Groundhog Day - HecklerSpray

With the release of Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Bruce Willis Jr.’s new film Looper hitting the theaters, I was reminded that every so often Hollywood ends up making a time travel movie that actually has a bit of a brain behind it. Smart movies are few and far between, but smart time traveling movies are a rarity that springs forth once every hundred Timecops.

A smart movie about time travel is a different thing than a smart movie about, say, actual science. When a movie like ?The Core? comes out and just acts like the world can stop spinning without much consequence, or when ?The Day After Tomorrow? says you can walk from Philadelphia to New York in three days during the ice age, you’ve got a stupid movie. There isn’t really any science for time travel to be held up against. Instead, a smart time travel movie is a movie that at least pretends the subject is serious and realistic.

Ahh, Valentine’s Day. It's not far off now. You?ll see them, sitting there on tables for two, staring blankly over one another?s shoulder, wondering whether to pop the question to ease the crippling silence.

Then they?ll get married. He?ll do a speech about how wonderful she looks today, without once mustering the desire to so much as glance at her, as she sits with a fixed grin, her teeth shaking under the pressure of smiling so much.

After that, they might enjoy three awkward evenings which wind up in fumbled stony faced sexual intercourse every six months, and one will lead to the birth of a child. And that child will go on to fame and fortune, and everyone will cheer, because there is a happy ending.

The credits roll.

Here are some other great romantic comedies that were actually made into films?

The 5 Most Intelligent Time Travel Movies Ever

The Five Greatest Romantic Comedies, Actually