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For those of you who are wondering what ever happened to that great date who never called, take in the weepy An Affair to Remember. If you’re unfamiliar with the story and know it simply from its parody, Sleepless in Seattle, this is the tale of two people, already in relationships with others, who fall in love on a cruise boat to New York. Fate separates them, and I won’t share the ending, but it’s a marvelously sweet, yet satisfying ride. The movie stars Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr who were two of the most sophisticated actors of the fifties, with their posh and cool styles illuminate the screen beautifully.

For those of you who find yourselves still in love with that one special someone from high schoolčyou know, the one who caused you to fail geometry because you were staring at the back of their head for the class periodčthen it’s time to investigate The Way We Were.

This romantic comedy follows the clichÄd pattern of opposites attracting with Robert Redford playing the unattainable dream boy and Barbra Streisand as the smitten, idealistic girl who is wild, liberal and relentlessly spouting of the advantages of Communism. However, due to fate and a curling iron, the two fall in love and move to California.

The Sydney Pollack film is accented by a grand Marvin Hamlisch score which includes the incomparable title song,“The Way We Were”. The movie finds its most resounding strength in its two leads, who were both fairly fresh to the cinematic stage at the time and therefore were able to hit notes of indecisiveness and uncertainty far more plausibly.

Finally, for those of you who, on this Valentine’s Day, are staring out into space trying to imagine a scenario where your crush, who is currently canoodling with someone else across Sorin dining room, may really want to come over and join you, it’s time to watch The Piano.

This is an early nineties tale that looks deceptively like a Merchant/Ivory film, but is instead a more seductive, forbidden affair.

Holly Hunter plays a woman shipped to New Zealand for an arranged marriage in which she wants little part. The only thing that bares much interest to Hunter, aside from her daughter, played by Anna Paquin in arguably the best piece of acting ever given by a child, is her piano.

The instrument falls into the hands of her brooding neighbor, George Baines (Harvey Keitel), who allows her to play it if she promises to teach him lessons. A romance between the two ensues, and the film explodes into a riveting series of action in its final sequences.

New Zealand has never looked finer, and neither has Holly Hunter, giving the performance of a lifetime. The film won richly deserved Oscars for both its leading ladies (Paquin and Hunter), and became the standard for costume dramas which followed.

So, don’t fret on this day of superimposed commercial love, instead embrace the fact that, while the lovers of the world may have flowers that will last for three, maybe four days, you have the memory of cinema that will last a lifetime.