California Dreamin' is another good Romanian film.
Lorne, unless you've been hanging around with Romanians lately, I assume your friend played one of the two main American soldiers. The Marine Corporal was played by a 59 year old actor which sounds about right, but the young Sgt. is from Montreal. So you keep me guessing.

In any case, the film is not about the Americans, but rather how the Romanians react to their presence. The year is 1999, and a train with NATO communication equipment is passing through Romania on its way to Kosovo, guarded by 10 or so US Marines and a half dozen somewhat less spiffy Romanian soldiers. The corrupt stationmaster of an out-of-the-way village decides to hold up the train, which is authorized but doesn't have the proper papers (which apparently were not thought necessary by anybody).

The stationmaster has a complex web of reasons to derail the Americans. Foremost seems to be because at the end of WWII the Americans never came to the rescue, so his parents were taken away by the incoming Russians. But he also is opposed to the US bombing of Kosovo. And as the Americans cool their heels on a side track, his daughter becomes involved with the Marine sergeant.
And like petty bureaucrats everywhere, he seems to enjoy throwing his weight around in his little fiefdom.

The town reacts with gusto to the American presence. The mayor throws celebrations hoping that the Americans will spend money and hopefully improve the town's image. Workers at a nearly-bankrupt factory decide it's the perfect time to hold a strike, with decidedly imperfect results. While all of the girls in the town are so eager for fresh blood and a link to the outside world that they swarm all over the American soldiers.

That's all the first hour and the set-up is very effective. The film meanders a bit and loses some steam during the lengthy scenes of the soldiers and girls getting to know each other. Of course, this being Romania, everything is rather shambolic with the stationmaster usually being half-dressed, telephones promptly answered on the twentieth ring, limited and deceptive translations, etc.

While this longish segment seemed a bit slow-paced for me (ie. I could have done with one song from the Romanian Elvis-impersonator, though later decided that it would have been funnier if Blue Suede Shoes and Love Me Tender were done as a medley, instead of as two separate songs). But I think the idea is to capture the lazy, erratic rhythm of the Romanian countryside, which 12:08 East of Bucharest also attempted in its mid/late section.

Things get a little amped up towards the conclusion, and I liked the oblivious American leave-taking, which could be read as a comment on Kosovo as well. There is a strange coda, with a brief 3 minute scene at the end occurring 5 years later. A little hard to say what the point of that was.

While I might have made the film sound political, it really is a snapshot of the Romanian countryside and their aspirations.
There's also humor throughout, especially the corrupt stationmaster insisting on upholding the law while stealing what he can from each trainload, the poor translations, and (my favorite) the inept strikers.

As for the Americans, the older Corporal is pretty convincing as a gruff man of action forced to cool his heels. The young sergeant seems more sensitive and intelligent than likely for a young marine, but that's intentional for the plot. Both come off well in supporting roles, though at times their dialogue could have been strengthened.

The 27 year old director, Cristian Nemescu, was killed in a car accident 24 August 2006, during the post-production of the film. I don't know how that affected the end result, but the Romanian title Nesfarit means unfinished. I thought the film was overlong at 2 hrs 35 min. And needed to be tightened up in the second half.

From the db:

...My kid absolutely adores your avatar ... she's a fricking Sweeny Todd junkie. She says "mom, go on that movie place where you talk to those people so I can see the Sweeny Todd thing." She digs the anime ones too. My little artist.

Kids and larey ... YOU KNOW I LOVE 'EM!

Someone smacked the shit out of Kelly (Lorraine Stanley), a hooker with a heart of gold, and something nasty happened to Joanne (Georgia Groome), a precocious 12-year-old runaway. Who did the smacking plus what type of nasty; how did the ladies meet and come to be cowering in a London public toilet, licking their wounds and wolfing down French fries; and why did they flee to Brighton where trouble awaits them—this is the tense, white-knuckle stuff of London to Brighton. The debut feature of writer-director Paul Andrew Williams is a grim, efficient affair, neatly packed into 83 punishing, "cunt"-strewn minutes. Stanley and Groome uplift the miserablism with their raw, credible performances, and Williams shows uncommon confidence as a storyteller—but what, you may ask, have we done to deserve this? LTB offers a fresh (if grimy) contribution to kitchen-sink realism, but little to the tiresome persistence of vicious British gangster chic.

Syd,

Maybe Maybe, Definintely, is the Valentine's Day film you were looking for. Now that's sorted, why were you looking for an appropriate Valentine's day film.