The Ultimate Guide To Chick Flicks: The Romance, The Glamour, The Tears, And More - Softcover

Adelman, Kim

 
9780767918183: The Ultimate Guide To Chick Flicks: The Romance, The Glamour, The Tears, And More
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0767918185 ISBN 13: 9780767918183
Verlag: Broadway Books, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

An entertaining guide to women's favorite movies offers keen insights into the elements that constitute a "Chick Flick," along with recommendations for every day of the year, suggestions for must-have DVDs, inside Hollywood gossip, photographs, and more. Original. 15,000 first printing.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Filmmaker KIM ADELMAN has presented her work at the Sundance Film Festival and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Elvis and The Girls’ Guide to Country. She lives in Los Angeles.

Aus dem Klappentext

Chick flicks rule at the box office. The highest grossing movie of all time is still Titanic, and the success of these films grows every year, as many are now breaking the coveted $100 million mark. In a lively celebration of chick flicks past and present, The Ultimate Guide to Chick Flicks is packed with recommendations and glam photos, so every aficionado can feel like a pretty woman. Much more than an examination of individual movies, The Ultimate Guide to Chick Flicks has experts explore the elements that make a movie a chick flick and offer insights into the archetypes the bad boy, the Cinderella, the misfit that are essential ingredients for any film with girl power. Culled from interviews with stylists, choreographers, and many others, The Ultimate Guide to Chick Flicks features:

Chick flick recommendations for every day of the year
Recipes for disaster, heartbreak, and fried green tomatoes
Signature fashions, from the Flashdance ripped sweatshirt to the pink suit featured in Legally Blonde
Essential viewing from the classics to the undiscovered gems, and suggestions for must-have DVDs
The inside dirt on Hollywood hunks

Packed with photos and original illustrations, fun lists and sidebars, this tribute is as delicious as the films it celebrates.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER 1


From Meeting Cute to
the Ultimate Happy Ending


How to Create the Perfect Romance


So what exactly is a chick flick?  Perhaps the classic definition of pornography applies: we know it when we see it. (Not to imply in any way that chick flicks are pornography, though I do have a friend who calls Sandra Bullock's Hope Floats "porn for girls.") A more concrete definition might be a movie that specifically appeals to viewers with a feminine sensibility.

Quite often the stars, story line, and marketing campaign make it immediately obvious whether something falls in the chick flick camp or not. Male teenagers, in particular, seem to have an infallible radar detector warning them away from a film that their mother might enjoy, while female teenagers innately sense that anything with "wedding" or "princess" in the title is worthy of their patronage.

Most chick flicks aren't concerned with winning the male audience over. The films might feature car chases and explosions (typical guy flick modus operandi), but those chases and explosions are employed in pursuit of the most important thing of all: love. Why are chick flick enthusiasts so fascinated by the twists and turns of love? "Love is the ultimate magic," theorizes Practical Magic writer Alice Hoffman, "the ultimate goal with no reason, often making no sense. We spend our lives trying to make those kind of things practical—why do I love him, why does he love me. Basically, it's just magic." Nothing captures and displays that magic better than a chick flick.

Incorporating everything from epic costume dramas to old-fashioned Hollywood musicals to family-friendly fables to contemporary working girl comedies, the chick flick genre is too broad to analyze as a whole. Nevertheless, an examination of the fundamental ingredients in a chick flick romance reveals a prototypical pattern that can be broken down into ten basic steps.


Step One: Create a Sympathetic Heroine

Even if the female lead is a prostitute or the Queen of England, she should be saddled with a plight not so removed from the viewer's own life. The heroine needs to be a character whom everyone in the audience—from a teenage bookworm secretly in love with the big man on campus to an overworked at the office/under-appreciated at home C.E.O.--can relate to. The actresses playing these heroines don't seem too far removed from the girl next door, which is why we deem them to be mega-love-worthy and embrace them as America's sweethearts. Consequently, Renee Zellweger can play a socially inept neurotic in Bridget Jones's Diary and a cold-blooded murderess in Chicago and still have the audience rooting for her. Inaccessibly beautiful actresses are usually cast as the villains, the "bad girlfriends" whom the male leads are superficially attracted to before realizing their mistake. "Invariably the 'third character' part in a romantic comedy is a bitch or an ice princess or really unlikable," agrees Alicia Witt, who played Sandra Bullock's rival for Hugh Grant's affection in Two Weeks Notice.


Step Two: Offer up a Love-Worthy Hero

Of course, the heroine doesn't realize how loveable the hero is at first--if they were a perfect match from the start, there wouldn't be any story to tell, would there? Because he'll change over the course of the movie, the hero is often flawed at the start. To compensate for this handicap, the actor has to use his personal charm and charisma to infuse likeability into the role. Analyzing Dennis Quaid and his character in Something to Talk About, producer Paula Weinstein comments, "Dennis made Eddie, who after all, has been stepping out on his wife, an immensely compassionate and complicated human being." Tom Hanks is also good at playing a cad worthy of redemption. "Tom has such charm," proclaims You've Got Mail director Nora Ephron, "he is so irresistible that he can play a bad guy and you never once believe that he doesn't truly have a heart."

Love at first sight can occur. However, this instant love connection is tested by a series of bumps in the hero and heroine's relationship. To permanently win the affection of his true love, the hero must make a grand gesture, a public declaration of everlasting love. But wait, we're getting ahead of ourselves . . .


Step Three: Don't Forget the Best Friend

If the heroine needs to explain her feelings to someone, or perhaps she requires additional motivation to do the right thing, she should come equipped with a best friend. Because this character often provides comic relief and can't be perceived as a potential rival for the hero's affection, the best friend role is usually cast with quirky comediennes or gay men. Whoopi Goldberg is an excellent instigator in How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Rosie O'Donnell provides a similar nudge in Sleepless in Seattle, and Rupert Everett proves to be Julia Roberts's ultimate champion in My Best Friend's Wedding. The hero, by the way, often has his own Sancho Panza, usually a coworker. But unlike their female counterpart, the male best friend sometimes poaches. Think Jason Alexander in Pretty Woman.


Step Four: Something's Wrong with the Heroine's Life

Sometimes our girl isn't fulfilled at work. Or she hungers for a family. In the Britney Spears vehicle, Crossroads, the teenage heroine (Lucy) has mother-abandonment issues. "We all have certain questions in life, and Lucy's is finding her mother," explains Kim Cattrall, who plays the AWOL matriarch. "Once she does, she can put that to rest and get on with her life, as opposed to always being connected to this phantom figure."

The heroine feels incomplete because she has not yet achieved her destiny. While in limbo, she can fall victim to Bad Boyfriend Syndrome. Bad boyfriends are not to be confused with bad boys. A bad boy is a beast who just needs a little tender loving care from a beauty before he can be recognized as a true prince. A bad boyfriend, on the other hand, might be a prince, but he's not the heroine's true destiny.

Meg Ryan has Bad Boyfriend Syndrome in Sleepless in Seattle. "Walter represents the perfect man to take home to your family," the actress says of her character's initial wrong choice in potential mates. "He's wonderful, but something is wrong with the relationship, and Annie doesn't know herself well enough to know what she really wants."

What's worse than having a bad boyfriend? Having no boyfriend! Renee Zellweger's problem in Bridget Jones's Diary is written in capital letters on the DVD cover—she's UNMARRIED. Director Sharon Maguire can relate to her heroine's plight. "I know the world so well because it's mine. We were having a really good time, going out partying, and we didn't really want that to stop. At the same time, we were anxious why we hadn't settled down yet. Yet, we thought we shouldn't be striving for male approval anyway because we were feminists. That contradiction is the thing that [writer] Helen [Fielding] so brilliantly captured in Bridget Jones's Diary. There are a lot of women out there who've got their careers, their independence—but they're constantly thinking, 'I just want to be in love. I just want a man.'"


Step Five: They Meet

Unless the chick flick is a tearjerker, our heroine and her true love are guaranteed to end up together in the final reel. But first they have to meet, usually in a memorable way—or better yet, a "cute" way. In The Wedding Planner, Matthew McConaughey saves Jennifer Lopez from a runaway garbage bin. "They have this kind of...

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Verlag
Broadway Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2005
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0767918185
ISBN 13 
9780767918183
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
229
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