September Issue 2009

“Why didn’t you write me?” I screamed at my boyfriend down the phone.

“What do you mean? I ring you every single day. What more could I possibly have to say in a letter?”

“What more?! What more?!” By now my words are coming out half-strangled and I have to breathe deeply to stop myself hitting the little red hang up button.

“Sammy please. I love you. Stop watching The Damn Notebook.”

These conversations are a regular occurrence in our relationship. I watch sweeping declarations of love and awww at men putting their hearts on their sleeves and the line for those three words from their soulmate. Then I yell at my boyfriend for not being more like Noah Calhoun or Landon Carter. I wonder why I am yet to have a library given to me, why no one has bought me a star or made a vow of everlasting love and proved it to the world. I wish I was someone's exception. He understands, but I’m sure it doesn’t help his resentment for the genre.

The truth is, I’m a sucker for romance. I breathe it, live it, wish for it every day. If my life was a movie, I wish that it was a romance film. My heart tore a little when Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams broke up in real life because it felt like the fairytale was over. Did you not see their MTV kiss in 2005? How could love like that die?

So, naturally this month’s issue of the Film Alphabet is dedicated to the letter R, for Romance films. It covers everything from why girls love romance films to why guys detest them. It has the top 10 greatest love stories ever portrayed on screen, as well as the ones that treat romance like it’s the blackest kind of blasphemy.

It’s the issue about grand gestures, passion, love, and ultimately hope.

“If you’re a bird, I’m a bird.”

Samantha McQueen xo

P.S. There are five film references in this editorial. Can you name them all? (Answer on the Links page)

Got questions? thoughts? stories about romance? Send all feedback to dws9097@aut.ac.nz

© Samantha McQueen 2009