The season of love, paper hearts and store bought bouquets is here! With the wave of lovey-dovey décor, comes the desire to fill some hours with amazing romance movies. Well, too bad! Those aren’t what I’m suggesting you watch this Valentine’s Day. Take a look at some of these instead!
Simply Irresistible: If you think crustaceans are the best animals ever, I think you may really like this movie. A magic crab happens to be central to the plot. Mhm, magic crab. It gives a woman magical cooking and seduction powers. A woman who gains a restaurant can’t cook, so obviously someone has to give her a magic crab! Eventually, her magical cooking leads a man to fall in love with her, duh. Now, let’s ignore the dangers of falling in love with someone due to something they actually aren’t (and is bolstered by a crab). Reviews for this movie call it ‘old fashioned like a 90s romance’ and I’ll give it that. It definitely looks old. It’s also full of cringe – I still can’t recall any movie that’s done a ‘flying through the air kiss’ right. At one point, you can spot a fishing line hanging from the crab – ruining it’s ‘magical immersion’. This movie is old fashioned, bad quality and flimsy but it’s got a magical crab. It’s bad.. but it definitely is a good movie to start a bad movie night on.
Leap Year: A woman wants to marry her boyfriend. But oh no! Women can’t propose! Duh! But wait… her boyfriend is Irish. That means.. Celtic tradition must still be applicable to him (even though he doesn’t live there) and Celtic tradition allows women to propose on leap year! He decides to travel back home and she follows but somewhere along the way.. she gets a bit lost. Stuck on the Emerald Isle, she manages to get entangled with a different Irishman. I’ll be honest, this movie isn’t as gag worthy as some others on this list. Its the kind of movie that isn’t very much. It has razor thin characters and a plot that has that green recycle sticker plastered on it. It’s beautiful though, with fantastic imagery of the great Emerald Isle.
Everybody Wants to be Italian: Despite this movie’s belief, not everyone wants to be Italian. Especially if this movie accurately represents the Italian population. This movie is bad in the sense that a rotting fish is bad: horribly smelling, visually unappealing and forbid you eat it…! The movie opens on a man getting a suit. That’s fine! Right? Well, after the incredibly long introduction, we learn that he’s doing all this for a woman who just so happens to be married. With KIDS. We then learn he did this for EIGHT YEARS. He’s literally a stalker (waited for her in a park so he could talk to her and her kids). Unfortunately, his friends are pretty bad too. They saw one ‘hot chick’ in an alley and coerced her into a party after she politely declined. BUT I CAN’T EVEN FEEL BAD FOR HER FOR LONG. She ends up talking to the protagonist and says that ‘men and women can’t be friends’ and that her ‘biological clock is ticking’. This movie is terrible – misogynistic, weird and stalker-y. A great watch for a person who wants to cringe and snicker at dumb people.
Naked: Waking up nude in an elevator in a groundhog day-eske movie would not be my personal first choice for my wedding day. Despite the odd premise and low Tomato score on Rotten Tomatoes which first led me to this movie, I found Naked a lovely romantic comedy movie with a little detective movie spice sprinkled in. It was genuinely funny in some parts, and while it wasn’t opening many ‘signs of a great film’ doors, it left a window open – which is nice after the other movies on this list. Even though the protagonist is likely now afflicted with a fear of elevators, I liked this movie…but critics hated it. That means it’s not on a good movie list but not bad enough to rank high on mine. A good movie to end on during movie night only because it’s a wind down from the others.
There’s so many more if none of these catch your fancy. Romantic comedies haven’t been good for…. forever, so don’t bother finding the perfect one! Instead, enjoy (or hate to watch) the terrible ones. Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for the amount of cringe you will see if you do though.
