Valentine's Day (2010) directed by Garry Marshall

Director: Garry Marshall

Writers (WGA): Katherine Fugate (screenplay)
Katherine Fugate (story)
Abby Kohn (story) &
Marc Silverstein (story)

Release Date: 8 February 2010 (Hollywood, California, USA, premiere)
12 March 2010 (Italy)

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Tagline: A Love Story. More or Less.

Plot: For those in love with love--and even for those who think they're jaded and over it--Valentine's Day and its superb cast are the uplifting elixir that's called for. Director Garry Marshall must have called in every favor he had in Hollywood to line up this amazing cast. Much as Robert Altman does in his best films, Marshall follows intertwining and intersecting couples around Los Angeles as they hook up, break up, and act up as Valentine's Day--with all its intense expectations--looms. Bradley Cooper and Eric Dane play a gay couple struggling to get back on track. Julia Roberts plays an army officer en route from Iraq to visit a lover halfway around the world. Jennifer Garner is appealing as the girlfriend of a cad (Patrick Dempsey), who managed to overlook telling her he was married; will Garner's character go all Fatal Attraction? Standouts include the always-charming Anne Hathaway, whose character supplements her income with a freelance gig that, shall we say, involves using multiple accents over the phone--much to the consternation of her beau, played by Topher Grace. Shirley MacLaine and Hector Elizondo play a long-married couple whose strong marriage may be rocked by an old and very inconvenient truth. And young stars Emma Roberts, Taylor Lautner, and Taylor Swift sparkle enough to draw in younger viewers. And if love doesn't always go as planned for these couples (and singles), it's Marshall's deftness as a director that keeps the scenes moving along crisply to the next lovers, or victims. Marshall seems to be aiming to achieve for Valentine's Day what Richard Curtis did for Christmas in Love Actually--and if he falls a little short, it's not due to any lack of star power or onscreen dazzle. "Love is the only shocking act left on the planet!" exclaims Ashton Kutcher's character. If so, viewers of Valentine's Day can expect to be shocked--into a warm romance with this, yes, valentine to love. (A.T. Hurley)

@IMDb
@Amazon: Valentine's Day
@Netflix

 

( more pics )

Cast (in credits order)
Bradley Cooper ... Holden
Eric Dane ... Sean Jackson
Jessica Alba ... Morley Clarkson
Kathy Bates ... Susan
Jessica Biel ... Kara Monahan
Patrick Dempsey ... Dr. Harrison Copeland
Hector Elizondo ... Edgar
Jamie Foxx ... Kelvin Moore
Jennifer Garner ... Julia Fitzpatrick
Topher Grace ... Jason
( rest of the cast )

       
Holden & Sean

Valentine's Day (2010) directed by Garry Marshall

Director: Garry Marshall

Writers (WGA): Katherine Fugate (screenplay)
Katherine Fugate (story)
Abby Kohn (story) &
Marc Silverstein (story)

Release Date: 8 February 2010 (Hollywood, California, USA, premiere)
12 March 2010 (Italy)

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Tagline: A Love Story. More or Less.

Plot: For those in love with love--and even for those who think they're jaded and over it--Valentine's Day and its superb cast are the uplifting elixir that's called for. Director Garry Marshall must have called in every favor he had in Hollywood to line up this amazing cast. Much as Robert Altman does in his best films, Marshall follows intertwining and intersecting couples around Los Angeles as they hook up, break up, and act up as Valentine's Day--with all its intense expectations--looms. Bradley Cooper and Eric Dane play a gay couple struggling to get back on track. Julia Roberts plays an army officer en route from Iraq to visit a lover halfway around the world. Jennifer Garner is appealing as the girlfriend of a cad (Patrick Dempsey), who managed to overlook telling her he was married; will Garner's character go all Fatal Attraction? Standouts include the always-charming Anne Hathaway, whose character supplements her income with a freelance gig that, shall we say, involves using multiple accents over the phone--much to the consternation of her beau, played by Topher Grace. Shirley MacLaine and Hector Elizondo play a long-married couple whose strong marriage may be rocked by an old and very inconvenient truth. And young stars Emma Roberts, Taylor Lautner, and Taylor Swift sparkle enough to draw in younger viewers. And if love doesn't always go as planned for these couples (and singles), it's Marshall's deftness as a director that keeps the scenes moving along crisply to the next lovers, or victims. Marshall seems to be aiming to achieve for Valentine's Day what Richard Curtis did for Christmas in Love Actually--and if he falls a little short, it's not due to any lack of star power or onscreen dazzle. "Love is the only shocking act left on the planet!" exclaims Ashton Kutcher's character. If so, viewers of Valentine's Day can expect to be shocked--into a warm romance with this, yes, valentine to love. (A.T. Hurley)

@IMDb
@Amazon: Valentine's Day
@Netflix

 

( more pics )

Cast (in credits order)
Bradley Cooper ... Holden
Eric Dane ... Sean Jackson
Jessica Alba ... Morley Clarkson
Kathy Bates ... Susan
Jessica Biel ... Kara Monahan
Patrick Dempsey ... Dr. Harrison Copeland
Hector Elizondo ... Edgar
Jamie Foxx ... Kelvin Moore
Jennifer Garner ... Julia Fitzpatrick
Topher Grace ... Jason
( rest of the cast )

       
Holden & Sean

Best Gay Erotica Contemporary (1° place): Special Delivery by Heidi Cullinan

Also Best Characters (3° place), Best Writing Style (1° place), Best Overall Gay Fiction (2° place)

Well, well, well, what do we have here? A slutty boy? That pretty young little thing who is always the best friend of the main character, but who the reader thinks sometime more interesting than the hero? Does or does not have he a more interesting life than the prim and proper hero? And why is he not entitled on having his own story? Heidi Cullinan decided to give him his story.

Sam is basically a good boy, I’m using the term “slutty” for him not in a derogative way; Sam is at the same time lucky and not: he is lucky to have had a loving mother who supported him and taught him that it was not a sin to love, and it was not important the gender of who you love; he is not lucky to have lost that mother, and now he is like a skittle searching his balance, always there on the edge to fall, but always finding a bit of stability in his mother’s love, that even years after her dying, it’s still there, comforting Sam in his loneliness. Sincerely I think that all Sam’s researching of “hot” and “naughty” sex is only a symptom of the grief for his mother’s loss, that is still burning in his heart.

In the end Sam is not even so daring, he allows himself to play kinky only when he is on the safe side, with Mitch, the 33 years old trucker who allows Sam to tag along with him on the road, playing the role of teacher and protector. Sam is, after all, a man to man type, even if he likes to add a third wheel to the party, if it remains an occasional thing. Sam dreams of a long-term relationship with a tender and caring lover, and Mitch, being older and more experienced, is probably the man up to the role. Yes, Sam, who has never met his real father, is probably projecting a need of a fatherly figure in his life in Mitch, but, after all, that is what happens in the majority of May / December relationship. On the other hand, I think Mitch has an unfulfilled youth dream, a young boy he had not the courage to approach, and now he is probably searching that boy in all the men he meets, and so, the men he favours are all young and pretty. But Mitch is really a good guy, and so he is good for Sam.

There is a lot of sex, with multiple partners, but all in all, the feeling was always of a very tight couple, Sam and Mitch, who like their sex a little kinky but not too much. And then their relationship was really “young”, barely days old, and so it was right that Sam and Mitch needed time to discover and test their boundaries; they were not like those old couples who already know the answer even before asking the question. Yes, probably some old fashioned romance reader will not like this “open” side of the relationship, but sincerely, for me it has never questioned the strength of the feelings Sam and Mitch had for each other.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_192&products_id=1712

Amazon: Special Delivery

Amazon Kindle: Special Delivery

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading_list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art by Anne Cain

Best Gay Erotica Contemporary (1° place): Special Delivery by Heidi Cullinan

Also Best Characters (3° place), Best Writing Style (1° place), Best Overall Gay Fiction (2° place)

Well, well, well, what do we have here? A slutty boy? That pretty young little thing who is always the best friend of the main character, but who the reader thinks sometime more interesting than the hero? Does or does not have he a more interesting life than the prim and proper hero? And why is he not entitled on having his own story? Heidi Cullinan decided to give him his story.

Sam is basically a good boy, I’m using the term “slutty” for him not in a derogative way; Sam is at the same time lucky and not: he is lucky to have had a loving mother who supported him and taught him that it was not a sin to love, and it was not important the gender of who you love; he is not lucky to have lost that mother, and now he is like a skittle searching his balance, always there on the edge to fall, but always finding a bit of stability in his mother’s love, that even years after her dying, it’s still there, comforting Sam in his loneliness. Sincerely I think that all Sam’s researching of “hot” and “naughty” sex is only a symptom of the grief for his mother’s loss, that is still burning in his heart.

In the end Sam is not even so daring, he allows himself to play kinky only when he is on the safe side, with Mitch, the 33 years old trucker who allows Sam to tag along with him on the road, playing the role of teacher and protector. Sam is, after all, a man to man type, even if he likes to add a third wheel to the party, if it remains an occasional thing. Sam dreams of a long-term relationship with a tender and caring lover, and Mitch, being older and more experienced, is probably the man up to the role. Yes, Sam, who has never met his real father, is probably projecting a need of a fatherly figure in his life in Mitch, but, after all, that is what happens in the majority of May / December relationship. On the other hand, I think Mitch has an unfulfilled youth dream, a young boy he had not the courage to approach, and now he is probably searching that boy in all the men he meets, and so, the men he favours are all young and pretty. But Mitch is really a good guy, and so he is good for Sam.

There is a lot of sex, with multiple partners, but all in all, the feeling was always of a very tight couple, Sam and Mitch, who like their sex a little kinky but not too much. And then their relationship was really “young”, barely days old, and so it was right that Sam and Mitch needed time to discover and test their boundaries; they were not like those old couples who already know the answer even before asking the question. Yes, probably some old fashioned romance reader will not like this “open” side of the relationship, but sincerely, for me it has never questioned the strength of the feelings Sam and Mitch had for each other.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_192&products_id=1712

Amazon: Special Delivery

Amazon Kindle: Special Delivery

Reading List:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading_list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art by Anne Cain