Six Movies That Make Stalkers Look Like Hopeless Romantics

SCREEN

By Craig D. Lindsey

Add Comment | Comments: 4 | Posted Jan. 9, 2008

Diva (1981): Jean-Jacques Beineix's ultra-cool French flick, which is being rereleased in Philly Friday, has a young postman on the run from the police, assassins and Taiwanese gangsters. But he still has time to get close to his favorite opera star, illegally recording her concerts, stealing her clothes, etc. You see, fans like that know how to prioritize.

Monsieur Hire (1989): All Michel Blanc's antisocial murder suspect wants to do is stay home, turn out the lights, put on his black coat, play some classical music and peek at the scrumptious Sandrine Bonnaire in her apartment across the street. But Bonnaire keeps ruining the relationship by being fully aware of his voyeurism--and liking it. Chicks, man.

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990): When you think about it, any Pedro Almod�var film qualifies for this list. This one's just the most obvious.

Chungking Express (1994): In the second half of Wong Kar-Wai's funky, on-the-fly flick, snack-bar employee Faye Wong gets so smitten with Tony Leung's heartbroken cop, she sneaks into his apartment when he's not there and cleans it. Throw in pop star Wong warbling the Cranberries' "Breathe" in Cantonese on the soundtrack, and you have one cute, kooky romance.

There's Something About Mary (1998): Ben Stiller, Matt Dillon, Chris Elliott, Brett Favre--they all went apeshit over Cameron Diaz. And if he weren't busy serving as a pop-punk Greek chorus, I'm sure even Jonathan Richman would've admitted he wanted a piece of that action.

In the City of Sylvia (2007): Jos� Luis Guer�n's still-unreleased festival fave has a struggling Spanish artist wiling his days away at a French cafe, hoping to run into a lovely lady he met a few years back. With a second act that has its protagonist closely, wordlessly following his possible muse around the streets of Strasbourg for 30 minutes, you'll either be entranced by the filmmaker's flair for letting his luminous images tell the story--or just creeped the fuck out.