Bad Weather Coming this Valentine's Day? Here's A Dozen Romantic Rentals to Cuddle Up With at Home

UCLA writing professor and expert on romance recommends his pick for the top 12 romantic rentals this Valentine's Day.

(PRWEB) February 10, 2005 -- This Valentine's Day, if you're still in those early stages where impressing your date is important (or in those late stages where getting back into your lover's good graces is imperative), then by all means reserve that table at the Four Seasons. But if things are going so well that the intimacy of being home alone with your honey, the TV and a tub of popcorn sounds like the most romantic evening of all, then your only challenge should be: what to see?

Here's a list offered by UCLA Romantic Comedy Screenwriting instructor Billy Mernit, author of the Valentine's Day Classic That's How Much I Love You":

Annie Hall
One of the great dysfunctional couples ever (you think you've got problems?), a love song to Manhattan and more wit per minute than most movies made since. (Alternate: for more primo Woody, try Hannah and Her Sisters.)

Black Orpheus
An ancient myth brought to vibrant, haunting life during Carnival in Rio, with unforgettable music, color and passion. (Alternate: for another classic tale magically transformed, see Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast.)

Breakfast At Tiffany's
The incandescent Audrey Hepburn in the epitome of glamorous urban '60s sophistication, with Moon River" to hum along to. (Alternate: for Hollywood glamour of an earlier era, check out Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief.)

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
Cutting-edge quirkiness, wild narrative leaps and laughs, and an unusually clear-eyed look at romantic relationships in modern times. (Alternate: another recent left-of-center approach to romance can be found in Lost in Translation.)

Four Weddings And A Funeral
One of the smartest, funniest, fractured courtship comedies ever contains some of the most memorable screen dialogue ever scribed. (Alternate: for sophisticated humor and an ultimate wedding triangle, see Hepburn, Grant and Stewart in The Philadelphia Story.)

Moonstruck
Mr. Passion (Nick Cage) meets Ms. Needs Passion (Cher) in an Italian-American family saga that's loaded with life, laughs and amore. (Alternate: for a poetry-embracing classic that's 100 percent Italian, try Il Postino [The Postman].)

Pretty Woman
This guilty-pleasure fairy tale is nonetheless pleasure-full, with Gere for the girls and Julia's teeth and gams for the guys. (Alternate: for more Julia and the added fun of an addled Hugh Grant, see Notting Hill.)

Romancing The Stone
A priceless combination of rip-roaring adventure and bodice-ripped romance, this eye-filling ride holds up better and better as time goes by. (Alternate: another genre hybrid, mixing romance with crime and yielding real eroticism, is The Big Easy.)

Say Anything
Teen passion has rarely run so deep and humorously rueful, as in this quintessential portrait of adolescent angst. (Alternate: an older but not much wiser John Cusack makes High Fidelity a winner.)

To Have And Have Not
Bogart and Bacall were falling in love for real when they made this Howard Hawks pic in the Forties, and their chemistry hasn't dated one bit. (Alternate: for the best of Hepburn and Tracy, another real-life couple, see Adam's Rib.)

The Way We Were
No, it doesn't work out in the end, but nostalgia's never been quite so gorgeous as it looks on Streisand and Redford here. (Alternate: for more Sidney Pollack-directed Redford, washing Meryl Streep's hair, go Out of Africa.)

When Harry Met Sally
As it tops many folks' favorite rom-com list, you can't go wrong with this very funny, knowing exploration of age-old male v. female issues. (Alternate: more Meg Ryan and Nora Ephron, plus Tom Hanks can be had with Sleepless in Seattle.)

Extras: If the two of you are TV fans and would like a smaller portion of romance, try the final episode of Sex and the City (Season 6, Part 2), wherein Carrie finally lands Big, in Paris, no less. Or for the best of Ross and Rachel, see Friends (Season 2, episodes 7 & 14) for their memorable first kiss, and their first... you know. Enjoy!

Billy Mernit, a teacher at UCLA Extension Writers Program, is the author of Writing the Romantic Comedy (Harper/Collins) and, with artist Claudia Nizza, That's How Much I Love You (Tallfellow Press).

Tallfellow Press is an eclectic book publisher located in Los Angeles. Its predecessor, Price Stern Sloan, is best known for publishing the popular word game Mad Libs," the ever-true Murphy's Law" and the melodious Wee Sing" Series.

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