These days, genre has been boiled down into such simplistic forms that it becomes a buzz-worthy feat when a film manages to pull off more than just a basic premise. A superhero film becomes wow-worthy if time was taken to perfect the story and actors. A comedy becomes rare if it includes a lot of smarts with the slapstick. A romance becomes one of a kind if its characters don't fit into the almost-always-used conventions.

This latter one is a true sore spot of mine. For the most part, romance and relationships have been boiled down to such ridiculous stereotypes that all romcoms sound ridiculous and anything with romance gets the "chick flick" badge. But romance isn't all that stereotypes would have you believe. It's not all clutzy or irrational women, fashion, game playing, and vast gender divides. Sometimes, the romance is even infused with smarts, success, and tangible connection. In praise of my favorite romances, I give you: Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.

Iron Man opens this week, and thus the summer movie season has officially arrived. I love a good summer movie as much a the next guy, but this morning I found myself looking back at some of the little films that cropped up during the summer; some of them managed to get a "summer" feel on a much lower budget and without all the advertisement and hype. My absolute favorite summer art house movie has to be Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run (1999). I saw it three times that summer, and each time I clutched my seat, my heart pounding. I was amazed at how brilliantly Tywker had mapped out his three possible storylines and how lovely the small, quiet interludes were. I loved Franka Potente, and I loved his throbbing score, which practically entered into your bloodstream and pumped up your adrenaline by hand. Every color, movement and cut was designed for maximum effect (I've always been puzzled how Tykwer's movies since have seemed so long and sluggish.)

Also that same summer, John Sayles delivered his baffling adventure/suspense film Limbo, which had several people trapped on an island awaiting rescue and stalked by bad guys. The ending had everybody in an uproar and caused the film to die a quick death. The summer before that one, Darren Aronofsky's debut feature Pi gave me a good dose of sci-fi thrills, as well as a few head-scratching puzzles (which were actually real). 2000 was a particularly bad summer, but John Waters' Cecil B. DeMented provided a mischievous little oasis in the middle of it all. In that film, renegade filmmakers kidnap a Hollywood starlet and force her to be in their indie production; each team member has a tattoo of a maverick filmmaker's name. (I've often wondered which filmmaker's name I would pick for a tattoo? Maybe David Cronenberg...)

Before Sunset is probably one of the best examples of a good sequel. Actually, scratch that. A great sequel. It's incredibly rare that you can go into a film expecting goodness, and be completely blown away. I liked Before Sunrise; I watched it any time I was itching to be a conversational voyeur. But I didn't love it. Then Sunset came out, and I don't think six months can go by without me itching to pop it back into my DVD player. When I first saw the film in the theater, I heard the loudest noises from the audience ever. There were groans, ughs, awhs and even some "no!" exclamations coming from every direction. We all want to know what happens as the light dims and Nina Simone croons on.

While it is no secret that the trio of Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy would like to keep revisiting the couple every ten or so years, it seems that we're missing out on a sequel that would've shared the aftermath of Jesse and Celine's walk through Paris. Hawke told MTV News: "If the film had been totally ignored, we probably already would have made a third one. Rick said to me the other day, 'It's that whole thing of people coming up to you at dinner parties and saying [they] know what happened to [Jesse and Celine]. You don't want to deal with it.'" Thanks, guys. You make a great film that we all can't help but love, and that's why we're not getting a third? It seems that this sequel wouldn't have been a feature, but a sort of fan goodie to wrap some things up: "We had an idea but [it's] not going to happen, a pretty good outline of what the next one was going to be. But we would need to be in production right now, because we wanted to pick up right where we left off. Rick wanted to do a short film that was just two weeks later. Time goes by so fast."

The bittersweet edge to this project is just how much we don't see. These characters have a million stories to tell -- from Jesse's relationship with his wife and child to Celine's work and relationships -- but maybe it's better to not know it all. Maybe part of the magic is letting things amplify over the years. But that being said -- please, guys, don't have it be another 'we havent seen each other for years' situation. We've had the 'missed opportunity.' Now we need the relationship actuality.

My greatest cinematic weakness is the movie conversation. A great action scene or shocker can pull me in like anyone else, but it's the words that mesmerize. A good movie conversation tugs at those appealing strings of voyeurism. You watch the intimacy of words, but they, and the scene, are not directed at you. It's amazing how much can really be done with words. With the right dialogue, you don't need a gimmick for the audience. You can vicariously have fun with another's conversation, or you can watch a story play out within the span of hello to goodbye.

The following list is by no means comprehensive, but it hits on many of the big conversational accomplishments of the last 30 years. Each has its own way of relating information through words. Some are backed by the urgency of eyes, some are fueled by unnaturally delightful wordplay and some just allow the conversation to happen, wherever it travels to and whatever it says. These seven films have words that roll off the tongues of the actors, creating a cinematic verbal candy that ties into everything from the artsy fartsy to the fart jokes.

My Dinner with Andre

Long before Wallace Shawn was thinking of what was inconceivable, he headed this conversational 80's zeitgeist with Andre Gregory. It's an intellectual niche film, and not for every audience. That being said, there are innumerable subtleties that make it worthy of a first, second and third viewing. What I find most intriguing are the secondary bits that are tacked onto the words, and more importantly, the silence. Shawn is reluctant to go to dinner with Andre, which keeps him silent for a good chunk of the movie. Yet for every word and crazily interesting story that Andre relays, Shawn reacts. He says everything with minute reactions – an eye twitch here, a raised brow and chuckle there.

With the shopping rush and rampant buy, buy, buy commercials, it's easy to get bogged down by the material aspects of Christmas and forget about the fun. However, we shouldn't forget the one tradition that allows you to give love and steal a kiss from someone special -- the mistletoe. The parasitic plant morphed from a pagan symbol in pre-Christian Europe that signified life and fertility, to a Christian symbol inextricably linked to Christmas and kisses. (It's funny how years can change the scope of things.)

In honor of the tradition, and as an opportunity to distract oneself from the smothering kisses of Great Aunt Bea, I thought I would put together a list of mistletoe escapes. What follows are three men and three women who provide an alternative choice to mistletoe fantasies -- free from the mainstream, full-lipped Angelinas and muscle-bound Brads of the world. Better yet, the actors and actresses are teamed with a good film in which they are particularly smoochable. Some of this list might make you nod in agreement, and some might make you think I'm crazy (even though I already took out the likes of eyebrow-raisers such as Christopher Walken). At the very least, it will provide a list of recent film fodder for when things wind down or you're hiding away from family.

Lots of interesting news is starting to surface about a reunion between Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy for another installment in what could soon be referred to as a trilogy - a part three of the series containing Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004). Is it too soon? Are they married? What are they talking about? Kids? Suri Cruise? I'd be happy if Linklater, Hawke and Delpy committed to revisit Jesse and Celine in a fixed increment of years, a'la Michael Apted's 7-Up documentary series that's been tracking the lives of a class of British 7-year-olds through 42 years of their lives.

Let me see if I can describe the plot: Jesse and Celine discuss important personal issues in real time. As slim as that plot description sounds, I found both films in the Sunrise/Sunset series to be completely riveting. I know I'm not alone when I confess to falling in love with both of them as they fell in love with one another. My cold little heart raced faster and more optimistically than ever before when Jesse replied "I know," to Celine's "Baby, you're going to miss that plane." I mean, how could you not find that thrilling?

I read this other, slightly less awesome rumor that Delpy was directing her own romantic comedy, about a neurotic couple spending two hours roaming around Paris. Heck, if she writes and directs movies as well as she invents impromptu songs about one-night-stands, I'll happily support that. While we're discussing this, I shall put a question out: Do you prefer to watch Sunrise/Sunset back to back? Or, like me, do you prefer to wait it out a little bit between the two movies, so that your memory's a bit blurred and closer to the state Jesse and Celine are in when they reunite 10 years later? Or, if you've watched these movies as many times as I do, does waiting between watching the two no longer make sense, since you know pretty much every nuance by heart?

Though no one seems to have really noticed on this side of the pond, French actress (and, if you can believe it, Oscar nominee -- for her work on the Before Sunset screenplay) Julie Delpy made her debut as a director way back in 2002. Looking for Jimmy, which she also wrote, edited, starred in and produced, was shot on DV in 24 hours in Los Angeles, and cost about $3000 to make. Her return to the director's chair, however, looks to be a much more sophisticated affair.

Entitled Two Days and set in Paris, the film stars Delpy, Adam Goldberg (who showed up on My Name is Earl the other night) and German actor Daniel Brühl. The movie is described as a romantic comedy in which Delpy and Goldberg, who play a couple, spend a few days in Paris, the hometown of Delpy's character. While there, "Goldberg's character 'meets some of his partner's ex-lovers and has the impression she's slept with half of Paris.'" Among other things, one hopes.

The film just went into production in Paris and will shoot for a month; Delpy hopes to have it finished in time for a debut at either Sundance or Berlin in 2007.