Great Life Great Love

IIf you want a great summer escape to the most romantic city on earth, Midnight in Paris with Owen Wilson (Gil) and Rachel McAdams (Inez) is your Woody Allen ticket! From the Eiffel Tower to the Notre Dame Cathedral and Louvre Museum, this Cannes Film Festival hit will make you want more. It’s a combination comedy and fantasy that lights up the screen with Paris magic. When Gil declares that he wants to stay in Paris in response to his fiance Inez’s dream to have a house in Malibu, it’s your first hint of the romantic disconnect that gets bigger as the story unfolds.

f you’re ready for a refreshing comedy, check out the Sundance 2011 hit, Cedar Rapids about a group of insurance agents who travel to the big city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa (in theaters Feb 11, 2011). You’ll love the chemistry and laughs with this all-star cast: Ed Helms, John C Reilly, Anne Heche, Sigourney Weaver, Isiah Whitlock Jr (The Wire) and Stephen Root (24, Seinfeld.) When Ed Helms (Tim Lippe) gets asked to represent BrownStar Insurance at the annual convention by his boss, he bravely prepares for his big city adventure and competition for the 4-Star Award. Tim’s naïve about life and love, which makes for great comedy.

If you’ve ever struggled with a long-distance relationship, Like Crazy is for you. In this entertaining Sundance 2011 hit, Drake Doremus (Director), Anton Yelchin (Jacob) and Felicity Jones (Anna) capture the heartache involved in long-distance love. This young couple has extraordinary circumstances with a 6,000 mile distance between London and Los Angeles, and you can feel every emotion that they’re going through as they text each other, deal with time zone differences, and wonder what the other person is doing all the time. Jennifer Lawrence (Oscar Nominee for Sundance hit, Winter’s Bone) works with Jacob, and plays a much different role as Jacob’s distraction when the couple spends months separated. Many congrats to Drake Doremus for winning the Grand Jury Prize Drama at the festival (same prize Precious won.)

If you’re ready for an entertaining film that’s based on a true story and is all about relationships, you’ll love The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg (“Irish” Mickey Ward), Christian Bale (Dickey Eklund) and Amy Adams (Mickey’s girlfriend Charlene Fleming.) When Mickey gets beaten badly in the opening fight by a boxer who is 20 pounds heavier, the film turns into a powerful comeback story with many conflicts between love and money. Everyone wants a piece of Mickey, and there is a clear divide between who really cares, and who’s there for their own personal gain in this very small town story.

If you want to see a fun and light-hearted romantic comedy, How Do You Know with Reese Witherspoon (Lisa), Owen Wilson (Matty), Paul Rudd (George) and Jack Nicholson (George’s dad, Charles) is the ticket this holiday. Lisa plays a professional softball player, who finds herself in the middle of a career crisis and love-triangle twists while searching for her “regular plan.” Everyone in this movie is actually going through a self-discovery struggle, making How Do you Know the perfect title.

If you want to see a truly unique love story and Sundance film, check out The King’s Speech with Colin Firth (King George VI, “Bertie”), Geoffrey Rush (Lionel Logue) and Helen Bonham Carter (Queen Elizabeth.) You’ll be captured by the true insider’s story about a man who unexpectedly becomes the King of England, and his support team who help him overcome his fear and challenges with public speaking. (Some studies have shown that fear of public speaking ranks up there with the fear of death – and most do not struggle with speech stutters like this king.)

If you’re ready for some great laughs and romantic comedy, check out Morning Glory with a 5-star cast: Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton, Jeff Goldblum, Ty Burrell and Patrick Wilson (aka Rachel’s great love interest.) When Rachel (Becky) gets fired from her Good Morning New Jersey producer job, it’s the best thing that ever happened to her. When knocked down, Becky’s career comeback is truly entertaining and inspirational.

f you’re ready for inspiration, go see the movie Secretariat with Diane Lane (Penny Chenery Tweedy). It’s about the powerful Great Love Relationships between a horse, owner and champion team. Penny’s focus and determination results in the 1973 Triple Crown winner (race video below). To reach this dream, she gets challenged by her husband, Dylan Walsh (Jack Tweedy) and brother, Dylan Baker (Hollis Chenery), who want to sell Secretariat and Meadow Farm in Virginia when her parents pass away. Penny builds 5 powerful relationships that make the love lessons in this film off the charts. Secretariat triumphs with a winning team that Penny creates:

If you’re one of the 500 million users on Facebook, you must see The Social Network with Jesse Eisenberg (Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO), Justin Timberlake (Sean Parker, Napster Founder), Rashida Jones (Marylin Delpy) and Rooney Mara (Erica Albright, Mark’s girlfriend.) Even though the breakup in the opening scene is fiction, you’ll be glued to Mark’s comeback story about how he built Facebook. We actually get two love lessons from this movie, the made-up story and Mark’s real life love story.

If you’ve ever wanted to escape reality for a great adventure, go see Eat Pray Love with Julia Roberts (Liz), Billy Crudup (Stephen), James Franco (David), and Javier Bardem (Felipe). This entertaining film is based on the book by Elizabeth Gilbert, who takes a relationship timeout after a painful divorce and bad breakup to get in touch with herself. Liz’s one-year travel adventures in Italy, India and Bali offer fun reality checks and great love lessons about attracting the right kind of love.

If you’re ready for a fashion feast and Middle Eastern escape with the girls, go see Sex and the City 2 with Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie), Kristin Davis (Charlotte), Cynthia Nixon (Miranda) and Kim Cattrall(Samantha) as they “Carrie On” two years after the first movie. Even though this sequel is long (2 ½ hours), the writer cleverly keeps your attention with a road trip to Abu Dhabi. We won’t spoil the movie here, but rather comment on the fashion parade and their great United Arab Emirates adventure.

If you’re looking for some hope that Great Love can be found, check out The Back-Up Plan with Jennifer Lopez (Zoe) and Alex O’Loughlin (Stan). In this fun romantic comedy, Zoe meets the right guy who is a Bachelor Available (best kind of guy in my first book, Smart Man Hunting). As soon as Zoe decides to give up and have a baby on her own, her man magically appears. What we learn about love in this movie is that it’s important to be open to a relationship when the real deal shows up.

If you’re ready for a fun flashback to 1970s rock-n-roll love, you’ll want to check out the hot Sundance hit, The Runaways, with Kristen Stewart (Joan Jett) and Dakota Fanning (Cherrie Currie). Not only will this movie take you on the road with Joan Jett’s first band, it shares the relationship challenges when dealing with fame. You don’t want to miss this film when it’s released in theaters March 19, 2010.

If you’re ready for an all-star cast, laughs, and every emotion in the book, check out Valentine’s Day with Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner and 18 other Hollywood box office leads. While the story plays like Love Actually where you’re following way too many relationships, there is one big love lesson in this romantic comedy that Gary Marshall cleverly brings out.

If you have any doubts about whether great love exists, The Romantics will change your mind with Katie Holmes (Laurie) and Josh Duhamel (Tom) when it hits theaters in SEPT 10, 2010. This 5-star romantic comedy has an awesome cast that will make you cry, laugh, and walk away a believer! It was fate for me to get a press pass for the the world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival so I could give you a sneak preview (No Spoilers, just fun tips and interviews). It was also magical to be on the red carpet of a Creative Coalition event at Sundance where we captured Elijah Wood speaking about the cast.