Romantic Comedy Movies Challenge: Week 1

Thanks for following our odyssey of watching 30 days of romantic comedies. We may make it. We may not. This post does contain affiliate links.

On Valentine’s Day, Scott and I settled in to watch a romantic comedy. It’s been a while since we watched a good rom com and it just hit the spot. We enjoyed laughing, the light-hearted banter of the film and leaving with warm fuzzies. So we thought, what would happen if we watched a month of romantic comedies? Thus started our romantic comedy movies challenge. If you missed my intro, read it here.

Some people commented that they would go batty trying to watch a movie a day. Folks! I am in my 40s with younger kids. I really need my sleep. Hubby and I believe you don’t have to watch a complete movie in one sitting. Instead, we did break up some of these films into two days. It’s all about self-preservation while getting in some snuggles. Here’s how this week went:

Day 1: The Holiday

Day 2: Love Actually

Day 3/4: Serendipity

Day 5: None. Netflix fail.

Day 6: Say Anything

Day 7: Pretty Woman

Day 8: The Lego Movie

The first thing that struck us looking over our romantic comedy movie list is the fact that we’ve already seen two films with John Cusack in them, appearing in Serendipity and Say Anything. We had forgotten what a romcom powerhouse he was. I had also forgotten how inappropriate Pretty Woman is with Julia Roberts as a hooker. Since when do we love hookers? And yet, you can’t help but enjoy this film.

Winners of the Week

Scott chose Love Actually as his favorite movie from the movie. He was impressed with how they pulled all of the stories together at the end, and they were all great story lines.

My vote goes to Say Anything. I love the cult feel of the movie, the raw emotion of young love and the ridiculous humor of being 18. Can you remember what it felt like to be aimless and desperately in love?

REVIEWS: A Man’s Perspective on Romantic Comedies

As promised, Scott is offering his own personal take on many of these romantic comedies. So ladies, take notes. You may just find a movie your man is willing to watch.

Day 1: The Holiday: Scott thought The Holiday was fun, sincere and lighthearted. He thought the acting was good (because let’s face it, romcoms don’t always have the best acting). Scott really liked the flirting between Jack Black and Kate Winslet and felt all of the characters were believable.

On a serious side note, Scott wants to move into the L.A. house featured in the movie. He felt it was romantic and big and he could get used to living like that. Ditto on my part.

BTW — I used to have a major crush on Jude Law, and this movie reminded me of just how hot he is. Watch it just to watch him.

Day 2: Love Actually: Scott really loved the opening where everyone is hugging at the airport. He felt it was a terrific entry into what the movie was about. But he really liked the fact that the movie had six or seven payoffs in the end. He said it was just a great build up throughout the movie and a terrific payoff and wrap-up when the movie was done.

Day 3/4: Serendipity: As I stated above, Scott and I don’t believe you have to watch a whole movie in one sitting. Otherwise, we may actually never see a film. This may have been considered blasphemy before we had kids. But they’re here now, and we don’t feel that way anymore. Sleep is way too important.

Scott said in Seredipity he really cared about the characters and was rooting for them to get together in the end. It kept him engaged the whole time… even though we broke it up into two nights. Scott felt the screenplay was really well written. Plus, the average guy get the seriously hot chick (Kate Beckinsale), which he thought was a bonus. (Such a guy, right?)

Day 5: None. We ran out of DVDs so we turned to Netflix and had an epic fail. Yep, we had a complete Netflix fail; however, I’m not blaming it on Netflix. I’m actually blaming it on our cable company. I’m talking to you, Comcast! During prime time hours when everyone is streaming and downloading, our cable service can slow down to a ridiculous trickle of data. Which made it impossible to watch a movie that night. So we watched the opening of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon via Tivo. Go Jimmy!

Day 6: Say Anything: The big thing of this movie for Scott was the underdog ultimately gets the girl. (I didn’t ruin the movie for you, did I?) You just want to him win win win! Does it get better any better at capturing the age of 18? Being directionless and overwhelmed by emotion. Scott says the movie created empathy for Cusack as an independent, good-to-the-core young man trying to find his way.

By far, Say Anything has an awesome soundtrack. In addition, we were just howling at the sidekick friend who kept singing tormented songs about her ex-beau Joe. Scott also couldn’t get over how awesome the main character’s name is — Lloyd Dobbler. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s just perfect,” he said.

 Day 7: Pretty Woman: A movie has to be perfectly crafted to have a hooker with a golden heart work that well, says Scott. For Julia Roberts to pull off the lines she did just reflects how good the movie is. Add in a terrific soundtrack and it was just a fun ride. Richard Gere also is made for playing the corporate guy. Watching this movie we realized Gere has the most amazing head of hair. “That thing could take a bullet,” Scott said.

We finished this movie late at night (11:30pm but it may as well have been in the middle of the night) and neither one of us realized the time because we were enjoying the movie. Scott even commented it felt just as fun as when he saw it last time in the 90s.

On a personal note, some movies create the perfect one liner. Can anyone say “Cinder-f***king-rella?”

Day 8: The Lego Movie: Okay, this isn’t actually a romantic comedy. But it was Saturday as well as family date night. You don’t expect us to do two movies in the same night, do you?!? Besides, the love story between construction worker Emmett and racy Wyldstyle heated up the screen. Ha!