Enter today to win DVDs, coverflats, and yummy treats!
Oh my goodness. In all the excitement of the last few weeks, I completely forgot that I've not yet written up love letters to my last two favorite movies, and .
Actually, they're easy to combine into one post, because I chose them both for the same reason. Humor.
Enchanted is a send-up of fairy tales and Disney princess movies (though it is, itself, a Disney movie), and I'm sure most of you are familiar with the plot. Cold Comfort Farm (based on the comic novel by Stella Gibbons published in 1932) parodies gloomy, gothic Bronte-esque novels. The film version, starring Kate Beckinsale, Ian McKellan, Rufus Sewell and other greats, had the opportunity to parody not only the novels, but the costume dramas made from them!
I expect many of you are familiar with Enchanted, (and if not I blogged about it once long ago) but the plot of Cold Comfort Farm goes something like this: Fresh-faced city girl Flora Poste goes to live with her relatives, the Starkadders, at the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm. From the batty old woman who keeps to her room because she long ago "saw something nasty in the woodshed", to the oversexed farm brothers Seth and Ruben, to their fire-and-brimstone preaching patriarch, Cold Comfort Farm is not only a jumble of crazy characters, but a tumbledown wreck. Flora brings to the place a modern sensibility, and through a series of common-sense solutions, she contrives happy endings for them all. And then earns her own! The film is filled with quotable lines and hilarious touches. (My favorite part? The cows named Feckless, Aimless, Graceless, and Pointless.)
But what I love about both of these films is that, even as they mock conventional tropes, in the end they also affirm the underlying point. Yes, these movies say, fairy tales and gothic novels have elements of the ridiculous...but that doesn't mean there are no real happy endings.
In all my books, there is (I hope) a slightly self-conscious nod to the fact that romance, both as a fiction genre and as an emotional experience, has a touch of the absurd. I mean, anything so intricately connected to human emotion does. I find it impossible to relate to a story that has ZERO sense of humor, because I find humor in just about anything. Love most of all. When I think back on the times I've fallen in love, or simply found myself the throes of a crush, I've always felt just silly with emotion...but delightfully, wonderfully so. So even when my stories get a bit dark, I always try to give my characters some sense of humor about themselves and their predicament. Nothing wins me over faster than a character (or real-life person!) who can laugh at him- or herself.
Speaking of humor and romance, there are some amazing releases I'm dying to get my hands on today, by two of the authors who combine those elements more skillfully than anyone: What Happens in London by Julia Quinn, and Don't Tempt Me by Loretta Chase. I'm also desperate for a copy of Bound by Your Touch by Meredith Duran, though maybe it's a little darker in tone....? I know some of you have read it already; you tell me.
What are you reading? What are you laughing at? Is it yourself? (I hope so, because that's usually the answer for me.)
Congratulations to Catie James, the winner of a signed copy of 's BEHIND THE RED DOOR! Please email me your address, and I'll get it in the mail to you.
Second, you could win a DVD of Moonstruck, or one of my other favorite movies, plus coverflats and goodies - just enter my movie club contest here! I'll be drawing the May winners in just a few days.
Third, don't forget - there's now only one way to get an ARC (advance readers copy) of GODDESS OF THE HUNT, and that's to bid on in the Brenda Novak auction to benefit diabetes research. Bids close on May 31st!
And now, on with the show.
Moonstruck. Oh, how I love this movie, for so many reasons. But I will confine myself to a listing a few.
First, the film features one of my favorite pairings: The deliciously tortured hero and the no-nonsense heroine who refuses to coddle him. Ronny lost his hand in a bakery accident, and he's still bitter and blaming his older brother, Johnny. When Johnny's fiance, Loretta, comes to invite Ronny to the wedding, so many sparks fly between them they practically combust. Their dialogue is so wonderful.
One of the most memorable exchanges (sorry for video quality):
Or this speech by Ronny:
Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bull****. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed.
Oh, and then there's the opera. The opera! *sigh*
But the thing I adore most about this movie is the ending. I was tempted to embed the video, but it's too long and a spoiler if you haven't seen the whole thing. But what I love about it is that Ronny and Loretta are surrounded by all the people they love and who love them. In making their declarations of love and commitment, they're not just an isolated couple, but part of a family, a neighborhood, a community, a culture. In my books, I have a tendency to write the final reunion and happy ending in the context of big group scenes--with families, party guests, or whole crowds looking on, because I love the idea that a happy ending is about more than just two people. It's a part of a larger circle of love.
Do you have any favorite lines from Moonstruck, or other movies? Favorite ending scenes with public declarations of love?
I'm giving away a copy of this DVD and other goodies, including signed coverflats and gourmet chocolates! Just enter my Movie Club Contest.
I've heard it said that every modern historical romance novel has its roots in one of two classic books: Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre. I've blogged about P&P (too?) many times, and anyone who frequents this blog knows I came around to writing historical romance via Jane Austen fanfiction. But Jane Eyre is another book that has occupied a vast, complex space in my brain ever since I first read it at the age of 12, and I often feel it influencing me as I plot and write my novels now.
For one, Jane Eyre definitely influenced my taste in heroes. Rochester is the blueprint for the intense, brooding, darkly sexual hero with a complex past and a tragic secret. Contrasted with, say, Darcy--whose challenge is to grow beyond the results of a privileged upbringing (pride and prejudice, to name a few), rather than a tortured past. As a reader and a writer, I think I gravitate to heroes who are somewhere between the two. Haunted by the past, struggling to grow in the present. (The exception would be Toby, the hero of A Lady of Persuasion. A less Rochester-eque hero you could not find. But there are events in his heroine's past that are loosely inspired by Jane Eyre.)
Another of Jane Eyre's legacies to historical romance is the theme of equality as essential to the romantic relationship. As Jane says in the clip below, her tumultuous "friendship" with her flinty, antagonizing employer has an unexpected result: for the first time in her life, she feels a powerful man's equal, both intellectually and spiritually. And when Rochester's dark, tragic secret is later revealed, Jane cannot bring herself to surrender that hard-won sense of self, even to grasp the love she craves. She will have him on her own terms, or not at all.
I enjoyed the 2006 BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre starring Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson, but the 1996 version is still my favorite. Ciaran Hinds embodies the gruff, brooding, dark humor I always associate with Rochester, and Samantha Morton plays "poor, plain, little" Jane to perfection.
Enter my contest to win a copy of this movie, and other goodies!
The fastest way I can describe the plot of Goddess of the Hunt (the first half of it, anyway) is like so: Think My Best Friend's Wedding, set in the Regency--except replace witty, charming, gay Rupert Everett with a brooding, intense, most definitely straight earl.
If you've never seen this movie (and you should!), Julia Roberts' character, Julianne, learns that her best friend of several years, Michael (played by Dermott Mulroney) is getting married. Julianne is the low-maintenance, wisecracking, hang-with-the-guys type, and Michael's new fiance is a young, gorgeous, nauseatingly perfect blonde (played by Cameron Diaz). And since Julianne's been in love with Michael since...oh, forever...she decides to break up the wedding and get him back. Hijinks ensue. Oh man, do they ever ensue. To get her man, Julianne is willing to resort to tactics both ruthless and ridiculous, and her reluctant partner-in-crime, George (played by Rupert Everett), becomes more of a hindrance than a help, as he begins to play the voice of reason, insisting that Julianne wake up and realize it's just not meant to be.
Aside from the setup, the daring heroine, and the elements of screwball comedy, Goddess shares another quality in common with this film: the "Other Woman" you want to hate...but just can't. In Goddess, heroine Lucy's rival is Sophia Hathaway--a young, gorgeous, nauseatingly perfect blonde. And despite all Lucy's best attempts to despise her, she just can't do it. In fact, true disaster strikes. They become friends.
The other reason I love this movie: Best scene ever!
Psst...I'm giving away a DVD of this film, along with goodies and coverflats! To enter, see my contest page.
If anyone ever asks me why I became a romance writer? This movie is to blame.
Travel back in time with me, to November 11, 2005. (cue wavy effects and plinky music) I was a work-at-home mom with a toddler (dareling two was yet to be). My birthday had just come and gone a few days ago, with little fanfare. It was Friday morning, and as I drove to pick up my daily workload from the office, I listened to the weekly movie reviews on NPR. They reviewed the brand new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and in a rare occurrence, all of the critics loved it.
Now, I was already a P&P fangirl. Since high school, it had been one of my favorite books, and I'd been a huge fan of the 1995 BBC miniseries adaptation (which, for the record, is still my favorite adaptation. Colin Firth will forever be my Darcy.). Anyhow, I immediately called my husband at work and told him, this was what I wanted for my birthday - he needed to call his mother and have her come over to babysit, and then take me to see P&P that very night. So he did.
And oh, it was lovely. Funny, touching, romantic, filled with beautiful landscapes and a beautiful score and beautiful people. I pretty much floated around for days, which Mr. Dare obliquely enjoyed but did not exactly "get." I eventually sought a different outlet for my effusions of delight...online. That serendipitous click of the mouse was my introduction to the vast Austen online fandom, and the inspiring, creative playground that is JA fanfiction. And that community was my reintroduction to the historical romance genre. I was reading romance again, after many years hiatus, and I began writing it, too. First in short works of fan fiction, and then longer fics, and eventually (after a little contest called FanLit) my own original historical romance novels.
So without this movie, whatever writing career I might have would look verrry different. Darcy, what I do not owe you!
Any movies that you've watched at turning points in your own life?
The fastest way I can describe the plot of 
