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(With Valentine's Day arriving this week, we though we'd dig up some of our old romantic favorites and mix them in with some new stuff. Enjoy.)

By: Christopher Campbell

If you've ever had a bad first date -- and in the age of internet match-ups, it's all the more likely you've had at least a disappointing one -- you're not alone. Thanks to the awkwardness of getting to know somebody, and the nervousness that comes with that, it's a wonder any of us ever have good first dates. But as much as we end up fixating on the failure of a single bad date, we must remember that it's a part of life and has been since the dawn of man, when Adam had to deal with Eve ordering the forbidden item on the menu. Also, we must realize that it's all relative and there's always a worse date out there than the worst we've ever had. Often (and especially because it's Valentine's Day this Saturday), it's a good idea to look to the movies, and compare our worst first date to the worst first dates in cinema:


License to Drive (1988)

Imagine you're all set to get your driver's license, and the hottest girl in school has agreed to go out with you the night you pass the exam. But you don't pass the exam. Then you steal your grandpa's car. Then your date drinks too much and passes out for the rest of the night. Oh, and it only gets worse from there. License to Drive is just one of many films that shows us that a first date can be a crazy mix of Murphy's Law and the snowball effect. Also, like many comedies, it teaches us that an automobile can be destroyed many times over, and that it might be best if our first time driving, as well as our first time dating, be with a car that has little value.

Tonight (we hope), the longest and hardest-fought Presidential campaign in recent memory finally comes to a close. To celebrate, we've assembled a list of the seven most memorable political campaign workers in the past 50 years of movies. We've got office staff members, campaign managers, and the candidates themselves, each one giving their all in the most important campaign of their lives.

1. Robert Redford, The Candidate

Redford plays activist and staunch idealist Bill McKay, son of the former governor of California, who reluctantly enters the race for Senator with little chance of winning, all so he can speak out honestly on "the issues." As his popularity and support grows, so do the temptations and pressures to compromise his beliefs. My favorite scene comes deep in the campaign when McKay goes a little nuts in the back seat of a car speeding to a TV station. Repeating his slogan over and over, he's so exhausted that all he can do is laugh hysterically. Peter Boyle and Allan Garfield play his equally memorable political operatives.

2. Warren Beatty, Bulworth

What is it about California that makes Senators go nuts? Up for re-election, California Senator Jay Bulworth (Beatty), no longer wishing to live, decides he can finally speak the truth instead of campaign rhetoric, making for a racous series of politically incorrect adventures. Beatty, of course, had previously made Shampoo, in which he spent Election Day in 1968 running around Los Angeles putting out romantic and business fires, but he outdid himself with Bulworth.

Are you ready to see Robert De Niro and Al Pacino as partners in Righteous Kill? Is it the casting pair-up you've been waiting 35 years for? Or does it feel too strange to watch a whole movie in which they're all buddy buddy? Perhaps you were fully satisfied with their showdown as enemies in Heat, even though the esteemed veteran actors had much less screen time together. Personally, I like the idea of them going head to head better, but that's mainly because they're both such huge figures that having them team up seems a bit unfair to the other side. As enemies they're like the Incredible Hulk and the Abomination or Iron Man and Iron Monger, to compare them with recent superpowered showdowns in cinema.

It's difficult to choose the better actor of the two, or even decide who's been the more successful Hollywood player. De Niro's been in a lot more films, but his ratio of bad films to good might have suffered as a result. Meanwhile, they've both arguably become too much of caricatures of themselves, to the point where it's sometimes hard to tell which performances are intentional self-parodies and which are accidental. However, despite the difficulty of pitting De Niro against Pacino for a general comparative showdown, there are a number of easily corresponding roles among them. So, just for fun, I've come up with seven specific character showdowns, chosen my pick for which is the better performance, and invite you all to vote on your favorite, whether you agree or disagree with my own.

After the jump ... De Niro vs. Pacino -- it's on!

If you've ever had a bad first date -- and in the age of internet match-ups, it's all the more likely you've had at least a disappointing one -- you're not alone. Thanks to the awkwardness of getting to know somebody, and the nervousness that comes with that, it's a wonder any of us ever have good first dates. But as much as we end up fixating on the failure of a single bad date, we must remember that it's a part of life and has been since the dawn of man, when Adam had to deal with Eve ordering the forbidden item on the menu. Also, we must realize that it's all relative and there's always a worse date out there than the worst we've ever had. Often (and especially because it's Valentine's Day this Thursday), it's a good idea to look to the movies, and compare our worst first date to the worst first dates in cinema:


License to Drive (1988)

Imagine you're all set to get your driver's license, and the hottest girl in school has agreed to go out with you the night you pass the exam. But you don't pass the exam. Then you steal your grandpa's car. Then your date drinks too much and passes out for the rest of the night. Oh, and it only gets worse from there. License to Drive is just one of many films that shows us that a first date can be a crazy mix of Murphy's Law and the snowball effect. Also, like many comedies, it teaches us that an automobile can be destroyed many times over, and that it might be best if our first time driving, as well as our first time dating, be with a car that has little value.

Like most people on the internet, we at Cinematical love lists. I love them so much that I wish I could write about everyone I read, but unfortunately there are too many geeks out there making up too many lists, and not enough love to go round (can't you see this is the land of confusion .... ). But since another thing we love around here is Star Wars -- not just the movies but also the fans, the debates, the complaints, etc. -- I figured that these four lists were worth sharing. Because they all mention something related to George Lucas' popular universe. Three of the lists also reference a lot of Star Trek, but with J.J. Abrams rebooting the franchise and all, I think Trekkies have enough love right now. Meanwhile, the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars occurred this year, and we still had to read about things like the Harry Potter franchise out-grossing the Star Wars series and Serenity beating out Star Wars as a best sci-fi film poll. So, thanks to the people at Fark.com, who love lists even more than we do, here are four movie-related lists that give some appropriate props:

• First we have the Times' countdown of the 40 most memorable aliens. Unfortunately, the only Star Wars aliens listed are at #32 and #26, and they're the Ewoks and Max Rebo, respectively. Considering most of the characters in the series can be considered aliens, this is harsh, but since I'm one of the few Ewok fans out there, I appreciate the gesture. Even if ALF is higher up on the list than they are. At least they're still better than the Coneheads. Anyway the top ten here is full of other significant movie aliens, including the arachnids of Starship Troopers, E.T., the Transformers, Superman, The Blob, The Thing and, at the top spot, God.
  
• Next there's Kunochan.com's countdown of the top twenty starship captains. Once again, Star Wars doesn't get the #1, but it's understandable that Star Trek's most famous captains get the first two slots. At #3, though, is Han Solo. However, the list's author does point out that he had to put a Star Wars character in the top five to avoid having his house firebombed. I don't mind the disingenuous comment; Solo deserves to be higher up than Captain Janeway and the dude from Firefly/Serenity. Down the line at #11 we've also got Grand Moff Tarkin.

And yet another great character actor has passed away, folks. Peter Boyle, best known on the big screen for his role as the hilarious monster-with-a-heart-of-gold in Mel Brooks' 1974 pic Young Frankenstein, has died at the age of 71. Boyle passed on last night at New York Presbyterian Hospital after suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease.

In his later years, the Emmy-award winning actor enjoyed a very successful 10-year stint on Everybody Loves Raymond as Frank Barone, Ray's obnoxious, hot-tempered father. Boyle spent his 40-year career in show business dividing his time between the small screen and the big one, starring in films like Taxi Driver, Joe, The Candidate, Malcolm X, The Santa Clause, While You Were Sleeping and Monster's Ball, among many many more. On television, he appeared in a ton of stuff including Poochinski, NYPD Blue and The King of Queens. His final role was as Father Time in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. Although originally labeled as "the angry type," Boyle quickly proved he was capable of making us laugh, and continued to do so well into the last days of his life. He will be missed.