Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Greeting,

Well - it seems as if our lovely blue-eyed blond is the reason for a new phrase in our urban vocabulary.

A Manic Pixie Dream Girl is "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures."

The term was coined by film critic Nathan Rabin after seeing Kirsten in Elizabethtown.

While this is a recent film, the idea goes back decades. Here is a list of the top 16 films featuring a MPDG.

1. Elizabethtown (Kiki)
2. I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (Leigh Taylor-Young)
3. Garden State (Natalie Portman)
4. Butterflies Are Free (Goldie Hawn)
5. Almost Famous (Kate Hudson)
6. Joe Versus The Volcano (Meg Ryan)
7. The Apartment (Shirley MacLaine)
8. Bringing Up Baby (Katharine Hepburn)
9. What's Up, Doc? (Barbra Streisand)
10. Annie Hall (Diane Keaton)
11. Breakfast At Tiffany's (Audrey Hepburn)
12. Something Wild (Melanie Griffith)
13. Sweet November (Charlize Theron)
14. Autumn In New York (Winona Ryder)
15. The Last Kiss (Rachel Bilson)
16. My Sassy Girl (Elisha Cuthbert)

The oldest movie on this list is 1938s Bringing Up Baby, which is also a movie that is credited as being pretty much the definition of Screwball Comedy. An updated remake of this movie is What's Up, Doc?, which is a movie I physically hurt myself from laughing so hard the first time I saw it!

Also, Cameron Crowe wrote and directed two of these movies - Almost Famous and Elizabethtown. One of the inspirations for Elizabethtown was one of Cameron's all time favorite movies - The Apartment.

BTW - The Apartment and Annie Hall went on to win the Best Picture Academy Award.

Cheers,
- rsvpjrdot

"Everyone should take a road trip at least once in their lives."