by Sam Juliano
The enthusiastically greeted Greatest Romantic Films of All-Time countdown is now set to commence in April of 2014, sometime around mid-month. The four months until that launching will be the time to view and re-view films in that genre, and to ponder the selections. Each voter (e mails will be send to the same group who participated in the just-completed western countdown as well as a few new members who will surely want to be involved with this one) will again be asked to submit a numerical list (1 to 60) of what they favor as the greatest (translated: favorite) romantic films in cinema history. The definition of what a romantic film is will be left up to the individual voter, but there will understandably be some overlaps from the previous comedy and especially musical countdowns. But I figure that overlap to be very modest. Ballots will not be accepted until January 15th, but then will be accumulated all the way up until April 1st. Once again Voting Tabulator Extraordinaire Angelo A. D’Arminio Jr. will be negotiating the results. Because the scope of this genre is a wide one, we will be going with a Top 70, as we did with 2011′s spectacularly successful musical countdown. I will be sending out extensive lists to the voters, but everyone is free to choose whatever films they feel qualify. The list is just to help gather your memories. I will soon be in touch with the e mail chain. To be sure there are many non-American films in this equation–France, Italy, Great Britain, Japan, Hong Kong and numerous other countries have promising entries…..
One firm rule: No writer who previously took on one of the films that will place in the Romantic countdown in one of the previous countdowns can again do the same film. For example: I did The Sound of Music for the musical countdown. Should that film make it in again, someone else must handle the essay.
