Colin Hay - I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You

What is Love? Words of Wisdom from 200 Years of Literary History

C. S. Lewis, who was a very wise man, in The Four Loves:
"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

Katharine Hepburn in Me : Stories of My Life:
"Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only with what you are expecting to give — which is everything."

Philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, he of great wisdom, in The Conquest of Happiness:

"Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness."

Honoré de Balzac, who knew a thing or two about all-consuming love, in Physiologie Du Mariage:

"The more one judges, the less one loves."

New York I love You

Bradley Cooper and Drea Matteo's scene from New York I love You. Reblog required.

Free People

The sweetest love video from Free People with actor Christopher Abbott (GIRLS) & model Sheila Marquez.

Lyrically Superior... Incubus' Echo

This party is old and uninviting

Participants all in black and white

You enter in fullblown technicolor

Nothing is the same after tonight

If the world would fall apart

In a fiction worthy wind

I wouldn't change a thing

Now that you're here

Yeah, love is a verb here in my room

Here in my room, here in my room

You enter and close the door behind you

Now show me the world as seen from the stars

If only the lights would dim a little

I'm weary of eyes upon my scars

Pink tractor beam into your incision

Head spinning as free as dervishs' whirl

I came here expecting next to nothing

So thank you for being that kind of girl

That kind of girl

Family Matters

“There’s nothing like family. These are the people who make you who you are. They’ve helped you grow, they’re responsible for the countless lessons in life that you’ve learned. It’s the memories of who you were that make them proud to see what you’ve become. They’re the ones who filtered your dreams and provided the fuel to making it a reality. They constantly give you an example of what it takes to make something happen. They give from the heart. They don’t change. There’s no way that you can ever repay them for everything that they’ve done for you, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that they know your love for them will never change.”

-Jay Z

For my sister...

My sister and I, circa '91

The Love of My Life... Justin Timberlake's Mirrors

I was really nervous when Justin dropped The 20/20 Experience.  And his first single, Suit and Tie really underwhelmed me to the point where I thought he had well and truly lost his magic touch. RnB turned into some watered down soul/funk mash-up, Timbaland turned into Jay-Z and the buzz cut turned into a hipster mop top with no trace of his beloved broccoli top. But then I heard Mirrors and realized that our beloved old school JT is still there. Loving the lyrics and the melody so much, this is old school nostalgia at its finest. No one in the world can repalce Justin for me, he is the soundtrack to my life. 

A Love Like This

Theirs might not have been the most likely of pairings, but Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti's incredible romance is considered one of the greatest modern love stories. 

It was in 1950 while working as a judge on Italy's 'Miss Eleganza' beauty contest that Carlo first set eyes on his future wife. At the time, he was 37 and a married man, while slum-raised Sophia was just 15 years old. But it was love at first sight.

Carlo, the producer behind classic films such as Doctor Zhivago, is credited with preparing Sofia for stardom, arranging for her to study acting and learn English. He also had her change her name from Sofia Scicolone and secured a number of film roles for the young actress. 

Seven years later and the couple tied the knot on September 17, 1957. Already separated from his first wife Giuliana, with whom he had a son, the famous film producer obtained a quicky divorce in Mexico and in turn married Sophia by proxy. The newlyweds celebrated at home together with a private dinner and Carlo presented his new bride with her wedding ring. 

But the following month Carlo was charged with bigamy when it emerged that the Catholic Church would not recognise their marriage. It took years of courtroom wrangling before he was cleared of the charge. There was nothing for the couple to do but annul their marriage, which they did in 1962.

Speaking about their ill-fated first union, Sophia once said: "I was being threatened with excommunication, with the everlasting fire, and for what reason? I had fallen in love with a man whose own marriage had ended long before… I wanted to be his wife and have his children. 

"We had done the best the law would allow to make it official, but they were calling us public sinners. We should have been taking a honeymoon, but all I remember is weeping for hours."

After reaching an extraordinary agreement, Giuliana and the couple, embittered with Italy, moved to France in 1966 and obtained French citizenships allowing Carlo to legally seek a divorce and remarry. And on April 9 of that same year, screen beauty Sophia and her long-term lover were married by the Mayor of Sevres in the Parisian suburb's city hall. 

Despite the 20-year age gap between Carlo and his beautiful wife, their unlikely union stood the test of time. The couple welcomed two children together, sons Carlo Jnr and Edoardo, and by the time of the Italian producer's death on January 10, 2007, at the grand age of 94, they had remained together for more than 50 years.

Two years after the death of her beloved husband, with whom she worked frequently throughout her career, Sofia was asked whether she would ever marry again. "No, never again," she replied. "It would be impossible to love anyone else."

The English Patient...

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. 

I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.” 

500 Days of Summer - Expectations vs Reality

1.02: When everything crumbles. The end of life as you know it. You may as well crawl under a rock and allow yourself to rot. Close to home.

Beautiful Girls (1996) ...Nabokov's Wet Dream

A Girl Named Marty

Ice Skating with Marty

A Beautiful Girl can Make you Dizzy

A Nabokov Character

Men are More Romantic than Women...

Marina & Ulay

Marina Abramovic and Ulay started an intense love story in the 70s, performing art out of the van they lived in. When they felt the relationship had run its course, they decided to walk the Great Wall of China, each from one end, meeting for one last big hug in the middle and never seeing each other again. at her 2010 MoMa retrospective Marina performed ‘The Artist Is Present’ as part of the show, a minute of silence with each stranger who sat in front of her. Ulay arrived without her knowing it and this is what happened.

My most romantic post to date... man life is messy when love comes into play.

Louis Armstrong's Dear Old Southland

Hard to go past this. As close to perfection as it gets:

The Kooples

As annoyingly hipster as these couples are, the concept is just so adorable it hard not to love esp when you have such painfully beautiful people in love. Just ignore the fact that they're advertising for an overpriced chain store and take it for what it's worth.The following are my favourites theyre just so adorable: 

Devendra and Ana

Fahrani and Luke

Daniela and Julien

Corinna and Johnny

Before Midnight: I Can't Wait

"So dont forget, you're stardust."

I first watched Before Sunset when I was 15, not really understanding the real beauty of romance in it. What experience and a little bit of hindsight can do. The trilogy follows the romance of Celine and Jesse who first met in Austria 18 years ago, then again in Paris 9 years ago, again by chance, but not without the meddling of Jesse who had conspired to write a book about his experience with Celine in a new book, curiously finding himself in Paris for the European leg of his book tour, for the sole reason of bumping into Celine. In Paris, Jesse finds himself stuck in a passionless marriage, and falling yet again for Celine, and  most likely missing his flight home, entranced by her beauty.

This is quite possibly the most romantic love story in cinematic history. audiences on the edge of our seat - asking, what comes next, will it end, will they finally get together  or will they let this one slip by yet again? These characters are so close to my heart being something I have experienced before in my life, you never know what someone is or if they're yours until the end as much as you want them to be. I'm avoiding all press release of an sort in case of spoilers but I just cannot wait to see what Jesse and Celine decide to do next.

I guess a memory is never finished as long as you are alive.” You know when you see someone do something completely random but totally in their element and then you realize you love them. You wonder what you were doing your entire life without this person because you HAVE to have them in our life. Like they're a movie that you just cannot stop watching, you could watch them forever and just to be in a part of their life for a second feels like heaven. Like reality and time and space stops and ceases existence for a couple of seconds just for the two of you to have and share this moment. Existential. I love dialogue-focused narratives.

And finally, these are the best scenes from the trilogy thus far:

He convinces her...

The look, the moment

Daydream delusion
Limousine Eyelash
Oh, baby with your pretty face
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet cakes and milkshakes
I am a delusion angel
I am a fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don’t want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we’re going
Launched in life
Like branches in the river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I’ll carry you. You’ll carry me
That’s how it could be
Don’t you know me?
Don’t you know me by now?

Jesse and Celine "call home"

Goodbyes. Forever, or just for now?

Relationships...

The confession - Life isn't all roses, on either side. 

"Baby you're gonna miss that plane...". "I know..."

Nothing like a Great Love: Johnny and Winona's Love Story

Poster couple for the 90's grunge era: Johnny and Winona were captivating apart and dynamite together. So when they split, the word mourned along with them. The following are musings from themselves and the closest confidanes of the former couple about the split:

"There’s been nothing throughout my 27 years that has been comparable to the feeling I have with Winona. There’s something inside me that knows really well, that no one else has ever known, or will ever know. Life is trial and error, but when you find the one who’s really it, there’s no mistaking it."

- Johnny Depp

"I love Winona. I’m going to love her forever. Putting her on my arm solidified it. The truth is very powerful, believe me this is not something I took lightly." - Johnny Depp

"The split in 1993 was during the filming of Ed Wood and there were days he would come crying, I felt so bad. I asked him why it happened but all he said was, ‘It wasn’t her fault, it was mine.’ And when he met Kate in January of 94, it wasn’t the same as Winona. I felt weird to be around him like he wasn’t acting like Johnny anymore. It’s almost like Winona took Johnny’s soul, Johnny’s love." - Tim Burton

“He was so desperately in love with Winona, that when they broke up, he wouldn’t admit it was over for the longest time.” - Tim Burton

Acoustic Version of Lady Gaga's Edge of Glory

The most beautiful and raw rendition of this song. It was dedicated to her grandmother, because her grandfather just died. They were married for 60 years and were Gaga said she'd never seen them more in love than they were towards the end. 

Michel Gondry's Mood Indigo

"Mood Indigo," Michel Gondry's new offering, based on Boris Vian's 1947 novel "L'Ecume des Jours" (English translation: "The Froth of Daydreams") has just released a French-language full-length trailer. In the film, a woman (Audrey Tautou) encounters a strange illness due to a water lily growing in her lungs.  All this comes after falling in love and marrying a wealthy inventor (Romain Duris).  Michel Gondry territory, indeed.  Omar Sy ("The Intouchables") also stars. Loved Sy in the Intouchables, Romain Duris is magic in almost all his roles, and Audrey, well if she isn't the definition of elegant, I don't know what is. Ah, gonna go watch the trailer to 2006's Science of Sleep now.

A New Favourite: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

"...I hope you live a life you're proud of, if you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

I just watched The Curious case of Benjamin Button on TV for the second time ever. You know those films you watch for the first time and they never truly make an impact, until you're older and all of a sudden things come full circle and make sense when you watch it again at a more mature age? This, along with The English Patient, and Le Petit Prince are some of the stand outs in that category for me. It took me time and experience to fully understand the purpose of the film. And this time, it really got to me. It's about life, the fragility of it, how accidental  it all is and the experiences and the people you meet that make it what it is. Like Daisy was for Ben, there will always be those who you love and that never fades through your expereinces, only time can tell if that person is ours in the end. In the meantime, go on living, go on loving and be open . The reason I love it so much is that it transports me to another world, the mysterious world of this mans predicament is broken down and reveals a very human story, filled with romance and (all forms of)discovery. 

The most curious thing about the film though (excuse the pun) is the fact that David Fincher, yes, the David Fincher of Fight Club, Se7en, The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network. His usually dark perversions were certainly left behind on this one, where his penchant for the more romantic comes into play. Such a timeless piece.

Daisy captivates Benjamin

Daisy and Benjamin montage - When you're in love, all you need is a bed.

"You certainly are beautiful to watch.... I want to remember us right now, just as we are."

"For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again." 

"Some people...". This scene is so pure. We are meant to be who we are always meant to be, there is no need to make excuses for who you are, and amidst all this confusion through life of to 'find' who we are, essentially reminds me of how subjective and accidental life is.You already know yourself. It's not hard, all you have to be is honest. You just need to convince yourself of that.

And finally, you just can't go past the beautiful ragtime/jazz score:

Bethena - Scott Joplin 

Dear Old Southland - Louis Armstrong