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Here at JOE, we’re fools for love…
You could say we’re romanthick.
Aside from our love of romance and questionable puns, we also have a soft spot for a good film. We’ve teamed up with Vhi Friday Flirt to compile a list of some of our favourite romantic comedies for you and your sweetheart to curl up on the couch with.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Clip via UniversalMovies
Have Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet ever been better than in this mind-bending, heart-breaking Oscar-winner?
Carrey plays a recently-dumped sad sack who finds out that Winslet’s character has just wiped him from her memory. What follows is quite simply one of the best films ever made.
It’s got everything from belly laughs to genuine lump-in-throat moments.
Directed by music video genius, Michel Gondry, and written by Being John Malkovich scribe, Charlie Kaufman, it’s unlikely you’ll forget it any time soon.
Say Anything (1989)
Clip via dvdmajestic
“I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen.”
The film that inspired a bunch of desperate men to hold a boombox over their head in the rain in an attempt to win back the love of their life (Wouldn’t you get an electric shock? Would the rain not damage the boombox?), Say Anything holds up brilliantly well all these years later.
It’s the simple story of a troubled young man (John Cusack) and his relationship with a bookish young lady (Ione Skye). Standing in the way of their true love is her cranky dad (Frasier’s John Mahoney) and just, you know, life and stuff.
A deeply personal and unpretentious exploration of first love, you’ll swear you’ve got something in your eye by the time the final scene comes along.
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Clip via EdgarWrightHere
Yes, Shaun Of The Dead is a zombie movie (or a “rom-zom-com”), but it works perfectly well even if you were to remove the zombies. It tells the time-old tale of a boy (Simon Pegg) just trying to win back his girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) during a flesh-eating apocalypse.
The film is full of brilliant lines, great jokes and terrific performances from some of the funniest folks in the business (Dylan Moran, Lucy Davis, Nick Frost), but at its heart, it’s a love story about one man trying to become worthy of the woman he’s constantly taken for granted.
But, y’know, with all those zombies we mentioned too.
Swingers (1996)
Clip via Movieclips Trailer Vault
Before Jon Favreau became Iron Man’s director and Tony Stark’s bodyguard, he was a struggling actor in LA trying to get over a break-up.
He used his desperate situation as the backdrop for the ridiculously entertaining Swingers and a launching pad for him and his mates, including a very young Vince Vaughn who has arguably never been better. It’s a film about trying to get back out there after having your heart broken and the friends that help shake you out of your funk.
Although the drive of the film is finding romantic love, the motor is the friendship between Favreau’s mopey Mike and Vaughn’s motormouth; it’s as tender and nuanced as any relationship you’ll see on screen.
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Clip via I’m in MY Crisis Core
If only all of Shakespeare could have been this fun, we wouldn’t have fought to stay awake during English class. 10 Things I Hate About You takes the plot points of The Taming Of The Shrew and transfers them to late 90s Seattle with a winning cast.
Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles are fantastic as a pair of outcasts slowly coming to terms with their feelings for each other. Larry Miller steals the show as the father of two teenage girls who makes his daughters wear an artificial pregnant belly before they go out. Thanks, dad.
This article is brought to you by Vhi.ie/dental
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