Thursday Movie Picks - Love Triangles

Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three films that fit the week's theme and telling us a bit about them!

Ah, the love triangle. The time-honored tradition of two men going after the same woman... or one woman falling for two different guys at the same time (yeah, it usually doesn't go the other way around). It is a situation fraught with tension. Or, at least, it can be. I can only imagine how frustrating this must be in real life, but in movies it can sometimes be fun.

The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940) I suppose you COULD call this a "love square" since Katharine Hepburn's Tracy Lord has three suitors.... except that the third man (John Howard's poor George) is really never part of the "love" part of the equation. Tracy divorced C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) for his alcoholism, and now she's set to marry the respectable and utterly boring George, who worships her. But then undercover newspaper reporter Mike Connor (Jimmy Stewart) shows up and sparks fly as friendly competition picks up between all three of them (this is Kate Hepburn we're talking about, after all). Everyone knows she isn't going to end up marrying George (poor, poor George), but will she fall back in love with (read: realize she never fell out of love with) Dexter, or will she fall hard enough for the stalwart Mike? The three leads could not have been more perfectly cast (except perhaps for the two men Hepburn originally wanted, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy - of course), and despite the manic plot the whole thing is fleet-footed in that way that only comedies of the 1930s and 40s are.

Victor/Victoria (Blake Edwards, 1982) Alright, now pay attention, this one's kinda complicated. Out of work opera singer Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) is broke and starving in Paris when she runs into Carroll Todd (Robert Preston). Together, they hatch a plan to become the toast of the town: Victoria will play the role of Victor, a female impersonator. She sings as herself, then at the end of the act, rips off her "wig" to "reveal" herself as a man! Because Julie Andrews is SO BUTCH! But then Chicago club owner King Marchand (James Garner) and his girlfriend Norma (Lesley Ann Warren, the REAL star of this movie) show up, and King falls in lust/love with Victor. I mean, Victoria. Because he's absolutely positive that there's no way she's really a man (probably because he's an American. I mean, what do the French know, right?). But Norma is convinced her beau is falling for a man, because she may be a ditz, but she's not completely.... well, no, really, she is completely dumb. But now King is caught in the middle, between a crazy dumb chick and a woman playing a man playing a woman. A lot of the very smart things Victor/Victoria has to say about gender, sexuality, love, and attraction are undercut somewhat by the fact that "Victor" really doesn't exist, but to be honest, that doesn't really matter, because Blake Edwards is in top form here, perfectly staging every single scene in this gag-filled movie musical. And the music by Henry Mancini is pretty damn great, too. Come for Julie's iconic "Le Jazz Hot", stay for the beautiful, hugely effective ballad "Crazy World". And then there's Lesley Ann Warren, doing the greatest dumb blonde routine this side of Jean Hagen in Singin' in the Rain.

3 (Tom Tykwer, 2011) What if a couple in a long-term relationship fell, independently of each other, for the same man? That is the question posed by Tom Tykwer's film, and it's a totally contemporary, worthy question. And the best part is, most "love triangles" are really Vs, with one person attracted to two others at the same time. But here, that third line gets filled in, creating a TRUE love triangle. It's a fascinating film, kind of like Tykwer's breakthrough Run Lola Run without the action sequences, but with all that energy turned into sex/sexiness.

Thursday Movie Picks - Foreign Language Films: German

Written as part of the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You should join us - just pick three films that fit the week's theme and tell us about them!

For this week's Thursday Movie Picks, we delve into the wonderful world of Foreign Language films (well, at least, they're foreign to us English-speakers...). Awesome. I love a good foreign language film just as much as I love films in English, and there are many that I hold very dear to my heart. Unfortunately, German films are not an area of expertise for me. I just haven't seen any films from their canon of great filmmakers (Herzog, Fassbinder, etc.), and while I've seen plenty from the silent era (Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, etc.), I decided that choosing something without any spoken dialogue would be cheating a bit. BUT! I shall persevere. Here are three wonderful films in German.

Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt, Tom Tykwer, 1998) Tykwer burst onto the scene in 1998 with this blast of fresh air starring the tremendous Franka Potente in a star-is-born performance. Franka is the titular Lola, a young German lass whose boyfriend Manny has gotten stuck on the raw end of a drug deal and must come up with a large sum of money in a short amount of time. He calls Lola and tells her he's going to rob a market to get it. She implores him not to do something so stupid, but the clock is ticking. So she runs. But there are many options open to her around every corner, starting with where to get the money. And each choice she makes has an effect on the people around her, which Tykwer shows us in a series of snapshots after Lola runs into certain people. The film tracks her through three different runs, each with a different outcome but each with the same propulsive energy. In between each run, we see a scene with Lola and Manny in bed, presumably post-coital, talking about what love means to them. If all that sounds like too much, or too pretentious, let me reassure you: It is neither of those things. Everything here is in perfect balance. Run Lola Run is a thinking person's action film for sure, but everyone can enjoy it.

Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin, Wim Wenders, 1987) The angel Damiel is one of many of God's emissaries on Earth, able to hear the thoughts of everyone around him and offer comfort to those who are at the end of their rope. But it's a very lonely existence, because he cannot be seen by anyone except the other angels (who, it must be said, don't seem particularly friendly). And then one day, he sees and falls in love with a trapeze artist. But it cannot be, unless he chooses to become human, one of those beings he watches over that are always in despair. Sound familiar? PLEASE don't judge this gorgeous film by its Americanized version, City of Angels (which starred Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage). This is the real deal, a film about what it means to be human, what it means to be alone even in the most densely populated of cities, and just what it is that makes life worth living.

Summer Storm (Sommersturm, Marco Kreuzpaintner, 2004) One of the better gay films in recent memory, Summer Storm follows Tobi, member of a German rowing team installed at a training camp during the summer in the lead-up to a big regatta. The team is supposed to be camping with a girls' team, but instead gets placed with a gay youth team after the girls cancel. Naturally, this leads to all kinds of youthful exploring and pushing of buttons and boundaries, because Tobi has been hiding his attraction for his best friend and teammate, Achim. It's not a great film, but Summer Storm excellently captures the confusion and searching surrounding youthful sexuality - both gay and straight - in a way very few films seem to grasp. Plus: CUTE boys!