Netflix is for Lovers- Top 10 Love Stories to Stream Instantly

Valentine's Day is tomorrow.  People are way too rough on Valentine's Day.  Is it too much that we dedicate one day to romantic love every year?  I mean we dedicate a day to drinking, we dedicate a day to dressing up like monsters/sluts.  Hell we even dedicate a day to blowing up mailboxes and shooting roman candles at cats.  So this jerk finds it appropriate that we have one day where we can appreciate the person who puts up with us farting in the bed.  And apparently Netflix does too.  There is an almost endless amount of crappy love stories on Netflix, certain too many to list here.  But there is also some gold if you dig deep enough.  Well jerks, today is your lucky day, because I have done the digging for you.  Here are the top 10 love stories currently available to watch with your sweetheart as you devour a box of chocolates... and proceed to fart in the bed.

10. Grease- High school love is best when it is between two 30-somethings.  Ignoring the fact that the entire cast of Grease must have been held back at least 10 times, it is a fun, upbeat musical about young love.  It's your typical story of two lovers from opposite sides of the track (and world in this case) brought to life by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John.  I dare you to turn on "Grease Lightning" and not sing along.  I've tried it.  Can't be done.

9. Brokeback Mountain- Ang Lee somehow disguised this western love story as high art and passed it onto the academy for widespread praise and a slew of awards.  But let's get real, it's a chick flick without the chicks.  It's The Notebook without Rachel McAdams.  It's a beautiful love story between two men who aren't allowed to love each other.  Or who don't know how to quit each other.  Either way it's a very strong tale of suppressed love and the lengths we go to for the one we love.

8. Blue Valentine- Not all love stories have a happy ending, and Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine delivers that message with crushing honesty.  More of a story of what happens when love falls apart, Blue Valentine gives us an intimate look into the lives of two newlyweds from first encounter, to final parting.  It proves that love can be a punch in the gut just as much as a walk on the beach.  Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams devastate from start to finish.  It's a heavy love story, but a great one nonetheless. 

7. Harold and Maude- This one is, by today's standards, a touch on the creepy side.  But is is also undeniably cute and uniquely adorable.  Harold and Maude is, in a nutshell, the story of a senior citizen falling in love with a pubescent boy, but perhaps more remarkably, him falling in love with her.  Hal Ashby's finest film explores death, suicide, and an array of other less-than-pleasant themes through the romance of Harold and Maude.  And somehow it doesn't seem offensive or wrong.  They just fit.

6. Love Actually- I can actually hear the sound of a dozen faces hitting their palms as I type this.  But you know what?  If you don't like Love Actually you are either a) lying, b) Hitler (thanks for the holocaust, asshole) or c) a sociopath. I watch this movie no less than twice a month. Love Actually is equal parts sappy romance and R-rated humor.  It examines all aspects of love from typical husband/wife, to father/son, to rockstar/manager, to pornstar/pornstar, to prime minister/chubby girl.  It's not perfect, and it pours on the sap like that's its job (it is).  But it is endlessly rewatchable and touching all the same.

5. Pocahontas- Disney has a few great romances.  There is Belle and The Beast, Aladdin and Jasmine, Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty/Snow White and Prince Charming (lucky bastard), and then there is Pocahontas and John Smith.  You've got to hand it to them.  Disney tackled some tough and roughly historically accurate material in this one and still managed to make it child-friendly viewing.  The romance the crafted between the two lovers is fantastic, even if the rest of the movie is a bit on the average side.  It's another story of two people from different worlds made all the more powerful by the fact that this romance actually existed.  Good on ya, Walt!

4. Say Anything...- Cameron Crowe was bound to pop up sooner or later.  Nobody does "boy meets girl" as well as Crowe, and his first major work is arguably his best.  As my last review detailed, Lloyd Dobler is really the legacy that Say Anything... left on film, but the film itself is also to be lauded for taking the typical high school romance and mixing it up with offbeat characters.  It is 80's to a fault and the plotlines have worn thin by 2014.  But watch it.  You won't care.

3. Chasing Amy- There has never been another film like Chasing Amy.  At least not one that I have seen.  It is Kevin Smith's third installment in the View Askewniverse, and also his most heartfelt and honest film to date.  Chasing Amy is the story of a man who falls in love with a lesbian, and a lesbian who falls in love with a man.  It is also simultaneously the story of a straight man who falls in love with a man.  But it doesn't judge its characters, nor does it advocate for them.  Rather, using Kevin Smith's one-of-a-kind sense of humor, it simply shows us what happens given that set of circumstances. The film contains one of the best love triangles in modern cinema and some of the best monologues ever written to accomplish its lofty goals.  And accomplish them it does- wonderfully, I might add.

2. The Apartment- Billy Wilder is probably still the crowned king of romantic comedy.  The Apartment, while certainly romantic and funny, is not one of these films.  It is a sort of tragic tale of a woman finding what she was looking for under her nose.  First though, she goes through a series of demeaning escapades capped with a suicide attempt.  It is at this point that the heart of the film really hits.  Jack Lemon and Shirley MacLaine are largely to be credited for their onscreen chemistry and ability to turn tragedy into amusing banter.  

  

1. Manhattan- Manhattan is the greatest love story ever told.  It tops Romeo and Juliet, Casablanca, The Notebook, and yes, even its more remembered counterpart, Annie Hall.  The reason it supersedes the rest is because it contains everything that love is in one film.  Love is funny, it is tragic, it is inappropriate, it is neurotic, it is painful, it is honest, it is dishonest, it is complicated, it is confusing, it is selfish, and so are the characters that inhabit Manhattan.  It's real love, but is it real love?  No other film so perfectly articulates the feelings associated with love.  Maybe someday it will be, but for my money Manhattan has never been bettered.

So there you have it.  That should be enough mushy viewing for even the loneliest/laziest of the jerks to stay busy on February 14th.  So grab a bottle of wine and a bed to fart in and pick a flick.  After all, it's another 364 days until you can feel okay about watching Love Actually again.