The Heartbreak Kid - 1972

The Heartbreak Kid is a 1972 dark romantic comedy film directed by Elaine May, written by Neil Simon, and starring Charles Grodin, Jeannie Berlin, and Cybill Shepherd. It is based on the short story "A Change of Plan", written by Bruce Jay Friedman. Jeannie Berlin was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and Eddie Albert was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. It is #91 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs, a list of the funniest movies ever made. It was remade in 2007 as The Heartbreak Kid starring Ben Stiller and Malin Åkerman.

Some Like It Hot - 1959

Some Like It Hot is an American comedy film, made in 1958 and released in 1959, which was directed by Billy Wilder and starred Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and George Raft. The supporting cast includes Joe E. Brown, Pat O'Brien and Nehemiah Persoff. The film is a remake by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond of a 1935 French movie, Fanfare d'Amour, from the story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan, which was itself remade in 1951 by German director Kurt Hoffmann as Fanfaren der Liebe. Both the French and German films were without the gangsters that are integral to the plot of Some Like It Hot. Wilder's working title for his film was Fanfares of Love, then Not Tonight, Josephine before he decided on Some Like It Hot as its release title.

During 1981, after the worldwide success of the French comedy La Cage aux Folles, United Artists re-released Some Like It Hot to theatres. In 2000, the American Film Institute listed Some Like It Hot as the greatest American comedy film of all time.

Priceless - 2006

True Love is priceless. This is one of my favorite romantic comedies (French style, too).


Priceless (French: Hors de prix) is a 2006 French film directed by Pierre Salvadori, who says it was adapted from the 1961 Blake Edwards' film, Breakfast at Tiffany's, though the synopsis lays out more like the 1958 novella of the same name written by Truman Capote.


Jean (Gad Elmaleh), a shy waiter at a luxury hotel, pretends to be a millionaire and awakens the interest of Irène (Audrey Tautou), a gold digger who makes wealthy men pay for her bills. Irene's elder lover gets drunk and falls asleep on her birthday so she goes to the bar in the hotel where she and Jean meet. He use his barman skills to make her impressive cocktails, then he takes her up to the imperial suite where they spend the night. A year later Irène returns to her hotel with Jacques, who asks her to marry him. Later that day Jean and Irène sleep together again but Jacques sees them and breaks off the engagement. Irène returns to Jean pretending she gave up Jacques to be with him, but they are discovered in the Imperial Suite. When Irène discovers who Jean really is, she escapes. However, Jean is in love and goes after her, finding her at Côte d'Azur. Pursuing her, he spends all the money to his name to pay for her presence, including his savings and pension plan, until he uses his final euro for "10 more seconds".

Die Hard - 1988

"Welcome to the party, pal."

I love action and this film is one of my favorites in that genre. A funny and thrilling battle between the good guys and the bad guys. This was based on a book by Roderick Thorp entitled "Nothing Lasts Forever" - a sequel to another book entitled "The Detective", which in 1968 was made into a film starring Frank Sinatra.

Bruce Willis was the sixth choice for the main character. It originally went to Arnold Schwarzenegger, then Sylvester Stallone, then Burt Reynolds, then Richard Gere, then Harrison Ford, then Mel Gibson before Willis got it.

NYPD cop John McClane's (Bruce Willis) plan to reconcile with his estranged wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), is thrown for a serious loop when minutes after he arrives at her office, the entire building is overtaken by a group of pitiless terrorists. With little help from the LAPD, wisecracking McClane sets out to single-handedly rescue the hostages and bring the bad guys down. This classic John McTiernan actioner launched Willis into superstardom.

Moliere - 2007

Based loosely on two of his plays, 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme' and 'Tartuffe', Moliere is just fun.

In 1658, playwright/actor Molière, having been given a theater in the capital by the King, is back in Paris after touring the kingdom of France with his company of players. One day, a young lady asks him to follow her to the deathbed of her mother... Thirteen years earlier, Molière already runs a troupe but goes broke and is thrown to prison. Fortunately (?) his debt is covered by Monsieur Jourdain, a rich man who wants him to help him rehearse a one-act play he has written with a view to seducing a beautiful bright young widow, Célimène. As Jourdain is married to Elmire, and is the "respectable" father of two daughters his design must remain secret so Molière is introduced into the house as Tartuffe, an austere priest...

Though the story is not historically correct, for no one really knows the true events in the missing portion of Molière's life, this version is plausible and thought provoking.

Scent of a Woman - 1992

"Just call me Frank. Call me Mr. Slade. Call me... Colonel, if you must. Just don't call me "Sir.""

As a huge fan of Al Pacino I have to include this movie. A very young Chris O'Donnell joins him in a funny and heartfelt film about the characters and their relationship. Also look for a very young Philip Seymour Hoffman as a fellow student of O'Donnell.

Hoping to earn some extra cash during the Thanksgiving holiday, poor prep-school student Charlie Simms (Chris O'Donnell) agrees to look after blind -- and cantankerous -- Lt. Col. Frank Slade (Al Pacino, in a tour-de-force performance). Though the callow student and jaded colonel are mismatched, their relationship grows as Simms follows Slade around Manhattan on a string of wild escapades, and Slade is unmasked as a sentimental romantic.

Frank's bizarre habit of yelling "hoo-wah!" is an actual United States Army battlecry, although he is saying it wrong. He places far too much of a "W" sound on the second syllable. The real version is closer to "hoo-ah!"

"Hoo-wah" is a military acronym (usually yelled by Drill Sargents to Boots) from the acronym "HUA" which is often pronounced "hoo-ah" or in this case "hoo-wah." HUA stands for "Heard, Understood, Acknowledged." Over the years, in the US Army this phrase has taken on many meanings including "Understood?" "yes" or as a general exclamation of "I'm motivated!"

Romantics Anonymous (Les Emotifs Anonymes) - 2011

What happens when a man and a woman share a common passion? They fall in love. And this is what happens to Jean-René, the boss of a small chocolate factory, and Angélique, a gifted chocolate maker he has just hired. What occurs when a highly emotional man meets a highly emotional woman? They fall in love, and this is what occurs to Jean-René and Angélique who share the same handicap. But being pathologically timid does not make things easy for them. So whether they will manage to get together, join their solitudes and live happily ever after is a guessing matter.


This was one of the French/Belgium films I screened at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26, 2011. It's a great romantic comedy that made me smile, laugh...and it has a lot of familiar anectdotes. Excellent.


If you like chocolate or 'desserts' you'll love the sweetness of this film.

Mary and Max - 2008

When someone told me to watch this I have to admit I giggled and thought, "a cartoon?" But what an amazing story of friendship and the personal struggles of people. This is no ordinary cartoon.

Mary Dinkle, a chubby 8-year-old Australian girl, and Max Horovitz, an obese, middle-aged New Yorker with Asperger's syndrome, are a pair of unlikely pen pals in this quirky clay animation feature from writer-director Adam Elliot. Corresponding for two decades, the friends delve into a variety of topics, including sex, kleptomania, psychiatry, taxidermy and more. Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman provide the voices of Mary and Max.