As A Woman, I'd Like To *Riff* This

Remember when Our Heroes listed one thousand supposedly embarrassing “chick flicks” at the end of Alien From L.A.? That pretty much cemented my undying love for the episode. Though to this day I don’t think I’ve seen any of those films. It’s in the back of my mind that someday I should just throw a Ladies’ Film Fest For One and try to watch as many of them as I can. It just feels wrong not to.

So which ones have YOU seen? How were they? What’s the best or worst flick in this supposed subgenre? What allegedly “normal” film is an honorary part of the chick family? What film was pitched as such but somehow broke the confines and became part of another category?

Go!

(I’ll be back in a minute. I’ve got to get the lemon bars out of the oven and set my VCR up to tape Vicki. )

14 Likes

As schmaltzy as it may be, I always had a bit of a soft spot for Always.

2 Likes

I’m admittedly not a fan of the genre, but I unabashedly enjoy You’ve Got Mail. [shrugs]

On the other side of the spectrum, I saw Something’s Gotta Give and was expecting Jigsaw’s bike puppet to peddle out of a darkened corner of the room, telling me that I was about to play a game and wondering just how badly I wanted to escape.

4 Likes

I’ll defend the hell out of Always. I’ve certainly enjoyed that and thought that Spielberg took unnecessary flak for a charmingly entertaining film.

3 Likes

Also, GHOST

Ghost is a champion, and there will be no besmirching of the artistic integrity and cinematic satisfaction of Ghost.

8 Likes

Though I’ve not personally seen it, Fried Green Tomatoes has some love in my family.

3 Likes

Fried Steel Magnolias.

3 Likes

I think any film produced by the Lifetime Channel would be eminently riffable. Just stay away from the ones which deal with subjects not suitable to MST3K, which in hindsight is probably 90% of them.

2 Likes

Beaches was pretty good. I liked it anyway.

4 Likes

Places in the Heart is one of the best movies ever made.

The Goodbye Girl is kinda standard Neil Simon, but it made a star out of Richard Dreyfuss.

Those are the only two I’ve seen.

8 Likes

Especially their version of Watcher in the Woods that was directed by Melissa Joan Hart.

2 Likes

I’ve seen a handful of the movies they name, and a bunch of them I don’t remember ever hearing of. Places in the Heart is not a chick flick and has some deep symbolism. As for normal movies, That Thing You Do is a great fun movie about a phenomenon from my childhood, but turns disturbingly into a chick flick at the end.

2 Likes

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World!

I suspect most of the “riffing” would be “DON’T DATE HIM! HE’S TERRIBLE! DON’T DO IT RAMONA! RUN AWAY!” though!

3 Likes

I loved GG as a kid. I’m afraid that if I watched it now I would never stop cringing.

2 Likes

Yeah, the ‘gay Richard III’ story line alone is enough to make one retch.

1 Like

Make it heavy on the beefcake and it can be a

Llllllllllllladies! Film Fest For One

I’m not remembering the list but from what I see here, I’d say:

Always is not a chick flick. It is a remake of a good (not great) '40s film, A Guy Named Joe.

Youv’e Got Mail, or indeed the whole Nora Ephrom oeuvre. Ephrom is the one who turned the RomCom from a “everybody loves these” to “chick flick”, but it’s not really her fault. She was just good, relatively, at what she did and that’s just how studios work these days. (In Sleepless in Seattle, the big argument is between An Affair to Remember and either The Magnificent Seven or The Dirty Dozen, but they’re all great flicks.)

Ghost is high quality summer popcorn, and literally iconic in places.

Places in the Heart: Except for the title I don’t even understand why this would be on the list. I guess because Sally Field is the lead?

OK, this couldn’t have been on the list, but it is amazing how awful SP is, and honestly Ramona’s kinda a zero. (Apparently the graphic novel arc has them redeemed in some fashion but the movie was made before it finished?)

I think Beaches cemented my idea of a “chick flick” as “a movie centered around women where they treat each other like crap, but then one of them gets a fatal disease and they’re there for each other.”

3 Likes

You’ve Got Mail is a remake of The Shop Around the Corner which starred Jimmy Stewart.

5 Likes

Best:

john cusack uh the misery GIF

worst:

1 Like

*vastily inferior remake

(I’m a member of the Ernst Lubitsch fan club.)

5 Likes

I’ve never put lemon bars in the VCR before, but I’m very interested in the idea.

5 Likes