The Best Romantic Comedies, Like, Ever!

It is with great pleasure that I revisit the realm of romantic comedies to come up with a list of the best rom-coms, like, ever. And believe me, it's not easy to narrow it down to a meager FIVE from three-thousand-seven-hundred-and...oh, I don't know, I lost count. 

Also, a nod of acknowledgement to those who'd contributed to the list in any possible way (you know who you are).

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She's the Man - Based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, She's the Man stars Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum (in his pre-G.I. Joe days). Viola Hastings is a high school soccer player at Cornwall. When the female soccer team at her school gets the ax, she requests to join the boy's soccer team but she is rejected (by the boy's team's coach) and ridiculed by her goalie (ex) boyfriend Justin (Robert Hoffman). What does a girl do to seek retribution from being discriminated/humiliated but to join the soccer team at Illyria? She accomplishes the feat by impersonating her twin brother Sebastian (who leaves at the beginning of the movie for a music competition in London with his band). However, Viola soon finds herself falling for Duke (Tatum), team Illyria's striker who is also her/Sebastian's roomie. And then, there's trouble in the form of Justin, Monique (the real Sebastian's flaky bimbo girlfriend) and Olivia (whom Duke has a crush on). And through all this, Duke has no idea whatsoever that 'Sebastian' isn't really Sebastian but Viola in disguise. Oh the merry mess!
Memorable line - "Girls with a$$es like mine don't talk to guys with faces like yours" - Monique Valentine *chortles*

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The Proposal - Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock! What's there not to like! Bullock plays Margaret, an uptight executive editor-in-chief for a book-publishing company while Reynolds plays Andrew, her assistant. However, one day, she is informed that she is about to be deported back to Canada due to an expired visa. To avoid deportation, Margaret forced Andrew to marry her...which he agrees, under the condition that she promises to give him a promotion. A visit to the Immigration office to settle the matter causes an INS agent becomes suspicious and announces that they would be asked questions about each other separately and if their answers do not match, Margaret would be deported and Andrew sent to jail. To make matters worse, Andrew has to fly home to Alaska for his grandmother's 90th birthday with Margaret in tow. As expected, family dynamics as well as lots of mayhem soon ensue.

Memorable scene - Definitely Margaret's encounter with Gammy (Andrew's grandmother) in the woods. Gammy does some dodgy tribal dance to the rhythm of some rap music and ropes Margaret in to join her. Utterly hilarious.

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Just Go With It - Everybody is always pretending to be somebody they are not just to impress  somebody, and this notion is at the core of the movie. Adam Sandler plays Danny Maccabee, a successful (and single!) plastic surgeon who pretends to be stuck in an unhappy marriage to woo unsuspecting women. The only one who is aware of his shenanigans is Katherine, his office manager (played by Jennifer Aniston). When he meets and falls for a sixth grade math teacher, Palmer, Katherine finds herself an unwilling partner in crime as she is forced to play multiple characters to help Danny win Palmer. And then, just as other romantic comedies go, soon brews mutual attraction, then the usual boy-decides-to-marry-another, girl-leaves-heartbroken, then boy-decides-to-not-to-marry-another-after-the-momentous-epiphany-that-he-loves-girl, then boy and girl meet again, get married and live happily ever after. If only real life was this simple, right?
Memorable scene - The entire movie's hilarious, so deciding on just one is difficult. Well, one of my favourites is the part where Katherine forces Danny's cousin Eddie, to invite Palmer to dinner (so that Katherine and Danny could join Katherine's acquaintance Devlin for dinner). When Eddie asks what is he going to say to her all night, Katherine says "you spout crazy nonsense for hours in Eurotrashanese [...]". Eddie grudgingly agrees and asks if he does good, can he sleep in the bed with her. Katherine says (with much bewilderment) "No! Why! You've got a great private room!" And then the camera pans to the toilet, where the bathtub is set up like a bed with a pillow and comforter.

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You've Got Mail - Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks! Pairing up for the third time since Joe Versus the Volcano in 1990 and Sleepless in Seattle in 1993, You've Got Mail follows the story of Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly. Both frequent the same coffee shop, shop at the same place, and even own competing bookstores - the former runs a chain of mega bookstores and the latter, the owner of a small, independently-owned bookstore. They are actually business rivals in real life (Joe's decision to open a new branch of his 'Foxbooks' risks putting Kathleen's small bookstore out of business), although, unbeknownst to them, they have been corresponding with each other over the internet for quite some time, both unaware of each other's identity (Joe uses the screen name 'NY152' while Kathleen uses the name 'Shopgirl'). They tell each other everything about their lives, including their private feelings, which gradually turn into affection for one another. But hey, what happens when identities are finally revealed?

Note - All this corresponding with a stranger and falling for her/him thing only works in movies, however. Rarely in real life would you find someone who is actually who she/he says he is and not some hamsap stalker or deranged lunatic.

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(500) Days of Summer - One of the most awesome romantic comedies ever, (500) Days of Summer stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. The movie employs a non-linear storyline, or in other words, the story jumps from past to present on a frequent basis, so I suppose that this could get rather hairy sometimes, although it's really worth it in the end. Anyway, it tells of Tom, an aspiring architect working as a greeting card writer and his almost-manic scrutiny of his failed relationship with a girl named Summer (Deschanel). It is just his pure dumb luck, I guess, that he falls for a girl who thinks that true love belongs only in fairytales. However, the movie's cute, indie, kitschy and goes against almost all the other stereotypical romantic comedies that Hollywood seems to offer to the masses these days.

Memorable line: "It's love, not Santa Claus," says a bewildered Tom to Summer, who scoffs at the idea of love.

P/S: Numerous friends told me that About A Boy is pretty awesome too, but it stars Hugh Grant. That should tell you about the type of movie this is  *shudders*

But hey, I'm just being my normal biased self here, so feel free to check out the aforesaid movie  :)