Two Movies Last VD

By evening of Valentine's Day, I still didn't have a date so I decided to watch a movie. It turned out that I had time to watch two movies.

The first was one of my all-time favorites, "Only You" starring Marisa Tomei (as Faith) and Robert Downey, Jr. (as Peter). It is a romantic comedy of a woman in search of a name - Damon Bradley - simply because a fortune teller told her as a young girl this was the man of her dreams. Just when she was about to marry someone else, the real Damon calls up to say he cannot make it to the groom's wedding. So off to Europe goes Faith with her sister-in-law, Kate, in tow. In her literal pursuit of Damon, Faith bumps into Peter who for a short while pretends to be Damon. Faith learns the truth and gets furious at Peter. In desperation, Peter hires his friend to pose as Damon until his friend goes too far. Once more, Faith finds out that Peter has deceived her.


I just love the last scene. They are both in the airport. Someone pages Mr. Damon Bradley and requests him to go to the information booth. Both Faith and Peter run towards Information. Damon turns around and he looks like a dork. Peter says the immortal words, "Congratulations, you have the right name." Peter leaves. Damon asks Faith the question, "Do you love him?" Only then does Faith realize that yes, it is Peter that she loves. With her charms, she convinces the entire airport and airline crew to change her tickets because the man that she loves is in the plane that Peter has boarded. Faith runs up the plane, Peter sees her, they kiss, everybody applauds. End of story.

Whew! What a movie! Funny, witty, suspenseful, romantic -- all the ingredients of a film that I enjoy watching from beginning to end.

The second movie that I watched is a Filipino movie entitled "When Love Begins", starring Aga Muhlach and Ann Curtis. It starts and ends in beautiful Boracay. I appreciate the fact that Aga plays the role of a concerned environmentalist. But frankly, I found the first three-fourths of the movie rather boring. Only when the real conflict arose did my interest pick up. The reason I stayed the whole time was it is a Jose Javier Reyes film. Joey Reyes is among the writers-directors in the industry whom I admire most.



Anyway, there is little to compare between "Only You" and "When Love Begins". One is a romantic comedy. The other is a dramatic love story. But the two movies are similar on two points. In both films, at least one of the main characters talk about "destiny". The second similarity is that the female leads realize late in the movie that they do love the male leading character. But whereas Faith rushes to get her man, Ann Curtis waits for two years to get back together with Aga Muhlach.

Sorry for spoiling things for some of you who have plans of watching either movie. But I promise to talk about old movies only.

Again, not bad to complete my Valentine's Day. Thank God for cable TV!