Lovefool @littlelovefool

A slightly tipsy and chaotic holiday episode on Love Actually for all you saucy minxes out there (posted several days post-Christmas of course). Listen to me confuse writer Richard Curtis for Joy Division's Ian Curtis while we google pictures of Rodrigo Santoro for an hour and lament the fact that Laura Linney didn't shoot her shot with enigmatic designer "Karl". 

Phantom Thread (2017) is the best dark romance film of all time. This Paul Thomas Anderson masterpiece has it all: pageantry, ghosts, passionate power struggles, and a plot twist that is equal parts stomach-turning and erotically satisfying. The film's gothic atmosphere is a stunning homage to Rebecca, the Daphne du Maurier novel turned Hitchcock classic, but Phantom Thread's love story is anything but archaic. Actress Vicky Krieps brings to life a contemporary romantic heroine that is more than a match for Daniel Day-Lewis, her male counterpart. I explain my theories on why this unsettling love story ruffles the feathers of neoliberal critics and drove the legendary DDL into retirement.

A conversation with my friend Nikita, a TV and film screenwriter. We discuss how Amélie (2001), the zany French sleeper hit, helped shape her concept of love. Nikita and I also talk about the narrative nature of female love fantasies and why the most romantic location is a graveyard.

(500) Days of Summer was a Tumblr user’s dream come true when it came out in 2009. Now, it’s the rom-com that every millennial loves to hate and hates to love. What happened? A discussion of the film’s fall from grace and its satirical examination of the manic pixie dream girl concept.

A conversation with my friend Quinton on the most romantic passage in The Great Gatsby, the intimacy of shopping with your significant other, and why indigo is the ultimate color of love. 

A deep dive into one of my favorite films of all time: Sabrina (1954). While Audrey Hepburn’s Roman Holiday (1953) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) may get more hype, I argue that Sabrina is far more iconic for establishing the “makeover transformation” as a major plot device in romantic films, now considered to be a mainstay in the genre. Although Hepburn’s other popular films feature similar glow ups, the metamorphosis in Sabrina is the ideal romantic fantasy at every turn. I also get into the pros and cons of the 1995 remake and how the story became a self-fulfilling prophecy in my own life.