Top 5 Cheesy/Heartwarming Movies

List your favorite movies that do NOTHING to break hollywood stereotypes: they're the cheesy, heart warming, pull at your heart string type movies and yet you love them and rewatch them and then don't tell your friends that you love them lest you be ousted from your alpha-male social parties.

Alpha male? What are you; twelve or a politician or both?

I'll try and make a list eventually, but for now I can say The Notebook is a guilty pleasure for me. Anyone who has been in love can feel the joy and anguish despite the plot and writing trying to fuck it up. The chemistry between the leads is palpable. It makes me misty-eyed every time I watch it. Corny as all get out, but if you know young love you can identify. I'm pretty sure the leads were fucking during filming so it makes it that much better on many levels. (Shut up and kiss, pretty people!)

I'm sorry about my delay in responding to this. I've got my top 3 picked out but the last two are puzzlers. Which is weird. Given the subject matter, they shouldn't be.

Alright, I better post my list as a sample:

1. Be With You - A Japanese...pretty much made for TV type movie. It's SO cheesy but god damn I cry every time.
2. Up - CRYYYYY!
3. Never Ending Story - ARTAX! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
4. Top Gun - You can be my wingman anytime. yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah
5. ...I...hmmmm

I too am struggling with the last one.

1. Jerry Maguire
Cameron Crowe has a way of sentimentality when its featured in his movies and I'm sure some people think that you could include this and everything else he's made post that for a top 5 list. The thing is, Crowe gets away with it most of the time (sorry, Elizabethtown) because he's sincere about it. And there's a 3-4 year break between films of his so I try to see the value in whatever he puts out.

Which brings me to Jerry Maguire. Loved it when it came out. The dialogue, the cast, the great photography by Janusz Kaminski (regular collaborator with Spielberg), Crowe's excellent soundtrack choices and the way it keeps an optimistic view of humanity even in the cutthroat arena of sports agencies (or perhaps that's what I'm led to believe). From that amazing opening sequence (scored to The Who's live version of "Magic Bus") to Cruise getting sucker punched by Kelly Preston to Cuba Gooding Jr's abundant enthusiasm to Todd Louiso's jazz loving nanny to Jay Mohr's surprise firing of Maguire to the seething wrongness of Maguire's bachelor party....it's full of great moments. And Renee Zellweger isn't someone I've ever been crazy about but she works. I hate Johnathan Lipnicki's famous "Did you know that..." scene but the kid does the one thing his role is designed for: being cute. And I shouldn't forget Regina King, who is all heart.

And while that closing monologue Maguire makes to Dorothy may make some cringe (like, famously and hilariously, Patton Oswalt's brother Matt), I can't bring myself to hatred. I like these characters and I want these two to get together and it is only fitting that this goofy but earnest film has this family walking off to the tune of Dylan's "Shelter From The Storm".

2. The Muppets
Let's get something clear: I love this movie. It's a great love letter to the franchise and its fans. The songs are brilliant and so are the gags (traveling by map!). But this film wears its heart on its sleeve so proudly that the whimsy it dishes out and every turn is so thick and rich you could drizzle it over pancakes. What worked perfectly for me landed like a thud with my mother and sister. They accuse me of liking dark, mature films that they'd never touch and this was just appalling to them. I don't get it. How can you not like a film where, at one point, Gonzo's chickens are clucking to the tune of Cee-Lo's "Fuck You"?

3. 10 Things I Hate About You
I've never bothered with the tv show this 90s update of "The Taming of the Shrew" inspired but that's due to the fact that there's nothing more you can say or improve on here. The cheese factor doesn't completely intrude until the last 3rd (that Heath Ledger can serenade Julia Stiles and still maintain dignity is impressive) but there are moments of obvious manipulative b.s. moments, like Andrew Keegan's asshole character or the clumsy courtship between Joe-Go Levitt and Larisa "Alex Mack" Oleynik. The pairing of Stiles and Ledger was a brilliant move. Also, the films makes great use of adults, such as Larry Miller, Allison Janney and Daryl Mitchell. Still, though, Stiles' reading of the poem in the 3rd act just slays every time:



4. Titanic
Yes, fuckers. I'm going here.
James Cameron is a master of many tasks when it comes to filmmaking but his screenwriting is a shaky one to assess. There was a period - from Terminator to The Abyss - where he understood subtlety and he could make great choices not just on dialogue but info just based on body language and facial expressions. With Terminator 2 onward, his choices would never derail the experience but it became quite clear that his writing would be utilitarian: strong enough a foundation for everything else to make the film work but nothing you could quote without laughing.

It's a testament then, to the talents of DiCaprio and Winslet (and to be fair, the integrity of all the actors), that the first two hours of this film doesn't completely fall apart. The ridiculous heights of "Leo-Mania" were in full force after this film came out and all the naysayers just couldn't understand "why?" I knew perfectly why and not because how wonderfully DiCaprio has grown as an actor since then.

Cameron sets the stage and provides the proper context: we know who's involved, what's at stake and I always believed that the cause and effect from one incident to another felt proper and genuine. This movie was successful for many reasons but the biggest reason is that audiences bought into the relationships, invested themselves in them. When the film would turn into terror and tragedy in the 3rd act, it affected them greatly. So while I wish Cameron's dialogue was better, every time I've seen the film reminds me that he knew exactly what he was doing. That being said:

"I'm the king of the world!"

Rose: Teach me to ride like a man.
Jack: And chew tobacco like a man.
Rose: And spit like a man!
Jack: What, they didn't teach you that in finishing school?

Jack: [waving to people as the Titanic sets off] Goodbye!
Fabrizio: You know somebody?
Jack: Of course not! That's not the point! Goodbye, I'll miss you!
Fabrizio: Goodbye! I'm gonna never forget you!

Rose: Jack... Mister Dawson, it's been a pleasure. I've sought you out to thank you, and now I have thanked you.
Jack: And even insulted me.
Rose: Well, you deserved it.
Jack: Right.
Rose: Right.
Jack: [Rose is still shaking his hand] I thought you were leaving.
Rose: [turns to leave] I am. You are so annoying.
Jack: Ha, ha.
Rose: [turns back to Jack] Wait, I don't have to leave, this is my part of the ship. You leave.
Jack: Oh ho, ho, well well well, now who's being rude?

AAAAAGGGGGHHHH......

And fuck Celine Dion.

5. You Got Mail
Because Sleepless In Seattle is just too painful to witness. Also, no annoyingly popular Celine Dion song to accompany it.

Titanic was a good choice i was wrestling with it myself.

Also..>THE MUPPETS! Man, when I watched that in theaters it was magical. It was all adults and I saw it alone but I could feel that every single person in that theater felt like a kid like me.

Good choice.

I was actually going to say 10 Things I Hate About You! Can't believe someone else said it. Also Alex Mack was the celebrity crush of my much younger self.

Make that 3 of us who have 10 Things in contention for our list.