Chick Flicks: Movie Lover's Guide to the Movies Women Love

New York Daily News film critic Jami Bernard says there are Guy Movies and there are Chick Flicks. Guy Movies are those with little dialogue and lots of action - punching, explosions, aliens, car chases or sex. Chick Flicks tend to have more dialogue and less action. Bernard claims women prefer romances, tearjerkers, relationship movies - female stars, familial situations, cuteguys, emotional catharsis. The 75 films Bernard catalogues here provide a range of genres, wide enough to override the stereotypical view that the label Chick implies. The usual match for Guy is Gal so Bernard's choice of the more sexist Chick can either be seen as deconstructive or an acceptance of semantic subjugation. (That "chick" is derived from Chicken, the male hen is evidence of the twisted logic of slang. And Gal has a subtle gay association). Bernard's chapters make genre choices - Tearjerkers, Emotional Rescue, Bad Girls, Hunks, Role Models, Impossible Love, Funny Girls, Schoolgirl Crushes, Catfights, Daddy Dearest, Hurts So Good, Lesbian Inclinations, Female Bonding, The Maternal Instinct, and Perfect Love - and while some of the choices of films are obvious and rather hackneyed, others are surprising. We get Casablanca, Gone With The Wind and Sabrina, but also A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Gaslight, The Bad Seed, and To Sir With Love. The anaylsis of each film tends to concentragte more on plot rather than assess performance or any technical ability, but occasionally Bernard throws in some behind the scenes information. When someone includes The Bridges of Madison Country and fails to comment on how excruciatingly dull it is, you can pick the agenda. In Bernard's pages on Gilda she points out the homosexual subtext, resulting in Glenn Ford's righteous humiliation of the beautiful Rita Hayworth, but then tells of Hayworth's real life transformation from Margarita Cansino which required electrolysis to raise her "feral" hairline.And titles like The Women, All About Eve, American Gigolo, Johnny Guitar, Now Voyager, and even Picnic have such a strong appeal to male gay audiences that it's odd that Bernard fails to comment on it, though the distinction between a straight female and a gay male sensibility opens up a Pandora's Box of politics, which perhaps Bernard is wise to avoid. Some choices like 9 ½ weeks show how Bernard is willing to look at the way women can be portayed unattractively, though it may be a stretch to imagine this title being a repeat rental. And since Bernard is a film critic, claiming that having to sit through everything reinforces her personal preferences and also gives her access to a range of movies, provides us with some enlightened historical and foreign choices. Bernard's writing is very accessible in tone, sometimes a little lowbrow, and her humour of-the not-too-subtle kind, but her book is a pleasant experience and good enough to lead the reader back to the video/dvd shop.