HowAboutWe – Date Report

Happy Friday! In preparation for the long weekend, we’re bringing you the definitive guide to date night movies: A Guy’s Guide to 2011′s Most Tolerable RomComs, 10 Unconventional (But Awesome) Date Night Movies Men & Women Can Agree On, and the below. Enjoy!

Movie night has long been a staple of dating culture. Sharing a good movie with someone (special) can reflect good taste, elicit some laughs (or tears), provide good conversation fodder, and, most importantly, situate us side-by-side with that person in a dark room and an intimate space. In other words, we hope a movie date will conjure up a romantic ambience that deems actual movie-watching an afterthought. But some flicks — even those purporting themselves as love stories — do more to kill the mood than invoke it.

When I saw Blue Valentine, a film elaborating the deterioration of a once blissful relationship, I immediately applauded my decision not to watch it with my (now ex-) girlfriend. Nearly every scene holds a mirror to its audience, forcing us to relive all the ugly arguments, transgressions and pitfalls we’ve experienced in our own attempts at love. Here are ten movies that might make you feel similarly uncomfortable, and why they should be avoided at all costs as potential “mood-setters.”

Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989)

The Situation

John (Peter Gallagher) invites college friend Graham (James Spader) into his home, much to the dismay of wife Ann (Andie MacDowell). Their marriage is stale; John justifies weekly trysts with Ann’s sister by blaming his wife’s frigidity. Things go south when Ann uncovers Graham’s “videotapes”: a collection of personal interviews with women about their sexual histories.

Source of Discomfort

Full (or even partial) disclosure of one’s sexual history is off-limits for many couples. Graham doesn’t agree, and the candid and often taboo questions he levels at his subjects may pique your curiosity in ways that keep you up at night.

Who Should Avoid It

The film examines the respective sexual neuroses of Ann and Graham, who both suffer from an inability to achieve gratification via conventional methods. The conflicts provoked thereby might serve as the impetus for some unwelcome conversations in bedrooms similarly lacking in chemistry.

Potentially Uncomfortable Moment

John subjects both himself and the audience to a cruel bout of punishment when he sits through a tape featuring his wife on Graham’s hot seat.

The Situation
After breaking up with his girlfriend of six years, Mike (Jon Favreau) reenters the dating scene — only to discover his unpracticed hand at seduction leaves much to be desired.

Source of Discomfort
Every time Mike contrives to talk to a woman, his insecurities come to the fore, making for some painful (if hilarious) dialogue.

Who Should Avoid It
Guys who identify with Mike — whether for his bumbling presence around women or his inability to let go of a former flame.

Potentially Uncomfortable Moment
Mike’s attempt to leave a voice message for a new acquaintance is frustrated by ex-induced-neurosis; she eventually picks up the phone, putting Mike (and many an empathetic male viewer) out of his misery.

The Situation
Despite trepidations, Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams) renounces her homosexuality after Holden (Ben Affleck) confesses his love for her. In typically chauvinistic fashion, Holden mythologizes his role in Alyssa’s “conversion” — at least until rumors of her former exploits begin to surface, shattering his notion of their relationship.

Source of Discomfort
The movie comes from Kevin Smith, who authored such frat-house classics as Clerks and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, so it should come as no surprise that Amy relies on ribald language and a depraved sensibility to achieve a few laughs. Less funny are the confrontations between Alyssa and Holden that follow his discovery of her promiscuous past.

Who Should Avoid It
Practitioners of the “ignorance is bliss and we should never discuss the details of our sexual histories” school of coupling may find this title hard to stomach.

Potentially Uncomfortable Moment
Holden chooses the decidedly un-private venue of a semi-professional hockey game to interrogate Alyssa regarding the rumors he has heard. His face goes slack as she exposes all the gory details of an “experimental phase” in her youth. Meanwhile, bystanders eavesdrop and offer colorful commentary (“I told you these were good seats!”).

The Situation
Small-town lothario Paul (Paul Schneider) swears off his womanizing past to win the affections of his best friend’s sister, Noel (Zooey Deschanel): a prep school co-ed and — gulp — virgin.

Source of Discomfort
When Noel returns home from a weekend-long excursion with friends Paul doesn’t know, she dons a new shoulder-length haircut. Unfortunately, it’s not the only surprise she has in store for Paul …

Who Should Avoid It
Any and all jealous types, regardless of gender. Your greatest fears will surely be amplified if you sit through this one.

Potentially Uncomfortable Moment
The duration of the aforementioned homecoming scene is brutal for its verisimilitude. Anyone who’s had this conversation can relate, and anyone who hasn’t lives in fear of it. The audience’s hearts collectively break every time Paul pleads (in vain), “Why don’t you put your f*ckin’ hair back on and come back? Just come on back.”

The Situation
A series of chance meetings entangles four London socialites (Jude Law, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman and Julia Roberts) in a baroque web of passion and vengeance. But when they ignore loyalties to indulge selfish desires (and placate desperate partners), the fallout is swift and irrevocable.

Source of Discomfort
Infidelity, deceit, emotional and physical abuse, blackmail, coercion, even cybersex — all play a prominent role in a film that examines the forbidden territory that lies just beyond our inhibitions, and what consequences may come if and when its boundaries are breached.

Who Should Avoid It
While it lacks the true-to-life impact of All the Real Girls — the characters and situations just a shade more cinematic and thus less convincing — Closer is unflinching in its insistence that some lovers are, at the end of the day, self-serving sexual deviants who shouldn’t be trusted with a library book, much less another human being’s eternal devotion. Those who have trust issues should beware.

Potentially Uncomfortable Moment
Rather than striking her, as she had feared he would, Larry (Owen) demands that Anna (Roberts) divulge the graphic details of her affair, sparing nothing and humiliating them both in the process. You’ll find it hard not to blush, and even cringe, when Clive Owen, through a blank stare, utters the film’s most memorable lines: “You like him coming in your face? What does it taste like?”

The Situation
Former lovers (Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman) reunite in a Paris hotel room. Their attempts to reconcile are interrupted by unanswered questions and unsettling admissions.

Source of Discomfort
Clocking in at an expeditious thirteen minutes, Hotel Chevalier serves as the prologue to Wes Anderson’s 2007 feature-length The Darjeeling Limited. Despite its brevity, the film’s sterile atmospherics capture the latent anxiety suffered by its protagonist, Jack, upon the announcement of an unexpected visitor.

Who Should Avoid It
Those who have been used, abused, or otherwise neglected by a significant other may find this film uncomfortably prescient.

Potentially Uncomfortable Moment
As Jack’s hand probes for purchase on the naked flesh of his ex’s upper-arm, he notices a cluster of fingerprint bruises there — ostensibly answering a question (“Have you slept with anyone?”) she had earlier deferred.

The Situation
Luke (Josh Peck), an eccentric hip-hop enthusiast who trades weed for therapy sessions, never expected to have a shot with bad-girl Steph (Olivia Thirlby). But the summer after high school graduation, they form an unlikely bond when he discovers who her stepfather is: his shrink.

Source of Discomfort
Luke regards Steph as more or less The Prettiest Girl of All Time, while she entertains him with the kind of half-bored amusement a dog does a couch pillow. His clumsy overtures to win Steph’s favor are sure to animate long-repressed memories of failed romance for most male viewers.

Who Should Avoid It
Those who kinda-sorta had to trick someone into a date in the first place: this title is not for you. There’s a good chance Steph’s hard-to-get act will prove too close for comfort … like squirming-away-from-you-on-the-loveseat close.

Potentially Uncomfortable Moment
Well there’s the one where Luke starts to sob into Steph’s shoulder after she deprives him of his virginity. Or the one where he professes love and she replies with an overtly platonic “Whoa, dude.” And who can forget the regrettable final appeal (in brief, Steph has a “friend” over when Luke comes knocking).

The Situation
Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) believes in true love. Summer (Zooey Deschanel) does not. Tom goes to extremes to convince Summer otherwise. Summer falls in love with someone else. Tom pouts.

Source of Discomfort
From first acquaintance, the disparity between Tom and Summer’s relative interest in one another is plain to see. Tom — slave to infatuation — can’t help but appear desperate in refusing to accept Summer’s (numerous) dismissals.

Who Should Avoid It
Is she genuinely interested or are you her charity case? If you can’t answer that question, steer clear of (500) Days.

Potentially Uncomfortable Moment
In the movie’s penultimate scene, Summer explains to a still wounded Tom that it was his conviction (in defense of true love) that allowed her walls to come down…for someone else.

The Situation
Boy (Ryan Gosling) meets girl (Michelle Williams). They fall in love and rush to the altar for the sake of her (though not his) soon-to-be-born daughter. Time passes and boy and girl begin to realize incompatibilities. A last-ditch effort to save their relationship goes horribly awry.

Source of Discomfort
Derek Cianfrance, the film’s director, goes an interesting route by telling this love story only through its polarizing bookends: the blissful days of budding romance and the harrowing ones in which everything comes crumbling down. The latter scenes border on torture when watched alone — much less at the side of one’s significant other.

Who Should Avoid It
Anyone in the interest of preserving sound, healthy relations with his/her date/boyfriend/girlfriend/beloved should leave this one on the shelf. That goes double for anyone hoping to “get lucky” once the credits roll.

Potentially Uncomfortable Moment
If the loveless sex-scene shared by Gosling and Williams’ characters in the film’s final stanza feels at all familiar, your break-up might be as imminent as the one being depicted on screen.

The Situation
Malicious forces — namely, U.S. Immigration — conspire to prevent exchange student Anna (Felicity Jones) from transplanting to Los Angeles to be with sweetheart Jacob (Anton Yelchin). The film documents the trajectory of the tumultuous long-distance relationship that follows.

Source of Discomfort
Most scenes are brief — pieces of conversations and arguments, little exhilarations and heartbreaks — and transitions are frequent and disorienting, often leaving large sections of undeveloped plot in their margins. The director’s expectation is for the audience to fill in these blanks by drawing from experience, thus involving themselves more directly in the proceedings at hand.

Who Should Avoid It
Geographically challenged lovers would be well advised to opt for the more upbeat Going the Distance.

Potentially Uncomfortable Moment
“Have you?” “Have you?” After months apart, Anna and Jacob can’t spend an afternoon together without speculating as to what betrayals have transpired in the interim.