Our Top 10 V-Day Movie Picks

1. Fools Rush In (1997)
Director: Andy Tennant
Starring: Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek
Alex, a career-oriented New Yorker is uprooted to Las Vegas temporarily where he meets Isabel, a free-spirited Mexican artist. After a one-night stand, Alex and Isabel –polar opposites in every sense -are permanently linked when Isabel finds out she’s pregnant. A quickie wedding and a clashing of cultures ensues as the couple struggles to make their marriage work. The classic “You’re everything I never knew I always wanted” line came from this film.
 
 

Photo courtesy of http://www.impawards.com/2004/garden_state_verdvd.html.
2. Garden State (2004)
Director: Zach Braff
Starring: Zach Braff and Natalie Portman
Andrew and Samantha meet in the waiting room at a doctor’s office, but each of them carries a lot of emotional baggage that prevents them from falling too fast in love. Andrew returns to New Jersey for only a brief stay after ten years of being away for his mother’s funeral. Sam is an epileptic and a pathological liar, but mostly just a directionless twenty-something still living at home. Over the course of a few days, they discover both themselves and each other – but will they be able to put their troubled pasts behind them and maintain a real, adult relationship?
 
3. 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Director: Gil Junger
Starring: Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Larisa Oleynik
This classic teen comedy is a remake of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew set at a modern-day Seattle high school. Julia Stiles and Larisa Oleynik (anyone remember The Secret Life of  Alex Mack?) play sisters with a strict dad who wont let the younger girl date until the older girl does. This, of course, poses a problem for pretty, popular Bianca, who wants to take an equally pretty and popular boy to prom. Because Cameron (Gordon-Leavitt) wants to date Bianca, he hires bad-boy Patrick (Ledger) to woo her older sister Kat. It sounds complicated, but of all the films of this genre to come out of the 90s, this is arguably one of the better ones.
 
4. Shopgirl (2005)
Director: Anand Tucker
Starring: Steve Martin, Claire Danes, Jason Schwartzmann
This one is a little depressing if you are looking for a feel-good flick to distract you from your Valentine’s Day woes, but is nonetheless one of the most real and honest romantic comedies you’ll find at the video store. Mirabelle is a bored salesgirl in the glove department at a Los Angeles Neiman Marcus who, much to the dismay of the buxom blondes over in perfume, is wooed by Ray Porter, a suave older businessman. A love triangle forms when Jeremy, a cute yet aimless musician begins to vie for Mirabelle’s attention as well. Based on Steve Martin’s book of the same name, Shopgirl examines questions of love and loss in today’s complicated dating world.

Photo courtesy of http://www.imdb.com.
5. When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Director: Rob Reiner
Starring: Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal
Harry and Sally meet the day they leave college, bump into each other periodically over the years, and eventually become best friends. Despite some questionable situations, they never get together for fear of ruining their friendship. This classic works to answer the age old question, “Can men and women really be just friends?”
 
6. 500 Days of Summer (2009)
Director: Marc Webb
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Zooey Deschanel
“Since the disintegration of her parent’s marriage, she’d only love two things. The first was her long dark hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing.” 500 Days of Summer is a post-modern love story about a girl who doesn’t believe in love, and the boy who falls in love with her. This story will resonate with college girls wary of commitment.
 
7. The Painted Veil (2006)
Director: John Curran
Starring: Edward Norton and Naomi Watts
Forget The Notebook this Valentine’s Day – it’s time to switch things up. If you are looking for a historical tearjerker, this one’s for you. In the 1920s, an uptight British doctor takes his unfaithful wife along with him to the cholera-stricken Chinese countryside. Uprooted from her lavish lifestyle and torrid affair, Kitty is at first angry, but eventually accepts her fate and begins to fall in love with her husband. However, as disease sweeps through their remote village, the couple must struggle to survive. 
 
8. Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Director: Nora Ephron
Starring: Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks
What if someone you never met, someone you never saw, someone you never knew was the someone for you? Sam, a widower in Seattle and Annie, a reporter in Baltimore, live across the country from each other, but are connected when Sam’s son calls a late-night talk show for advice on how to help his grieving father move on. Touched by the story, Annie goes to great lengths to seek out the man from the talk show. Taking its cues from An Affair To Remember, Sleepless in Seattle is an updated version of the classic romance.

Photo courtesy of http://www.imbd.com.
9. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
Director: Sharon Maguire
Starring: Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant
A romantic comedy chronicling a year in the life of Bridget Jones, a thirty-something British girl who is looking for love in all the wrong places. Torn between two guys – her bad boy boss versus a nerdy family friend. Really a comedy of errors, the film highlights several of Bridget’s embarrassing mishaps, including a culinary disaster and a slide down a fire pole caught on national television. College girls will identify with the single Bridget and her journey to improve herself and her love life.
 
10. You’ve Got Mail
Director: Nora Ephron
Starring: Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks
Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks strike again (I’ve always wondered why they aren’t together in real life), this time as career-oriented New Yorkers –she the owner of a small children’s bookstore and he the CEO of a big box chain that threatens to destroy her life’s work. Despite being enemies in the business world, they fall in love in an online chat room. However, when Shopgirl and NY152 discover each other’s true identities, will their virtual love survive in reality?