Here's two of my favorite underrated rom coms--what are yours?
Don't get me wrong, I can happily consume Sleepless in Seattle or Four Weddings and a Funeral with the best of 'em. Those oldie but goodie rom coms have a gorgeous stars and, an engaging story, and lovely endings. Then there's When Harry Met Sally which is, face it (like Harold and Maude), almost in a genre by itself. It has seared itself into public imagination because it is so much better written, conceived and delivered than the average rom com. Without going back to the era of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn it is difficult to find a romantic comedy that is thrillingly written and endures.
Off the top of my head, I can think of two movies since 1990 that I thought were well-written memorable, and charming that don't usually make anyone's best of list. Those are Crossing Delancey, and The Tao of Steve. More people have heard of the former, so I'll start with the latter. The Tao of Steve is one of those quirky small movies that just never left me. In it, a lumpy school teacher named Dex has his own tried and true formula (The Tao of Steve--named for sexy Steves in movies) for seducing women. He teaches it to other men. I remember the most principle being "display mastery" of something, anything, even something really stupid. It sounds dumb but it all works.
Crossing Delancey stars Amy Irving and, the completely underrated Peter Riegert. It's a sweet comedy about how a regular guy doing nothing special right under our noses could be Mr. Right.
I'm getting over a bout of stomach flu or I'd say more. I just scrolled through this list Rotten Tomatoes best 150 Romantic Comedies of All Time and found my certainty on this topic waning. It's a great list and contains not only some of the huge grossing pictures that I've loved like Jerry Maguire, Bridget Jones' Diary, Broadcast News, LA Story and Groundhog Day but other successful films that I forgot for a minute like Clueless, Waitress, or Valley Girl (my crush on the young hot Nicolas Cage in this pic basically changed my life as I met my husband shortly thereafter who looked an awful lot like him!)
I was surprised to see Crossing Delancey pretty far up on the list and not surprised it skipped over The Tao of Steve. What are your favorite forgotten Rom Coms?
Shoot the Moon.
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