"Random thoughts for Valentine's day... Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap."
Jason from MNPP here, wishing everybody a happy Valentines (even if I do lean towards the incredulous sentiment expressed above). When you ask yourselves what the great romantic films of our times are, what answers do you come up with? Because I asked myself that question in order to choose this week's holiday-themed edition of "Beauty vs Beast" and it was Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (from whence that quote came) that was the very first movie I thought of...
That probably says more about me personally than it does about Modern Romance, but this is a real rorschach test of a query and it's my truth - I can't think of a film from the past 20 years that has made my heart ache with a deeper understanding of what it means to get to know somebody, to really know somebody, and how terrifying and erratic and impossible (emphasis upon impossible) an experience that really is. And so Joely & Oh My Darlin' Clementine, this one's for you.
PREVIOUSLY Two directors entered but only one could leave, and you better believe it's the man who took a butcher knife to Marion Crane who made it out alive - Alfred Hitchcock took 68% of the vote over his French admirer François Truffaut. The latter was not without his passionate defenders though! Said Roger:
"I know he'll lose, but my vote goes for Truffaut because his passion and adoration for cinema were undeniably stronger than Hitchcock's. Truffaut even loved Hitchcock's films more than Hitchcock himself!
I see myself in him sometimes when I meet other supposed film buffs who disappoint me for demonstrably not loving films as much as me, you know what I mean? They have sophisticated taste, appreciation for world cinema, but they're perhaps too critical and don't give themselves over to really enjoying them. Truffaut really, really loved movies."