I saw this article on msn http://movies.msn.com/new-on-dvd/feature-article/?news=298766 and was so very excited because here was a top ten list of romantic movies the writer loathes! And then I thought, I should do a list like this. But by the time I finished the list I was so incensed by her poor choices that I have to first rant over her lack of understanding of the romance genre.

She makes several excellent choices (Sleepless in Seattle, Ghost, Pretty Woman) for fabulous reasons (stalking = not hot, dead = not hot, prostitution = not hot) but then goes on to choose My Big Fat Greek Wedding, While You Were Sleeping, and Dirty Dancing?! Hello, I'm not going to argue the "classicalness" of these movies, but they don't deserve to be loathed. Greek Wedding was hilarious for anyone whom has ever experienced a big family you love and adore but can rarely please, and Dirty Dancing is the ultimate fantasy of every post-high school pre-college late teen ever born. If you wanted to take issue with Dancing you could make the argument that it makes a social statement about abortion after which (directly following in fact) the protagonists have seemingly unprotected sex. Perhaps not the best move in movie history. But the reasons this lady gives sound like those of a unimaginative, calcified woman.

I hate stupid people.

So, in honor of her lack of ability to properly construct a romantic movies to loathe list I offer up my own. I will opt not to include repeats, therefore, the ones already on her list will not appear on mine even though she has some of my favorite haters. Oh well, we must make do.

Top Ten Romance Movies You Should Hate:

10. Camelot/First Knight etc.
So I had a hard time with this choice but felt I needed to include it. It was a hard choice for me because I've always loved King Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, but I've got to go on record here and say the only thing less hot than adultery is adultery with your best friend. That being said this story is about love in all it's various complications, hence why I let it sit at number 10. And at least the characters are noble people who make mistakes instead of horrible people that happen to fall in love.

9. Carousel
If he dies and leaves you to gestate, birth, and raise the child on your own that’s not romantic--it’s tragic. At no point do I watch that situation and think “gee, I wish I could have that experience.” It might be better to love and lose, but not in 1950 when a single woman raising a child alone will probably result in prostitution, depression, and no Richard Gere to make it all go away.

8. Anna and the King
Silly me, when I watched this move the first time having never seen The King and I all the way through I thought it would have a happy ending. At the end of the movie I screeched “they don’t end up together?!” My mother informed me that was a given. Why don’t they end up together? Cause it just won’t work? He’s a friggin’ king. Disney you lied to me. Lied.

7. Angel Eyes
Imagine this: watching this movie having no idea what it’s about, but thinking it is some kind of a thriller. Now add in Jennifer Lopez’s amazing acting (sarcasm) and the natural unnerving acting of Jim Caviezel. Suddenly every dramatic pause that is supposed to show the tension between the characters becomes a moment when I keep expecting him to attack her. That if nothing else shows how similar love and hate actually are. Mostly though, this movie makes it for the pure creepiness factor. He remembers her eyes after his wife and kid dies and somehow, while suppressing his memories because he has POST TRAMAUTIC STRESS DISORDER he can fall in love with the girl? I know we all like the wounded boy, but this is just unnatural.

6. Return to Me
Wife dies. Heart is transplanted to another woman. That woman falls in love with widower. If it’s a good heart you have Return to Me. If it’s a bad heart you have Fatal Attraction. Either way it’s wrong and disturbing. And unlike a Mickey Rourke movie the opposite of hot.
5. Message in a Bottle
I hate it when one of the characters dies because, why? Life sucks sometimes? Gee, that’s sweet. And yet women call this romantic. Not to mention it had Kevin Costner being serious and no Morgan Freeman to save him. I think that pretty much covers why this is here.

4. The Taming of the Shrew
Sometimes this movie seems facetious. He isn’t really breaking her like one would a horse, they’re just compromising as couples do. If you read Katarina’s final speech as tongue-in-cheek the movie isn’t so bad, but even before that she breaks down and agrees to say what he wants her to. And when you factor in the truth, that she carries no power in the situation--that were she black you would see her for the slave she is--it suddenly becomes significantly less sexy. If she hadn’t capitulated he actually would have killed her with his kindness. How is that romantic?

3. Prince of Tides
Adultery is, in fact, the opposite of romantic. Why? Because everyone can fall in love, but only some people can treat others with consideration and understanding by not cheating or breaking off the relationship prior to starting a new one. It’s harsh I know and I’m not judging adulterers here so much as just saying cheating isn’t sexy. We all want to imagine romantic situations and I ask you: is it romantic to sleep with a married guy? (The older you get the more the answer to that question becomes obvious.) Is it romantic to have the one you married sleep with someone else? These situations do not happily ever after make.

2. Romeo & Juliet
Five minutes Romeo. Five minutes and you could have lived with your love in peace. Five minutes is like one bout of masturbation for a thirteen year old. And you were incapable of waiting just a little bit longer on the off chance that you guys had miscalculated how long it would take her to come out of it? Who does that? Stupid people do that. And stupid people aren’t romantic.

1. Gone with the Wind
Rhett loves Scarlett. Scarlett loves Ashley. Ashley loves his cousin. By the time Scarlett loves Rhett, Rhett leaves her. Never mind the rape scene in the middle. At what point does this make a love story? Don’t you need love, real love, to have a romance? How does unrequited love with a dash of destructive relationship and a tablespoon of rape make a romance? It might be a great story, but it is not a romantic one. I’m still bitter over the three hours of my life I gave to this thing.


And so you have it--my contribution to February, the great month of love. Just remember, it’s only stalking if the one you stalk doesn’t like it. But unless you’re Meg Ryan you probably can’t get away with stalking and passing it off as love when you’ve never talked to the object of your obsession, I mean desire. Most people do go to jail for that.