La Bamba. I don't care to learn about Richie Valens brother's rotten life.
shareMichael Mann's Heat had too much relationship melodrama going on
The main relationship is the one between a clever man chasing a clever man...there was no great animosity in this hunt but more of a begrudging respect between opponents punctuated with some thrilling heist scenes
Whenever 'family' scenes popped up I felt they were beside the point
The Caine Mutiny (1954) -- In Herman Wouk's novel, Willie Keith's romance with May Wynn is an important factor in his maturation from an adolescent to a man, and the book handles it well. The movie is one of my favorites, but the romance is given short shrift and that aspect is lost. Merely on storytelling grounds the filmmakers would have been better off cutting it out altogether. Also, Robert Francis was perhaps one of the most wooden actors to ever appear on screen, and one of the romance scenes is laughable because of that. It's fortunate that Hollywood was more restrained in that era in its depiction of sex, which in this movie is limited to one intense kiss. Had it been made in the modern mode, fully explicit, viewing Robert Francis badly attempting to portray sexual passion would have probably rendered me impotent for life.
shareWell written, your description of the kiss made me laugh remembering how awkward it was.
shareSome of the dialogue in that scene at Yellowstone was even worse, and what made it even more so was that Francis delivered his lines not with anything like romantic feeling but more like ... I dunno ... Imagine an attorney who only got one hour of sleep the night before and must now concentrate as his new client relates her situation to him. Something like that. I've forgotten the specifics but the exchange I'm thinking of when something like this:
MAY: Wow, riding a horse is like performing a new song! Thrilling but scary!
WILLIE: Isn't it.
MAY: The restaurant here is fantastic. The dinner was wonderful.
WILLIE: Wasn't it.
MAY: And this view, out away from the city. The stars just seem to go on forever.
WILLIE: Don't they.
MAY: [looking at him] It's getting late.
WILLIE: It's getting very late.
[they suddenly kiss passionately]
Like I said, it's one of my favorite movies overall, but that scene and a couple of others make me cringe. I suppose I shouldn't be that rough on Robert Francis, he died in an accident in his mid-twenties ... but my God! I would say he was wooden as a tree, but that would be an insult to trees.
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The entirety of Pulp Fiction, start to finish... but that suggests that I didn't turn it off after 30 minutes...
shareThe affair between Wallace and Isabella of France in Braveheart.
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