Josh Board's Blog

100 Greatest Chick Flicks

Pop Goes the Culture (8/22/10)

When I go into the Fox studios to film my movie reviews, I sometimes talk with the staff about film before hand. The cameramen might be more into a film like The Expendables. The female newscasters might like Eat Pray Love.

One guy always jokes that I “hate everything.” And when they found out I didn’t like Eat Pray Love, a woman said “Well, he’s a man. He didn’t like Sex and the City, either.”

I responded, “That logic doesn’t really work. I hated both the Sex and the City movies, because they weren’t that funny. I loved the TV show, though. And, one of my all-time favorite movies is The Prince of Tides. I believe that’s considered a chick flick, isn’t it?”

I then Googled and found a list of the 100 Greatest Chick Flicks of all-time. I thought I’d print the list here (the folks at Netflix compiled it), and write my comments after each film.

1. Terms of Endearment – Debra Winger/Shirley MacLaine. I loved this movie. Absolutely loved it. I wanted to punch the screen when the cheating Jeff Daniels appeared. I balled when MacLaine had to watch her daughter in pain. I even cried when the womanizing Jack Nicholson (who won a well-deserved Oscar) shows up to support the woman he just broke up with during a hard time. Amazing film.

2. Steel Magnolias. This movie is utter crap.

3. Brief Encounter. This is a 1945 movie and I don’t have a clue about it. Now, if it were Close Encounters….

4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. An okay movie, but not great. Always nice watching Audrey Hepburn.

5. Beaches. Bette Midler is such a talented woman, but she’s been in so many movies I hated. This included (have you ever seen her and Joy Behar in the same place at the same time?). She is great in a kidnap comedy with Danny DeVito. Can’t remember the title at the moment.

6. The Way We Were – Streisand/Redford. A decent film. Who knew Sydney Pollack would become such an amazing director after a film like this in the early 70s.

7. Titanic. An okay movie, but it really needed a re-write. It seems the picture was written for a teenage audience.

8. Now, Voyager. I hate Bette Midler, but who doesn’t like Bette Davis. This is one of her pictures I’m not familiar with, though.

9. All About Eve. This classic from 1950 is a Bette Davis movie I enjoyed. Marilyn Monroe, too.

10. Thelma & Louise. A really good movie, with a really weird ending. Brad Pitt’s first big role, and he was a scene stealer.

11. The Piano. Another film with Harvey Keitel (this one of the handful of films that he did full frontal nudity). I never saw it (but not because of that). For movies with instruments in the title, I highly recommend The Red Violin.

12. Gone With the Wind. To steal a line from Art Garfunkel in Carnal Knowledge “It’s a classic, you moron!”

13. Stella Dallas. A Barbara Stanwyck, Alan Hale film. I know nothing about it.

14. Bridget Jones’s Diary. I couldn’t see this film because it was during my phase of not wanting to see the squinty faced Renee Zellweger on screen anymore. I thought she was good in Chicago (is that a chick flick musical?) and Apaloosa.

15. Sophie’s Choice. A movie my mom can’t stop talking about. Anything with Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline is going to be good. A dark film, though.

16. Fried Green Tomatoes. I loved this movie. Kathy Bates is great. And Mary Stuart Masterson – whatever happened to her?

17. Little Women. I didn’t care for this period piece with Winona Ryder and Gabriel Byrne. I did love Sense and Sensibility though.

18. Love Story. I didn’t care so much for this, but I saw it when I was a teenager on HBO. Ryan O’Neal had that leading man look for a long time (I enjoyed him 15 years ago in Chances Are with Cybill Shephard – another “chick flick” that I thought was cute).

19. Somewhere in Time. Everyone loves this Christopher Reeve time travel movie. I did, too, when it came out. I watched it again recently and didn’t like it as much.

20. The Princess Diaries. A Garry Marshall movie, I believe. Never saw it.

21. My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I’m not sure why this is considered a “chick flick.” Just because the word “wedding” is in the title? I liked it, but thought it was written more like a sitcom than a film.

22. The English Patient. It’s crazy that Ralph Fiennes could play a Nazi so well in Schindler’s List (won an Oscar), and pull of the romantic lead so well. I really enjoyed this movie a lot.

23. The First Wives Club. I didn’t see this movie. Two words why: Bette Midler. It really just looked lame, aside from just Midler.

24. The Bridges of Madison County. I took my mom to see this. She liked it more than I. An okay film, but not great. Nothing about it was romantic. I mean, Meryl Streep has a great relationship with her husband, yet starts having an affair with Clint Eastwood. And goofy ending, with her trying to decide at a stoplight whether to bolt out of her car and run off with Eastwood. The movie did give my mom and I are second movie debate that had to do with her being confused by fictional characters (the first being Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean). She thought this was a true story, because Eastwoods character took photos for National Georgraphic. All fictional. An okay film that for some recent, got highly overrated.

25. Sleepless in Seattle. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. She’s better with Billy Crystal in the humorous chick flick, When Harry Met Sally; one of the best comedies ever. Rosie O’Donnell adds some nice comic touches (just as she did in the underrated Beautiful Girls).

26. The Joy Luck Club. I was dragged to this movie kicking and screaming. I’m glad I was. What a fantastic film.

27. Four Weddings and a Funeral. This is the first movie we saw Hugh Grant in, and his chemistry with Andie MacDowell was wonderful. I have a theory about movie chemistry, though. I don’t buy that it depends on the actors. I think it’s all in the script. On a side note: I once talked an ex-girlfriend into counting the “nah’s” in the Beatles Hey Jude. I want someone that watches this to count the number of times Grant blinks. Give me the number and I’ll give you free movie tickets.

28. A Room With a View. Huh. I must be a guy, I thought this was a James Bond movie at first. Turns out, it’s a James Ivory picture. It came out when I was in 11^th grade, though. No way I saw period pieces at that age.

29. Ghost. Oh come on. This is a chick flick that everyone should love. Sure, it had corny moments. And it probably gets wedding DJs sick of the Righteous Brothers, but it’s a fun movie.

30. Imitation of Live. This 1959 movie I watched because I had a teacher that loved it. It helped that I had just finished reading an interesting Lana Turner biography, too. Might be dated for some, but I enjoyed it.

31. Julia. A Jane Fonda movie I’m not familiar with. It has Jason Robards, who was one of my favorite actors.

32. Under the Tuscan Sun. I really wanted to see this, even though Sandra Oh’s face annoys me (she was amazing in Sideways, though). I never got around to it.

33. Pretty Woman. I was staying at a hotel for two days and this was on one of the pay channels. I fell asleep half way through the first night watching it. The second night, I wished I had. How can women actually like this movie? A guy I play racquetball with always says “When I hear women praise this movie, I always get them riled up by saying ‘Is that the movie about that whore on

Hollywood Boulevard

’?”

34. Educating Rita. As a teenager, I think I saw about 10 Michael Caine movies courtesy of HBO. This is one of the good ones (Blame it on Rio was one of the bad ones, but as a teenager, you prefer topless girls on the beach coming on to a man twice their age).

35. You’ve Got Mail. Another Nora Ephron film, another Hanks/Ryan movie. I gave it 20 minutes on cable once, and ended up changing the channel.

36. Crimes of the Heart. A mid-80s movie I’m not familiar with. It has Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, and Sissy Spacek. Maybe I should get familiar with it.

37. Sense and Sensibility. This Ang Lee movie, with Oscar winning performances from Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson (who won for writing the screenplay), is an amazing film (Hugh Grant is there, again providing the blinking).

38. Barefoot in the Park. Gene Saks directed this, a few years before he’d give us the brilliant comedy The Odd Couple. Barefoot came out the same year as The Graduate, which is a good movie, with the weirdest romance ever. And, I’m not talking about Dustin Hoffman sleeping with Anne Bancroft. Who wouldn’t? It’s the fact that he pursues her daughter. That still makes no sense to me.

Oh crap! I just realized it’s 3:00 a.m. I don’t want to go through the entire 100 films. I’ll merely list them, with a few words on my take.

39. An Unmarried Woman. A mildly interesting film.

40. Working Girl. A very overrated movie.

41. Legends of the Fall. See above.

42. Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood. One of Sandra Bullocks many crappy films.

43. Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Hmmm….Mr. Goodbars. Good movie, too.

44. Truly, Madly, Deeply. Never saw it.

45. Muriel’s Wedding. Liked it, but barely remember it. Maybe that means I didn’t like it so much.

46. Funny Girl. Uggghhhhh.

47. Notting Hill. See above.

48. Up Close and Personal. Not a very good movie (Redford/Pfeiffer).

49. Howards End. A little slow at times, but good.

50. When Harry Met Sally. Amazing comedy. Great supporting cast, too.

51. The Goodbye Girl. What an amazing romance, with Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason (what happened to her?)

52. Rabbit-Proof Fence. What in the world is this? From 2002, but I’ve never heard of it.

53. A Walk on the Moon. When I saw this movie, I not only disliked it – I told my friend Viggo Mortensen wouldn’t have a very successful career. Boy has he proved me wrong.

54. Women in Love. Local musician Jose Sinatra gave me the DVD. It’s his all-time favorite movie. I couldn’t get thru it at the half-way point. It was so abstract.

55. Postcards from the Edge. Lame movie, written by Princess Lea.

56. The Big Chill. Great cast, great story.

57. The Devil Wears Prada. Talk about overrated crap, this takes the cake (great performances by Streep and Tucci).

58. The Prince of Tides. One of my top 10 movies of all-time.

59. Boys on the Side. One of only four movies I’ve ever walked out of.

60. Frida. Never saw it. I laughed when everyone said how much Salma Hayek looked like Frida. Well, yeah. She had a huge unibrow.

61. Father of the Bride. Isn’t that movie considered a comedy, not a chick flick?

62. Volver. Critics totally overrated this. I enjoyed the first half, disliked the second half.

63. Eve’s Bayou. Never even heard of this Samuel Jackson flick.

64. Romeo and Juliet. It’s a classic.

65. The Last Days of Chez Nous. Never saw it.

66. The Heart of Me. Wow, Helena Bonham Carter is in a lot of these!

67. Dirty Dancing. A guilty pleasure of mine.

68. The Notebook. This movie was okay, but women…you really need to stop loving on this so much. Very poorly written in the courtship scenes.

69. My Best Friend’s Wedding. Midly amusing movie, but something bizarre about the mean-spirited premise of a friend trying to ruin her best friends wedding.

70. Bend it Like Beckham. Never saw it, but a friend of mine couldn’t stop raving about it.

71. Wuthering Heights. Came out in 1939, but everyone says it’s great.

72. Like Water for Chocolate. A girlfriend broke up with me once, and during her rant about everything I did she hated, she also yelled because I didn’t want to go see this movie with her. Weird, because I love chocolate.

73. Mona Lisa Smile. Geez, Julia Roberts is in a lot of these movies.

74. Deeply. Kirsten Dunst, Lynn Redgrave film I know nothing about.

75. Camille. A 30s film.

76. The Virgin Suicides. Sofia Coppola wouldn’t have a career if it wasn’t for her last name.

77. City of Angels. It had it’s moments, but it’s not a great film.

78. Runaway Bride. Runaway from the video store if your wife pulls this film off the shelf.

79. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Good Scorsese movie. A lot of people don’t realize the crappy TV show Alice was based on this great movie.

80. Waiting to Exhale. Waiting for Forest Whitaker to go back to directing good movies.

81. Monsoon Wedding. I loved this Mira Nair movie. Rent it tomorrow!

82. A Walk in the Clouds. I didn’t see it (Keanu Reeves is in it, can ya blame me?)

83. Love Affair. Oh, Warren Beatty. He filmed himself in soft-focus so you couldn’t see the age in his face. Even if he was 25, it wouldn’t have made this movie good.

84. Chocolat. Another Chocolate film I missed. How did this happen?

85. Bitter Moon. A Roman Polanski film. We should be boycotting it.

86. Hope Floats. Uh, so does crap, Mr. Forest Whitaker (and Sandra Bullock).

87. Time of Her Life. Have no clue what this 2005 movie is.

88. American Dreamer. Never saw it.

89. Something’s Gotta Give. Diane Keaton has aged so nicely, and Keanu Reeves actually showed he could act (along side Nicholson, no less).

90. The Truth About Cats & Dogs. A version of Cyrano, but a fun update on the theme.

91. An Affair to Remember. The classic film that’s inspired a handful of chick flicks.

92. Laurel Canyon. How is this on a chick flick list?

93. The Great Gatsby. Never read the book in high school (even though one teacher made us). Never saw the movie, either (no teacher forces you to watch movies).

94. Always. I never saw this Spielberg film with Richard Dreyfuss and John Goodman. I actually liked the Goodman film with Mel Gibson, Forever Young. It god bad reviews, but it worked for me.

95. Ever After. A Drew Barrymore movie I barely remember.

96. How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Perfect movie for a chick flick list, but it’s really garbage.

97. Shirley Valentine. A late 80s movie I know nothing about.

98. Lovely & Amazing. No clue what this is. I’m guessing it’s neither lovely or amazing, or we’d be able to recall it.

99. Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. A great comedy, but how is this a “chick flick”?

100. Raising Helen. Another Gary Marshall film on the list, with Kate Hudson and Joan Cusak. I never saw it, but did see the very dark Boxing Helena. It’s the opposite of a “chick flick.” A guy stalks this gorgeous woman, and in order to keep her from leaving him, he ends up cutting off her arms and legs. Test audiences were so bothered by this premise (and Kim Bassinger lost a lawsuit when she backed out of the film), that they ended it with the cop-out scene of having the character wake up from a dream.

Posted by Josh Board on Sun, Aug 22nd, 2010
Last updated Sun, Aug 22nd, 2010

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