Leslie C. Halpern - 200 Love Lessons From the Movies: Staying Moonstruck for Life

Also by Leslie Halpern

Reel Romance: The Lovers Guide to the 100 Best Date Movies

Staying Moonstruck for Life

Leslie C. Halpern

TAYLOR TRADE PUBLISHING

Lanham Boulder New York London

TAYLOR TRADE PUBLISHING

An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2016 Leslie C. Halpern

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Halpern, Leslie, 1960- author.

Title: 200 love lessons from the movies : staying moonstruck for life / Leslie C. Halpern.

Other titles: Two hundred love lessons from the movies

Description: Lanham : Taylor Trade Publishing, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016005393 (print) | LCCN 2016006979 (ebook) | ISBN 9781630761370 (paperback) | ISBN 9781630761387 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Man-woman relationships in motion pictures. | Love in motion pictures. | BISAC: PERFORMING ARTS / Film & Video / General. | PERFORMING ARTS / Film & Video / Reference.

Classification: LCC PN1995.9.M27 H35 2016 (print) | LCC PN1995.9.M27 (ebook) | DDC 791.43/6543dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016005393

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

This book is dedicated to all the men with whom Ive had platonic and romantic relationships. Regardless of how things ended or the current status of our ongoing friendship, I appreciate your insights into the male/female dynamic. As painful as some of these personal love lessons may have been to acquire, I remain grateful for the experience.

Thats part of your problem, you know: You havent seen enough movies. All of lifes riddles are answered in the movies.

Davis (Steve Martin) in Grand Canyon (1991)

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to my literary agent, Linda Konner, for her support over the years and to Rick Rinehart, director of editorial acquisitions at Taylor Trade Publishing, for allowing me to write another romantic-themed movie book as a follow-up to my earlier Reel Romance: The Lovers Guide to the 100 Best Date Movies . Im grateful to the Florida Film Festival, Enzian Theater, and Allied-THA for inviting me to press events and promotional screenings. In addition, I appreciate the patience and cooperation of Oral Nussbaum, who served as beta reader and sat through many of the movies with me.

Introduction

Every movie has a lesson. The best movies have more than one. Even poorly made movies have a lesson: Dont watch another film by this director! The focus of this book is accessible and adaptable love lessons from the movies, specifically takeaway concepts relating to romance, love, and lust that readers can use in their own dating or established romantic relationships. The twelve chapters begin with Meeting Cute and go through Wedding Planning, so those still searching for a mate and those who are blissfully happy and tremendously experienced in a relationship can learn something from 200 Love Lessons from the Movies .

Wherever you are in the dating relationship cycle, youll find that movies reveal how to get the love you want or keep love youve already found. This book shines a cinematic spotlight on whats really important in on-screen and off-screen romances: emotional, intellectual, and physical connection. Although readers in long-term and committed relationships can benefit from these general love lessons, the selected movies portray dating, engaged couples, and newly wedded couples.

Why You Need This Book

Have you ever had your heart broken? One popular theory says we keep getting hurt because we set our romantic expectations too high. This delusion begins in childhood with unrealistic fairy tales and then launches into the teenage years with bodice-ripping romances and skin magazines. According to this same theory, during our lifetimes were bombarded with cinematic images of idealized beauty and deceptive representations of romantic love. These unreasonable expectations for physical attractiveness and passionate consummation lead us to a sad state of affairs: permanent singledom, serial monogamy, and climbing divorce rates.

But do idealized representations in romantic movies really cause us to abandon all logic and leap blindly off numerous emotional cliffs? If so, we have to deny all personal responsibility for our bad choices and lay full blame on the media for telling us how to think, feel, and behave. We can fault these romantic movies (not to mention the lusty romance novels and idealized fairy tales) for filling our heads with unrealistic romantic expectations, or we could look at romantic movies in an entirely different wayas inexpensive, painless, two-dimensional lessons on love.

I dont agree with media analysts who say Hollywood attempts to brainwash audiences with false notions regarding romance, love, and sex. I believe couples (and singles) can obtain valuable lessons on love by watching romantic films and discussing them. This book serves as a guide for which movies to watch, emphasizes what lessons to think about, and offers meaningful questions for discussion.

The Inspiration for 200 Love Lessons from the Movies

One of my previous books, Reel Romance: The Lovers Guide to the 100 Best Date Movies (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004), groups romantic films thematically. Reel Romance is a reverent tribute to one hundred great date movies, working under the premise that watching romantic movies together stimulates loving feelings between men and women. The book has several different features, including romantic suggestions inspired by movies that lovers can try at home.

This became such a popular feature with readers and reviewers that I wrote many related articles about love lessons from the movies and led workshops on the subject. The enthusiastic response inspired me to write this book to expound on the idea of using movie themes, characters, dialogue, and scenes to learn valuable love lessons.

A kernel of truth exists within all these fictional stories, so that even mediocre films can provide spectacular insights. 200 Love Lessons from the Movies shares valuable love lessons for your entertainment and education. Rather than being just a guide to romantic movies or a compilation of reviews, this book offers a playful and informative guided tour through romance using many movies from different genres as the vehicle. The ease of renting, buying, and downloading movies for home viewing makes this book a fun source of knowledge and entertainment for those seeking practical solutions to romantic dilemmas.

How to Use This Book

Although the film synopses for each lesson may look like movie reviews, theyre not. They read more like skewed reviews that explain how the love lesson is taught using relevant details from the movie. I did not include major and minor characters who dont relate to the love lesson, irrelevant plot points, and even iconic scenes not important to the selected theme. The Internet is filled with traditional movie reviews of the films; if you want reviewer opinions and plot summaries, theyre easy to find online.