Amélie (2001, Fr.) (aka Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain)

Tender and Sweet Reciprocal Kisses

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's charming romantic comedy/fantasy told of the life of a whimsical French cafe worker in Montmartre who often attempted to bring happiness to the lives of others.

In this film's romantic climax, painfully-shy Amelie (Audrey Tautou) finally met quirky Nino Quincampoix (Mathieu Kassovitz), a lonely adult video store clerk, at her apartment's door. She knew he had the strange habit of collecting discarded passport photo strips from photo booths and putting them into a photo album. She silenced him and pulled him inside.

After they stared awkwardly at each other for a few moments, she surprised him with a tender and slow kiss near his lips, on his neck, and a kiss above his left eye -- making it a child-like kissing game.

Amelie's Three Kisses - A Kissing Game

She then pointed to her lips to instruct him to follow suit -- he replied reciprocally by kissing her in the same three locations.

In the next scene after she drew the curtains, they were viewed in bed together where she held him close to her as he slept and rested his head on her.

Angel Eyes (2001)

Apres-Swim Naked Kisses

This emotional melodramatic thriller by Mexican-born director Luis Mandoki was about the tough life of cops working in Chicago's precincts. It told about a romantic relationship that developed between one of the cops and a do-gooder:

• Sharon Pogue (Jennifer Lopez), a feisty and embittered Chicago cop
• Steve "Catch" Lambert (James Caviezel), enigmatic and haunted

Sharon's life was saved during a violent shooting by guardian-angel "Catch," returning the favor from a year earlier when she saved him after a gruesome and traumatic car accident that killed his wife and son. (The movie was falsely marketed as having a Sixth Sense type of supernatural plot twist.)

Inevitably, their relationship grew and intensified at a swimming hole in a state park during a picnic, where they went swimming (in their underwear).

While kissing him in the water, she whispered to him:

"Kiss me someplace I've never been kissed."

Then shortly afterwards, the camera panned across their picnic blanket to where they were seen kissing and embracing naked (without revealing anything).

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Platonic Kisses, Then Intercourse ASAP

Director Ron Howard's Best Picture-winning biopic was about the life of an Economic Sciences Nobel Laureate who also suffered from delusions, erratic behavior and paranoid schizophrenia.

Brilliant genius John Forbes Nash (Russell Crowe), a mathematics instructor, expressed his love for one of his MIT students, Alicia Larde (Jennifer Connelly), while they shared an outdoor picnic together. When she urged him to share his thoughts ("Try me"), he agreed. He bluntly explained how he really wanted to have sex with her:

"I find you attractive. Your aggressive moves towards me indicate that you feel the same way. But still, ritual requires that we continue with a number of platonic activities before we have sex. I am proceeding with those activities, but in point of actual fact, all I really want to do is have intercourse with you as soon as possible. (pause) Are you gonna slap me now?"

She leaned forward and kissed him, then asked: "How was that result?"

He responded by taking her for a second kiss.

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

Pursuit for a "Nice Boys" Kiss

Director Sharon Maguire's romantic comedy told about the disastrous love life of the 32 year-old, always embarrassed, ever-single Londoner, plump title character Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger), an adaptation based upon Henry Fielding's novel. Her romantic dalliances occurred with two other major characters:

• Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), womanizing and caddish, Bridget's book publishing boss
• Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), a divorced 36 year-old barrister and friend - the son of her parents' friends

She had many times earlier avoided the kisses of Mark, thinking he was arrogant, and he had thought that she was foolish.

In the film's conclusion, to get Bridget to forget about Mark (considered by her three friends as "the most dreadful cold fish"), she was surprised with a planned weekend trip to Paris, and when the friends asked: "Has he ever actually stuck his f--king tongue down your f--king throat?", she confirmed that he hadn't; but then Mark suddenly appeared behind Bridget outside her flat, complimenting her for her earlier speech: "I just wanted to know if you were available for bar mitzvahs and christenings as well as ruby weddings. Excellent speech."

He told her that he wasn't going to reside in America, and had returned home unexpectedly because he had forgotten something - he had come to kiss Bridget goodbye. She was utterly taken aback by his straight-forward request.

Bridget hurriedly dismissed her friends and invited Mark into her upstairs apartment; she told him: "Keep yourself busy, read something" while she was changing her clothes in her bedroom, and promised: "I'll be right with you." She expectantly told herself: "Definitely an occasion for genuinely tiny knickers." As she put on sexier underwear, he happened to scan through her diary and glimpsed a series of insults that she had written about him. He was dismayed by her critical assessment of him - that he was boring and dull:

"Mum was really scraping the barrel, with Mark Darcy. He acts like he's got a giant gherkin thrust up his backside...But let's face it. Mark Darcy is rude, he's unpleasant, he's DULL - no wonder his clever wife left him. I hate him. I HATE HIM!"

When Bridget returned, she saw that he had abruptly departed into the snowy night and didn't respond to her calls out to him; she realized he had read her negative words about him and began swearing: "Oh, s--t. Double s--t. Bollocks!" Realizing why he had left and to prevent him from leaving for the last time, she ran after him into the snowy street, wearing only running shoes, a purple lingerie top, an ill-fitting beige sweater and leopard-striped panties.

At first, she couldn't locate him, but fortunately, he reappeared; she caught up to him in the street as he left a store, when she told him that her diary was foolish:

"I am so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. Well, I meant it, but I was so stupid that I didn't mean what I meant. For Christ's sakes. It's only a diary. Everyone knows diaries are just full of crap."

During her ranting, he was silent, but then he replied: "I know that. I was just buying you a new one (in order) to make a new start, perhaps."

He revealed a new diary from his coat pocket, bought for her to begin a new diary. She embraced him as they hungrily kissed, while passers-by watched in amusement on the street corner. In the midst of a series of kisses during snow flurries, she pondered:

Bridget: "Wait a minute. Nice boys don't kiss like that."
Mark: "Oh yes they f--kin' do!" (and he wrapped her up in his coat)

Moulin Rouge! (2001, US/Australia)

"All You Need is Love" Kiss

In Baz Luhrmann's dizzying and hyper-real spectacle - a conglomerate of pop songs in a post-modern musical, a star-crossed romance developed between:

• Satine (Nicole Kidman), Moulin Rouge's star and beautiful (but consumptive) courtesan
• Christian (Ewan McGregor), a penniless English writer/lover

Although Satine could save the nightclub and its owner Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent) from financial ruin by giving herself to wealthy, smitten Duke of Monroth (Richard Roxburgh), she risked everything for a tragic love affair with Christian, who assured her during a magical duet of Elephant Love Medley: "All you need is love."

In the tearjerker ending, she died in Christian's arms, with her reassuring words: "I'll always be with you."

Mulholland Dr. (2001)

"Have You Ever Done This Before?" Exploratory Lesbian Kissing

Best Director-nominated David Lynch's surreal, confusing, mystifying, mind-twisting, dream-like modern neo-noir told about the illusion of Hollywood fame in the 'city of dreams.' The film's themes included unrequited love, exploitation, corruption, false hopes and dreams, half-truths, and doppelgangers.

The most confusing aspect of this surrealistic, neo-noirish mystery drama with a non-linear narrative was that it told a twisting and turning tale involving dual characterizations (or personas, or split psyches) of the two female protagonists. A viewer would benefit by realizing that the first three quarters of the film (roughly 111 minutes of the 147 minute film) was an idealistically-portrayed, wholly-imagined, and romanticized fantasy dream by one of the two females. A mysterious blue 'Pandora's' box with a blue key signified the break between the first part of the film's DREAM (told in traditional linear fashion) and the second part's REALITY. Both parts were enhanced with flashbacks, subconscious thoughts, memories, and further dreams-hallucinations.

The first major character (although not introduced first) was Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts) - a dirty-blonde (and cocaine junkie) who was the fantasized, idealized flip-side of aspiring, wholesome, pert blonde starlet Betty Elms (also Watts). Betty had come to Hollywood to hopefully find fame. In a nutshell, Diane and Betty were the same person (most of the film was Diane's fantasy dream and play-acting of being successful in Hollywood as Betty). When Diane's unrealistic dream of stardom and becoming an actress wasn't fulfilled, she became seriously depressed, delusional, irrational and murderous. Rejected by both a director and lover, the now-jaded starlet Diane sought retribution.

The second major character was Diane's brunette lesbian lover Camilla Rhodes (Laura Elena Harring), who jilted and betrayed Diane by being selected for a film role by the director and then falling in love with him. At first, Camilla was revealed as a dependent and lost amnesiac, temporarily named 'Rita' (Laura Elena Harring) - she was named after Rita Hayworth on a Gilda (1946) poster. She had suffered a car wreck on Mulholland Drive, a possible attempted murder, and a head concussion. She happened to meet up with Betty who was residing in an LA apartment building. At first, Betty took it upon herself to care for the dependent and memory-impaired 'Rita'.

During sleep in a possible DREAM sequence, the two engaged in the first of two steamy, topless, hesitant and exploratory lesbian love scenes in the film; in this first instance, 'Rita' removed her robe, and slipped into Betty's bed naked; Betty mentioned: "It's more comfortable than the couch, isn't it?" Rita leaned over and kissed Betty innocently on the forehead:

Rita: "Good night, sweet Betty."
Betty: "Goodnight."

When they started touching each other sexually, they spoke further; Betty asked of Rita: "Have you ever done this before?" followed by a kiss on the lips, and Rita answered: "I don't know. Have you?" Betty then confessed her love for Rita: "I want to with you. I'm in love with you. I'm in love with you." This was accompanied by more kisses and sexual touching.

However, after the struggling Betty/Diane found herself competing and losing against the full-bodied, competing femme fatale actress 'Rita'/Camilla (both Harring and Melissa George), Diane jealously put out a hit contract on her ex-lover.

Guilt-ridden and remorseful after ordering the murder of Camilla who had ascended to stardom, and knowing that the hit had been made, Diane committed suicide; her rotting corpse was found on her bed. During her own extended death throes, she didn't blame her personal failings or problems, but had found comfort in conspiratorial ideas and other imagined ways to cast blame elsewhere, but all ended in tragedy.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001)

Yucky Spoof Kiss

In an unfunny parody-spoof film of teen comedies of the previous decade, the main copycat scene duplicated the same-sex kiss between Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions (1999). The scene of learning how to kiss was replayed with:

• Catherine Wyler (Mia Kirschner)
• Sadie (Beverly Polcyn), a red-headed older lady

After a first quick-peck ("That wasn't so scary"), Catherine removed her sunglasses and told her subject:

"OK, let's try again, only this time, I'm gonna stick my tongue in your mouth. And when I do that, I want you to massage my tongue with yours - and that's what first base is...Eyes closed!"

The sopping-wet, open-mouthed, tongue-tasting, spit-joining kiss (lasting about 20 seconds) ended with the lady thinking: "That was cool!"

Another line was added to the original, offered by Catherine after she replaced her sunglasses:

"Now, have you ever eaten pussy before?"

Save the Last Dance (2001)

Inter-racial Kiss

This cliched, dramatic dance film produced by MTV Films also won MTV's Movie Awards Best Kiss honors for the kiss in the discreetly-filmed, inter-racial love scene between two teenaged Chicago-area dancers after they had become romantically involved:

• Sarah Johnson (Julia Stiles), a 17 year-old aspiring Julliard ballerina
• Derek Reynolds (Sean Patrick Thomas), an inner city black high school African-American student and hip-hopper

They undressed each other and tenderly kissed each other while making love.

Shallow Hal (2001)

Inner Beauty Kiss

In this Farrelly Brothers' romantic comedy, "Shallow" Hal Larson (Jack Black) always had a reputation for superficially wanting physical beauty and ignoring other qualities of the females he dated.

After being experiencing hypnotherapy with self-help guru and coach Tony Robbins (as Himself), Hal began to see everyone's inner beauty.

He first met extremely overweight 300 lb. Rosemary Shanahan (Gwyneth Paltrow) in a department store trying on large-sized underwear, not realizing that his unappreciated compliments about her beauty and fitness were thought to be sarcastic rather than truly genuine - she called him a "jackass."

In his eyes, she was beautiful (she performed a striptease for him - and he called her "Houdini" for the trick of making her purple slim-fitting thong grow in size) - but in others' views of her, she was morbidly obese.

In the film's finale at Rosemary's bon voyage (going-away) party, after dating and then avoiding Rosemary after becoming unhypnotized, Hal decided to reconcile with Rosemary and tell her of his true love before she left the country for 14 months:

"Rosemary, I'm so sorry that I hurt you. I've been really dumb. I'm immature, I'm unthoughtful. I'm a freakin' idiot. I love you. You're the only girl I've ever loved. I just didn't want you to go away without knowing that...If you let me, I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

To her surprise, he announced that he was joining her in the Peace Corps - he kissed her as everyone applauded.

Shrek (2001)

True Love's First Kiss

Pretty Princess Fiona (voice of Cameron Diaz) was imprisoned by diminutive Lord Farquaad (voice of John Lithgow) in a castle, and cursed with a witch's spell from childhood that could only be broken by true love's first kiss.

[Note: In the film's plot twist - she was a human by day and an ogre by night.]

When loveable green ogre Shrek (voice of Mike Myers) rescued her from a tower in a castle protected by a fire-breathing Dragon, she objected: "You should sweep me off my feet out yonder window and down a rope onto your valiant steed" - when Shrek later removed his armored helmet, she was expecting Prince Charming instead of an ogre ("You're not supposed to be an ogre").

Later in the film, Donkey and Shrek arrived just as Fiona's forced wedding ceremony to Farquaad commenced - Shrek burst in to interrupt, crying out: "I object" as he ran to the altar, where Farquaad was about to kiss Fiona to seal the forced marriage. Shrek asserted that Farquaad wasn't her true love - and that instead he had feelings of love for her. As the sun set, Fiona turned into an ogress -- and revealed her true identity to Shrek, Farquaad and the entire congregation.

As he declared himself king with the binding marriage, Farquaad ordered his men to kill Shrek and imprison Fiona back in the tower for the rest of her life. The Dragon was summoned with a whistle, and it burst through the stained-glass window and devoured Farquaad with one gulp. Perched on the Dragon's head, the Donkey quipped: "Celebrity marriages. They never last, do they?"

True Love's First Kiss

Shrek and Fiona both declared their love for each other and kissed - true love's first kiss. The assembled audience was cued to say: "Awwwww!" Bathed in golden light, Fiona was freed from her life-long curse as it was broken, resulting in a glorious explosion of light, shattering the church's stained glass windows. and in another twist, Fiona remained an ogre permanently -- love's true form.

Unsure of herself when she stated: "I'm supposed to be beautiful," Shrek reassured her: "But you are beautiful." Donkey added: "I was hoping this would be a happy ending." Shrek covered the camera as they kissed a second time.