Valentine’s Flicks For Your Hipster Sweetheart
Ok, Charlie Brown, whether you finally snagged a date with your little redhaired girl or you're flying solo this Valentine's Day with a box of peanut-butter cups and heartbreak, today always comes with enough love-soaked flicks to drown yourself in. Most are so cookie cutter they should come with a bag of Oreos. Ahhh love. Be it a day cuddled with your hipster sweetheart or February 14: Population Uno, here's a list of seven films that ooze just the right amount of saccharine without OD'ing on rom-com whimsy.
Deadpool (2016)
The Lovedown: Wade Wislon will tell you himself, this is a love story and, like the best of loves, things sometimes will get a little dirty. When tragedy strikes Wade becomes a superhero set on revenge and guided by love. Seriously, there’s a lot of romance between the f-bombs and bullets. If anything, this one’s got a love scene you’ll never forget. Happy International Women’s Day!
Who you’ll fall for: Deadpool, for realz. Crass, yes, but underneath all those guns, swords and spandex is a face you’d be happy to…well, you know the rest.
Love lines:
Wade Wilson: Listen, we both know that cancer is a shit-show. Like a Yakov Smirnoff opening for the Spin Doctors at the Iowa State Fair shit-show. And under no circumstances will I take you to that show. I want you to remember me, not the ghost of Christmas me.
Vanessa Carlysle: Well, I wanna remember us.
Wade Wilson: I swear to God, I will find you in the next life and I'm gonna boom-box "Careless Whisper" outside your window. Wham!
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
The Lovedown: There’s always going to be those relationships where the exe-lover looms over you like a cloud filled with broken dreams and uneaten chocolates…you know, those horrible one’s you leave in the box for your roommate. Well, Scott Pilgrim doesn’t just have to deal with one exe, he has to deal with seven and they’re all trying to kill him! Part rom-com, part comic book movie, part video game, this flick is one of the coolest to hit the screen and, bonus, it’s Canadian!
Who you’ll fall for: Michael Cera is a whole lotta’ mixed up awesome blended with a bucket of clueless but damned if he isn’t a kickass kinda’ cuddly bunny of a superhero we all need when our lesbian lover from the past comes back to try to destroy us. Though Kieran Culkin as the wisecracking gay roommate nearly takes your heart away. Really, though, you’re going to fall for Romona’s hair.
Love lines:
Scott Pilgrim: When I'm around you, I kind of feel like I'm on drugs. Not that I do drugs. Unless you do drugs, in which case I do them all the time. All of them.
* * *
Scott Pilgrim: I know you play mysterious and aloof just to avoid getting hurt. And I know you have reasons for not wanting to talk about your past. I want you to know that I don't care about any of that stuff. Because I'm in lesbians with you.
Run Lola Run (1998)
The Lovedown: People often say love is something that is timeless but, for Lola, time is all she has in order to get it right. This love story from Germany disguised as a thriller with brilliantly blazing hair and a whole lot of exercise examines the alternate realities we could face, where every choice we make has a world made up of the choices we didn’t make. Every action has a reaction. Would you bend time and space for love?
Who you’ll fall for: Franka Potente hadn’t busted out of Germany just yet but in this film she sprints into your heart like a sexy, tattooed, neon haired cheetah.
Love lines:
Manni: What if I were in a coma, and the doc says, "One more day?"
Lola: I'd throw you into the ocean… Shock therapy.
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
The Lovedown: Barry’s got issues, LOTS of issues but who wouldn’t clean up their act if Emily Watson came into your life. Seriously, her eyes are like an anime character mixed with a Disney Princess on ecstasy. When events threaten to take over Barry’s romance he stops at nothing to make things good again. This is a weird ride, folks. Buckle up, buckaroos!
Who you’ll fall for: Adam Sandler had been doing his baby talk / angry man shtick for a while but, under the direction of Paul Thomas Anderson, he’s reigned in for his most dramatic turn that shows if he’d just follow this path the road would be paved with Oscars instead of, well, flicks like Jack and Jill.
Love lines:
Barry: I'm lookin' at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna … smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty.
Lena: I want to chew your face, and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them and chew them and suck on them.
Barry: OK. This is funny. This is nice.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
The Lovedown: Heartbreak is rough. It tears you apart from the inside out, causes you to eat copious amounts of shit you’d never consumed before and spend hours listening to Wilson Philips’ “Release Me” on a gut-punching loop. Well, maybe that’s just me. But, what if you could make it all go away? What if you really could forget it all? This film examines that kind of pain that latches itself to love like a Xenomorph and the lengths one man will go to in order to let it go. However, what happens when you realize you can’t live without it?
Who you’ll fall for: How can you not fall for a gal named Clementine Kruczynski? Yeah, ok, her actions are kinda’ drastic but she’s got blue hair. She’s exempt. Jim Carry, however, gives one of the best performances of his career as a man filled with so much love, inner turmoil and heartbreak that you can’t help but cheer for him as he tries desperately to get it all back.
Love lines:
Joel: What a loss to spend that much time with someone, only to find out that she's a stranger.
Her (2013)
The Lovedown: Ok, we all have trouble at times relating to the opposite sex but what if the opposite sex was designed for our every need? What if she was actually an it but still you’re perfect her? This film is loneliness personified on celluloid. It’s also about the detachments from reality we face in the age of texts, Facebook and Instagram. We’re practically married to our technology and director Spike Jonze just takes it a few steps into a possible future that’s as charming as it is heartbreaking. Even the film is shot to detach, using close-ups until the lead finally starts seeing the world around him. Sometimes love is found or remembered simply by opening our eyes to what’s always there in front of you be it a next door neighbour just as lonely as you are or your own fragile state of denial. Technology will only get you so far, folks.
Who you’ll fall for: Samantha. Yup, she’s not real but, hey, I’d gladly cuddle with an iPhone 6 if she had Scarlett Johansson’s voice.
Love lines:
Samantha: It's like I'm reading a book… and it's a book I deeply love. But I'm reading it slowly now. So the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you… and the words of our story… but it's in this endless space between the words that I'm finding myself now. It's a place that's not of the physical world. It's where everything else is that I didn't even know existed. I love you so much. But this is where I am now. And this is who I am now. And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can't live in your book any more.
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
The Lovedown: It's like Romeo & Juliette if Shakespeare was directed by Wes Anderson, included a lot of Boy Scouts, was set on an island full of quirky characters right out of Twin Peaks and two "storm crossed" lovers trying to break out of the suffocating confines of their realities into love's adventure. Ok, maybe it's nothing like Romeo & Juliette. You always know when you're in a Wes Anderson film and this one, perhaps his most charming, will not disappoint.
Who you'll fall for: Sam and Suzy, right down the the Wednesday Adams glare to the coonskin cap!
Love Lines:
Sam: I feel I'm in a real family now. Not like yours, but similar to one.
Suzy: I always wished I was an orphan. Most of my favorite characters are. I think your lives are more special.
Sam: I love you, but you don't know what you're talking about.
Suzy: I love you, too.