Hot Guy on their hands! Is Dick Van Dyke’s Cockney accent insane? Yes. But they gave us so many tight close ups of his face that even in non-HD makes me go “oh my gosh look at his eyes” every time in exchange for that! Is the film kind of crazy in that sometimes it presents radically feminist viewpoints for 1964 but then backtracks on them (let Winifred Banks go to her suffragette rallies without insinuating she’s a bad mom for doing so!!!) and ends on a note that’s like “actually capitalism is good and so is classism and big banks are your friends”? Yes. Is the dad kind of an asshole who I’d never want to be employed by? Absolutely. But I can take all of that in exchange for having whimsical powers, wearing THE cuntiest little outfits (I just know I would absolutely serve in the fashions of the Edwardian era), and being wooed by a silly hot goof who doesn’t have a real job and would probably be an irresponsible boyfriend in the end, but who worships me and takes me on flirty little trips into chalk drawings. It’s not dating down if you’re not committed!
(An unrelated to love addendum: I don’t believe the 2018 sequel is canon so I did upset myself recently by wondering…do we think the Banks family purchased passage on the Titanic two years after the events of this film?)
Dr. Zhivago (1965)
Personally I HATE being cold but I can’t deny that it would, like, be so romantic to wear all of Julie Christie’s anachronistic girlypop outfits and have Omar Sharif yearn for me.
The Electric Horseman (1979)
An underrated Sydney Pollack bop and a truly “you only want to be in love in a movie” kind of film because in real life I could never find myself falling for A COWBOY, not even if he looks like Robert Redford and is like “fuck corporations, they are so evil.” But the movie version of myself? I could absolutely be Jane Fonda playing a big city lady reporter who goes on the run with him and gets the story.
Annie (1982)
Look, I believe billionaires are inherently unethical and a blight on our society but I am also so Grace Farrell-coded in looking at Daddy Warbucks and being like “I can fix him.” The reality is that I could simply never, but could you imagine getting your grumpy, rich boss to fall in love with you because you’re such a bright light who taught him how to enjoy going to the movies and you get a kid out of it but like in the best way (you don’t have to give birth and can skip the infant stuff) where you can be their pal? And then you just get to like sing and dance and have a carnival at your compound and convince him to use his money to help fund the New Deal? I would love that so much, are you kidding? (And if I could not achieve this in real life, I’d at least like to get to fulfill my dream of starring in a regional theater production of Annie at some point in my life, although in that situation I’m more likely to want to play Miss Hannigan—she’s the money part!) I’m once again saying, in complete seriousness: I’m so tired of pretending Annie isn’t one of the greatest movies ever made.
Yentl (1983)
You’re in his DMs, I’m dressing in drag to study at his yeshiva for boys, we are NOT the same! Unfortunately, Yentl ultimately circles back to “no nope no way do not want to be in love in a movie here” because obviously Babs and Mandy Patinkin can never be together and she’s going to be a more selfless woman than I ever could be and say “go be with Amy Irving, she loves you!” then get on a boat to be like “I’m going to America where it’s great to be a woman!” That last one, I have to say, I would simply never think, even if I were living back then, but good for her. She got to see Mandy Patinkin’s butt. She’s good. I want that level of delusion for myself sometimes.
Bull Durham (1988)
Every year I think I am seriously going to become invested in baseball. You have to understand: I come from a baseball family (go Phils!) to whom my long relative apathy/lack of knowledge is a disappointment, but I am not doing this out of wanting to ~fit in.~ I tried hard last year, when the Phillies got into the World Series, a move which led my little sister to dismiss me as a “bandwagon fan,” so I really can’t win with that one! I genuinely want to like watching a professional sport, even if I am mostly ethically against them because—barring few exceptions—they often ruin people’s mental and physical health for what? A very, very brief career that is so hard on your body, where you’re not taught how to manage your money and an entire life to live after your time is up with no real skills to speak of to fall back on other than hoping you can parlay your notoriety into being a spokesperson for a car dealership or something? Kind of an evil system if you ask me! But! I can concede that sports are fun—now that I am a reformed “if you’re not first, you’re last” sports kid I like playing them for just fun!—and it seems nice to root for something!
It’s just that, well, baseball is boring. Someone has to say that, and mean it both as a compliment and a criticism. I did not mind the slow, tedious pace at first—it was kind of meditative, or at least served as good background noise, and I finally understood why people take naps while watching it—but after awhile…I simply don’t understand how people stick with it. If I was a bandwagon fan during the Phillie’s playoff run, it was because I think can only actually invest in the sport when there are real stakes, when there’s drama and the pace becomes more thrilling and even the slightest things like getting a walk or being on two strikes and hitting a bunch of fouls or whatever could have great consequences. Then I am absolutely a baseball girly! But even then! This is a sport that is too long. It’s too much. Enough. A baseball game can take, like, five hours! And why? For who? Who has that kind of time to invest multiple times a week?! Not me!
But I digress! This newsletter is not about baseball! It is about movies! And I do, however, have two hours to invest in a baseball movie, where you can skip over the tedious, boring parts of the game and just get the high stakes rush, which is why I love so many baseball movies so very much despite honestly just never really clicking with the sport itself. There are so many movies I can include in this list—there perhaps is a much longer essay to be dedicated solely to the romanticism and mysticism of baseball—but obviously Bull Durham gets the top pick. This movie has everything: Kevin Costner being hot and grumpy, Susan Sarandon being a slut, Tim Robbins being a himbo, minor league sports in small towns, and impeccable speeches. Guys today are failing miserably! It’s always “wyd” and never “I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.” Do better!
The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989)
So many unrealistic expectations set up for teenage me who first viewed this fine motion picture, so little space to expand upon them, so I am just going to use this opportunity to say: Jeff Bridges is hot, and Michelle Pfeiffer should have won the Oscar.
Passport to Paris (1999)
Passport to Paris is about a lot of things: The common trope of believing that you will magically become a different, better version of yourself on vacation and have a whirlwind fling; French McDonalds supremacy; frosty grandparents who eventually thaw from the love and liveliness of their youthful grandchildren; Mary-Kate and Ashley wearing the cutest little fits that child me did not realize were actually adult designer clothes tailored for them and running all over Paris unaccompanied with two ugly boys we are supposed to believe are cute; shopping montages; deranged, hallucinogenic usage of green screen to avoid actually filming in the Louvre; the importance of always making sure you order deux boissons and not deux poissons. Of all of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s direct-to-video films (most of which are appallingly unavailable for streaming), Passport to Paris reigns supreme. I would be lying if I said I’m not so mad that I am now a grown woman who will never have a teenage vacation fling in Paris.
Something’s Gotta Give (2003)
Every now and then I start to feel kind of resigned to the fact that I probably will still be single in my 60s. (It’s okay for me to say this about myself, it was not okay for an ex-friend to tell me I won’t find love until then…like what the fuck who says that to someone???) I’m prickly! I’m particular! I’m a career girl! I’m independent! I love turtlenecks! Now if only I could be successful enough as a writer to buy my own place in the Hamptons!!!!
Something’s Gotta Give is a movie about two people who should absolutely not be together but you root for anyway and about growing attracted to a guy who is emotionally unavailable and kind of mean to you‚ even when another nice but kind of boring and safe guy is actually interested in you. And you know what, sometimes that’s just how life is! This, too, is another movie I watch and pretend that I’m an “I can fix him” girl when really the reason why I will probably still be single in my 60s is because I have never once been an “I can fix him” girl in my entire life. I have an Ick List so long it’s practically impossible to even make it to a first date. I am, quite literally, Cher in Clueless saying “You see how picky I am about my shoes, and they only go on my feet.” I’m the “I think you should dump him!” friend. I could not fix him because I don’t WANT to fix him! That’s not my job! But that’s not the point—the point is to watch a movie where you can pretend that if you lived inside a Nancy Meyers’ movie and the guy who needed fixed was Jack Nicholson that you would be that kind of person!
13 Going on 30 (2004)
I have to be honest here: I am not sure I totally get the thirst for Mark Ruffalo. I know, I’m sorry. He just seem…okay? To me? Maybe just not really my type? I don’t know! But I did recently watch 13 Going on 30 for the first time of my own volition (not playing in the background cut for commercial breaks on basic cable) in years and I got it! I got it! He’s hot and he has good taste in music! There is not one single boy I personally went to middle school with who I’d have any interest in today, but the old friends-to-romantic-interests trope is one I would be great at playing out. Even if it meant that I had to make up for the fact that I didn’t know what a bitch I was because I just randomly skipped like 20 years of my life! Sad that 13 year old me watched this and really thought I’d be Jenna Rink-successful at 30 and actually be a high powered magazine editor living in a luxury apartment on Fifth Avenue. I have to laugh!
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13 Going On 30 really gives unrealistic real estate goals because in both versions of her life by 30 she either has a luxury Manhattan apartment or a large pink house in the suburbs.