11) "Secretary" Steven Shainberg's candy-colored delight dares to reimagine Mary Gaitskill's dark short story as a romantic comedy. So what if the soul mates are a secretary (the peerlessly naughty and touching Maggie Gyllenhaal) who discovers she loves to be spanked and the boss (James Spader) who loves to dish out the punishment? Deliberately provocative while taking the predilections of its lovers beautifully in stride, the movie ends with a rapturous warm bath of romance that doesn't dissolve the erotic tingle it delivers elsewhere.
13) "Punch-Drunk Love" Paul Thomas Anderson's irritating, strange and finally entrancing movie is a manic-depressive romantic comedy that aspires to the soul of a musical. It's a new-fashioned love song. Moving away from the sprawling Altmanesque scale of "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia," Anderson finds something like the true spirit of romantic comedy, with his lovers, Adam Sandler and Emily Watson, perpetually teetering right on the edge of disaster. Sandler fans hated it, but mining beneath the rage of the gargantuan gnomes he has specialized in, Sandler manages to articulate the longing of a painfully inarticulate man.
Chris Marshall Soul Lover
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