Can you define love? The definition of love is vague and yet, so simple. All of us fall in love, but how many of us understand the true meaning of love? Rick Casalos wears his heart on his sleeve and talks about love, and why he wakes up every morning.
The meaning of love can't really be explained, it has to be experienced.
The definition of love may be two sentences long, but what is love really, and how does it work?
And how does it make you feel?
The meaning of love
Love… I wonder what it really means.
Is it the feeling that makes me want to jump out with joy?
Or is it that touch that makes me want to skip across the clouds?
I wonder if it is love when I feel happy to see her face, or is it love when I embrace her passionately?
It's strange but words seem to welcome poverty when we try to find the meaning of love.
I don't know if I'm in love, I ask myself all the time if I'm in love.
Defining emotions – The definition of love
I really don't know the definition of love because no one has ever showed me what love really is. They say it is felt, when I embrace my lover, when I hold her palms. They say it is to be heard, in the rustle of the leaves, in the cool breeze, in the words of the special person in my life.
They say love is to be seen in the beauty of the world, in the depth of my lover's eyes.
Or as some say, is love is to be tasted, like the sweet candy that melts in my mouth, or the way I melt when my lips meet her lips?
I don't know what the definition of love is, but does love mean sacrifices and pain? Or is it love when I kill myself for her love? If that is true love, then perhaps, I'm not in love at all. I have never felt like I have sacrificed anything for her, I have readily given up anything that I could give up to make her happy.
So what then, is the meaning of love?
I have never felt pain when she fought with me, I have understood her better. And I would never kill myself, why would I want to leave such a beautiful place, and a beautiful person like her, just to prove that I love her? So am I in love with her, I don't know.
What is love then?
Perhaps I still don't know what love is, because no one has ever told me what love is. I've only read about it in books and listened to songs that try to explain the meaning of love.
I've heard songs that say love is like a river, some songs that say love is like an undying flame, and yet others that say love is like a warm breeze. How can love be so many different things and yet be the same?
But I do know that my world stops when I'm with her. I burn inside and warmth fills within me as she clasps my hand in hers. I lose sight of the world when I gaze into her eyes. I don't know what it is that makes me weak when she hugs me. She makes me feel special when she's around me. But I did tell her that I loved her, but I've been thinking about that ever since the day I told her that, is it love really, what I feel for her?
Meeting the love of my life
I met Nadia six years ago, in the strangest of places for first meetings. Soon we were friends. We dated for a year before she accepted my 'love' for her. The memory of that special night lingers in my mind like it was just last night. We were sitting down under the stars in the summer heat, and I was just gazing at her beauty in the cool moonlight.
I was a small boy peeping through the glass window and admiring the most beautiful object I could ever wish for. She sat beside me, counting the stars that enveloped us. I sat beside her, counting the skips in my heartbeat. Her tresses played on her cheeks, and I was wrapped in the tranquil feeling that I always felt around her.
Experiencing the meaning of love
I could never explain it, but I knew the closest word that could explain what I felt for her was… love.
But 'love' was too small a word to explain everything I felt for her. The meaning of love was just too simple. I just couldn't find it justifiable to explain so many intangible feelings in a little four letter word. But I did, and on that night, the sun shone in my heart and the bliss of the first kiss we shared felt like a never ending fairy tale.
It was a feeling that I still can't describe. I wondered if that was how love felt, like a beautiful sight that just can't be explained even in a million words, but I knew it was special. Many years have passed since the day I professed my feelings for her, but I can still remember it like it was last night.
Understanding the real meaning of love through another's eyes
A few days ago, I met an old friend of mine. He's treading his late 80's and is a jolly man who's always helped me understand the things I've found hard to understand. His wife had passed away a long time back, and at some point of our conversation I asked him how things were since his wife died. He joked that making love to her wasn't the same anymore! He was only kidding! (I hope)
But then when I asked him what the real meaning of love was, he looked at me seriously. But his mind seemed to be elsewhere, somewhere far away, where he could still feel the emotion that seemed to have been extinguished from his life, and he told me something that I could never forget.
He told me, "Rick, you know you're in love when you have a reason to come back home, a reason to justify your existence. You'll know you're in love when you can't imagine living without this one person and you'll do anything to have her by your side. You cannot see love, you cannot feel love, but you can feel a bond when you're around this one person, and you just cannot explain it but it makes you feel special and taken care of. Love, my friend, is what makes you want to wake up tomorrow."
That was nothing like the definition of love, but yet, it made more sense than anything else that defined love.
I felt sad for him, but what he said made me understand what love means. I could only imagine how miserable he felt inside his jovial and happy exterior. So was that love? I think it was, and I wondered if I felt the same way. I wondered if I felt like waking up every morning to a brand new day just because I had love in my life.
Your own unique definition of love
Love is a very subjective word, unlike any other word in the world. I think it's something like our fingerprints. No one can understand what another person's definition of love is, nor can anyone ever replicate another person's love.
Perhaps love is just a word we use when we have to define a feeling that just can't be described, a feeling that no one else can understand but you.
I found myself contemplating about love, and what I felt. I heard a lot of scientific bollocks saying that love is a neural blah and some more blah… and another thousand pages of more scientific blah! But then, I really think that love is something that is more than just science, it's a reason that makes us believe that there is something beyond our control.
Love is a religion that you really begin to believe in. Love is something that just can't be explained in a thousand journals, but it can bring tears of joy in your eyes when you read a letter of a hundred words from your lover. Strange, isn't it?
Me and my love
I've written a few letters over these years, but I have to accept that I haven't written many to her in the last few years. Actually, I haven't written any to her in the last couple of years… is it because I love her less? I don't think so.
I know I still feel warm when I look at her, and I still like staring at her, as she sits down and laughs watching reruns of 'Friends'. I adore the way she sings while she takes a lazy shower on a sunny afternoon. I still can't take my eyes off her as she dances while listening to her favorite tunes.
But I still haven't written her a note saying that I love her, in the last few years. Maybe this is another strange thing about love. Maybe things are just taken for granted and we just feel like we don't need to remind our better halves that we love them, anymore.
The memories that define my love
I still remember our first vacation together. It was to a place a few hundred miles away from home. I was excited and so was she. We were like two little sparrows, indulging in the delight of isolation and romantic togetherness.
I was just a boy and she was just a girl. I remember how good it felt. Six magical days, I still remember the way we just sat on a lawn on the last afternoon, and played with the little flowers that grew on the ground beneath us.
I remember the days when she was away, and I missed her. I remember when I sat down by myself in a pub and emptied my pitcher of beer all by myself. I saw other couples around me, I missed her more. I guessed that was love, what else could that be? I longed for her to come back. I remember the way her voice made my heart jump, and even though she was a thousand miles away, she still touched my heart.
I have shared so many memories with her, so many special times and a few times which hurt me a lot.
But we've moved ahead, and we've been there for each other. She knows I still love her just as much as I used to, but I wish I could let her know that all over again. Love is felt best when we try to please our partner, isn't it? I can only promise her that the love I have for her will always be.
I can only promise her that I will love her forever and ever, as long as I can still see her, and hear her… in my heart.
Forgetting the meaning of love as the years pass by
Time can play tricks on memories, I have forgotten to close my eyes when I kiss her, and I've stopped kissing her on a particular corner of the street, the way I always used to as we drove by. I wonder why. My hands were always clasped in hers, everywhere we went. We even used to eat out in restaurants sitting next to each other, holding hands, even if that made it harder to eat lobsters, and drink our cokes.
I wonder if she remembers all that. I want all those days to come back to me. I don't know why I've stopped those little gestures that mattered so much.
I have so many special memories and times that I can never forget. We have the funniest pictures together, and a few with those romantic scented candles and ones with that perfect sunset. I really do love her more than I could love anyone else.
I want to lose my sleep over her happiness, I want to serenade her before I make love, and I want to sing a soft song in her ears until she falls asleep as she rests her head over my shoulders. I'm young enough to hopefully spend a few decades loving her, and pleasing her.
Is this the true meaning of love?
Perhaps this is what love means, or maybe what I feel for her is more than just love, maybe it's something that I would never be able to explain.
But if love is the only word that I can use to describe the ocean of emotions that well within my heart, then so be it. But I want her to know that this four letter word is still too small to explain all that I feel for her, and make up for all the times I've missed with her. But if she would understand all that I want to say, when I say that I love her, then I would just want to say that I would love her until my eyes can't see, my ears can't hear, and my heart stops beating.
If I were given a chance, then I would love her for longer, as long as I can feel love.
She is the only person who makes me feel so special, and I can't imagine living without her. I want her to know that I still remember every single moment I've shared with her, I want her to know that I still love her just as much as the day under the stars, when we were younger, and first fell in love.
I just want her to know that, come hell or high water, I would love her forever… After all, she is the definition of love and the true meaning of love for me, through the good and the bad. And if someone were to ask me what is love, all I'd have to do is look at her, because there's no other way to define it. Source – lovepanky.com

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Can you define love? The definition of love is vague and yet, so simple. All of us fall in love, but how many of us understand the true meaning of love? Rick Casalos wears his heart on his sleeve and talks about love, and why he wakes up every morning.
The meaning of love can’t really be explained, it has to be experienced.
The definition of love may be two sentences long, but what is love really, and how does it work?
And how does it make you feel?
The meaning of love
Love… I wonder what it really means.
Is it the feeling that makes me want to jump out with joy?
Or is it that touch that makes me want to skip across the clouds?
I wonder if it is love when I feel happy to see her face, or is it love when I embrace her passionately?
It’s strange but words seem to welcome poverty when we try to find the meaning of love.
I don’t know if I’m in love, I ask myself all the time if I’m in love.
Defining emotions – The definition of love
I really don’t know the definition of love because no one has ever showed me what love really is. They say it is felt, when I embrace my lover, when I hold her palms. They say it is to be heard, in the rustle of the leaves, in the cool breeze, in the words of the special person in my life.
They say love is to be seen in the beauty of the world, in the depth of my lover’s eyes.
Or as some say, is love is to be tasted, like the sweet candy that melts in my mouth, or the way I melt when my lips meet her lips?
I don’t know what the definition of love is, but does love mean sacrifices and pain? Or is it love when I kill myself for her love? If that is true love, then perhaps, I’m not in love at all. I have never felt like I have sacrificed anything for her, I have readily given up anything that I could give up to make her happy.
So what then, is the meaning of love?
I have never felt pain when she fought with me, I have understood her better. And I would never kill myself, why would I want to leave such a beautiful place, and a beautiful person like her, just to prove that I love her? So am I in love with her, I don’t know.
What is love then?
Perhaps I still don’t know what love is, because no one has ever told me what love is. I’ve only read about it in books and listened to songs that try to explain the meaning of love.
I’ve heard songs that say love is like a river, some songs that say love is like an undying flame, and yet others that say love is like a warm breeze. How can love be so many different things and yet be the same?
But I do know that my world stops when I’m with her. I burn inside and warmth fills within me as she clasps my hand in hers. I lose sight of the world when I gaze into her eyes. I don’t know what it is that makes me weak when she hugs me. She makes me feel special when she’s around me. But I did tell her that I loved her, but I’ve been thinking about that ever since the day I told her that, is it love really, what I feel for her?
Meeting the love of my life
I met Nadia six years ago, in the strangest of places for first meetings. Soon we were friends. We dated for a year before she accepted my ‘love’ for her. The memory of that special night lingers in my mind like it was just last night. We were sitting down under the stars in the summer heat, and I was just gazing at her beauty in the cool moonlight.
I was a small boy peeping through the glass window and admiring the most beautiful object I could ever wish for. She sat beside me, counting the stars that enveloped us. I sat beside her, counting the skips in my heartbeat. Her tresses played on her cheeks, and I was wrapped in the tranquil feeling that I always felt around her.
Experiencing the meaning of love
I could never explain it, but I knew the closest word that could explain what I felt for her was… love.
But ‘love’ was too small a word to explain everything I felt for her. The meaning of love was just too simple. I just couldn’t find it justifiable to explain so many intangible feelings in a little four letter word. But I did, and on that night, the sun shone in my heart and the bliss of the first kiss we shared felt like a never ending fairy tale.
It was a feeling that I still can’t describe. I wondered if that was how love felt, like a beautiful sight that just can’t be explained even in a million words, but I knew it was special. Many years have passed since the day I professed my feelings for her, but I can still remember it like it was last night.
Understanding the real meaning of love through another’s eyes
A few days ago, I met an old friend of mine. He’s treading his late 80’s and is a jolly man who’s always helped me understand the things I’ve found hard to understand. His wife had passed away a long time back, and at some point of our conversation I asked him how things were since his wife died. He joked that making love to her wasn’t the same anymore! He was only kidding! (I hope)
But then when I asked him what the real meaning of love was, he looked at me seriously. But his mind seemed to be elsewhere, somewhere far away, where he could still feel the emotion that seemed to have been extinguished from his life, and he told me something that I could never forget.
He told me, “Rick, you know you’re in love when you have a reason to come back home, a reason to justify your existence. You’ll know you’re in love when you can’t imagine living without this one person and you’ll do anything to have her by your side. You cannot see love, you cannot feel love, but you can feel a bond when you’re around this one person, and you just cannot explain it but it makes you feel special and taken care of. Love, my friend, is what makes you want to wake up tomorrow.”
That was nothing like the definition of love, but yet, it made more sense than anything else that defined love.
I felt sad for him, but what he said made me understand what love means. I could only imagine how miserable he felt inside his jovial and happy exterior. So was that love? I think it was, and I wondered if I felt the same way. I wondered if I felt like waking up every morning to a brand new day just because I had love in my life.
Your own unique definition of love
Love is a very subjective word, unlike any other word in the world. I think it’s something like our fingerprints. No one can understand what another person’s definition of love is, nor can anyone ever replicate another person’s love.
Perhaps love is just a word we use when we have to define a feeling that just can’t be described, a feeling that no one else can understand but you.
I found myself contemplating about love, and what I felt. I heard a lot of scientific bollocks saying that love is a neural blah and some more blah… and another thousand pages of more scientific blah! But then, I really think that love is something that is more than just science, it’s a reason that makes us believe that there is something beyond our control.
Love is a religion that you really begin to believe in. Love is something that just can’t be explained in a thousand journals, but it can bring tears of joy in your eyes when you read a letter of a hundred words from your lover. Strange, isn’t it?
Me and my love
I’ve written a few letters over these years, but I have to accept that I haven’t written many to her in the last few years. Actually, I haven’t written any to her in the last couple of years… is it because I love her less? I don’t think so.
I know I still feel warm when I look at her, and I still like staring at her, as she sits down and laughs watching reruns of ‘Friends’. I adore the way she sings while she takes a lazy shower on a sunny afternoon. I still can’t take my eyes off her as she dances while listening to her favorite tunes.
But I still haven’t written her a note saying that I love her, in the last few years. Maybe this is another strange thing about love. Maybe things are just taken for granted and we just feel like we don’t need to remind our better halves that we love them, anymore.
The memories that define my love
I still remember our first vacation together. It was to a place a few hundred miles away from home. I was excited and so was she. We were like two little sparrows, indulging in the delight of isolation and romantic togetherness.
I was just a boy and she was just a girl. I remember how good it felt. Six magical days, I still remember the way we just sat on a lawn on the last afternoon, and played with the little flowers that grew on the ground beneath us.
I remember the days when she was away, and I missed her. I remember when I sat down by myself in a pub and emptied my pitcher of beer all by myself. I saw other couples around me, I missed her more. I guessed that was love, what else could that be? I longed for her to come back. I remember the way her voice made my heart jump, and even though she was a thousand miles away, she still touched my heart.
I have shared so many memories with her, so many special times and a few times which hurt me a lot.
But we’ve moved ahead, and we’ve been there for each other. She knows I still love her just as much as I used to, but I wish I could let her know that all over again. Love is felt best when we try to please our partner, isn’t it? I can only promise her that the love I have for her will always be.
I can only promise her that I will love her forever and ever, as long as I can still see her, and hear her… in my heart.
Forgetting the meaning of love as the years pass by
Time can play tricks on memories, I have forgotten to close my eyes when I kiss her, and I’ve stopped kissing her on a particular corner of the street, the way I always used to as we drove by. I wonder why. My hands were always clasped in hers, everywhere we went. We even used to eat out in restaurants sitting next to each other, holding hands, even if that made it harder to eat lobsters, and drink our cokes.
I wonder if she remembers all that. I want all those days to come back to me. I don’t know why I’ve stopped those little gestures that mattered so much.
I have so many special memories and times that I can never forget. We have the funniest pictures together, and a few with those romantic scented candles and ones with that perfect sunset. I really do love her more than I could love anyone else.
I want to lose my sleep over her happiness, I want to serenade her before I make love, and I want to sing a soft song in her ears until she falls asleep as she rests her head over my shoulders. I’m young enough to hopefully spend a few decades loving her, and pleasing her.
Is this the true meaning of love?
Perhaps this is what love means, or maybe what I feel for her is more than just love, maybe it’s something that I would never be able to explain.
But if love is the only word that I can use to describe the ocean of emotions that well within my heart, then so be it. But I want her to know that this four letter word is still too small to explain all that I feel for her, and make up for all the times I’ve missed with her. But if she would understand all that I want to say, when I say that I love her, then I would just want to say that I would love her until my eyes can’t see, my ears can’t hear, and my heart stops beating.
If I were given a chance, then I would love her for longer, as long as I can feel love.
She is the only person who makes me feel so special, and I can’t imagine living without her. I want her to know that I still remember every single moment I’ve shared with her, I want her to know that I still love her just as much as the day under the stars, when we were younger, and first fell in love.
I just want her to know that, come hell or high water, I would love her forever… After all, she is the definition of love and the true meaning of love for me, through the good and the bad. And if someone were to ask me what is love, all I’d have to do is look at her, because there’s no other way to define it. Source – lovepanky.com

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When Kelly Clarkson announced she and fiance Brandon Blackstock would elope, rumors began to swirl about a possible pregnancy.

According to E!, one Virginia radio station even reported the false news before taking the story down.
But the singer quashed those false allegations in one simple tweet.

Earlier this week, Clarkson told People that she and Blackstock had made their decision. “We are so busy that we finally just came to terms the other night and were like, ‘So, we change our minds and we want to elope.’ We just got so overwhelmed by it – all the decisions.”

The wedding will now include only the couple, the groom’s two children and a minister. No bun in the oven just yet. Source – huffingtonpost.com

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Ben Affleck has officially been cast as Batman in the 2015 ‘Man of Steel’ sequel, it has been revealed.

Warner Bros. had made the announcement on Thursday that the ‘Argo’ star will star opposite Henry Cavill, who will reprise his role as Superman from ‘Man of Steel’, News.com.au reported.

Director Zack Snyder said in a statement that the 41-year-old actor provides an interesting counter-balance to Cavill’s Superman.

Snyder asserted that Affleck has the acting chops to create a layered portrayal of a man who is older and wiser than Clark Kent and bears the scars of a seasoned crime fighter, but retain the charm that the world sees in billionaire Bruce Wayne.

Snyder added that he couldn’t wait to work with Affleck. Source – Times of India

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JUST ONE LOOK: Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Holiday. JUST ONE LOOK: Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Holiday.Whether judged by hankies used, sighs heaved, or pulses quickened, a truly fine romantic movie can burn its way into generations of hearts. From the star-crossed (Casablanca, Roman Holiday, Brokeback Mountain) to the triumphant (It Happened One Night, Say Anything . . . , Working Girl), Laura Jacobs falls for the 25 greatest love stories the movies ever told.

Any list of the most romantic movies-this one narrowed to movies in the English language-is going to draw sighs and harrumphs over beloved films left off. Quite a few unforgettable love stories are in movies that don’t comfortably fit the category (Gone with the Wind, for instance), and the contemporary rom-com, while classifiably romantic, can seem as slight as the dandelion-a sunny flowering, a puffball dispersed on a breeze.

Movies that reach the romantic pantheon often have more at stake than a trip to the altar and don’t always end up happily. Some invoke the archetypes of myth and fairy tale, diving into the deeper imaginative realms of high Romanticism, a movement enamored of mystery and nature untamed. Others are modeled on the literary “romance,” a centuries-old genre of narrative fiction that combines adventure, idealism, and courtly love, as exemplified by King Arthur and his Round Table. These tales frequently take place on a journey where desire is set against duty, and where love alters destiny. The mortal dislocations of World War II-our “Good War”-are formidably represented in the realm of the romantic. Casablanca, for example, sees patriotism prevailing over the love of one person. The English Patient sees the reverse.

At the same time, high-flying ideals can become straitjackets or self-sabotage. Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious keys into a dark vein of lyricism, a place where self-sacrifice becomes voluptuous and ill. One thinks of William Blake’s iconic line, which sounds the bass note of Romantic poetry, “O Rose thou art sick.” That said, it is lyricism in all its textures-dark, light, aural, visual-that lifts these films to higher ground. Rodgers and Hart, in their song “Isn’t It Romantic?,” describe the feeling as “music in the night, a dream that can be heard … moving shadows write the oldest magic word.” Those moving shadows are movies.

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (1993)

Beautiful and grave from the first strains of Gounod’s Faust to the last ray of sun bouncing off a window, Martin Scorsese’s film version of Edith Wharton’s greatest novel gets richer with every viewing. This period drama was a departure for Scorsese, until then known primarily for street, gang, and Mafia movies. But were the fabled 400 of New York’s Gilded Age any less controlling than the Cosa Nostra? Newland Archer, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, hasn’t sold his soul to the devil but to a gilded ideal. His marriage to the angelic debutante May Welland (Winona Ryder) will fulfill every conventional wish. But in May’s unconventional, unhappily married cousin, the Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer), he awakens to another ideal-the romance of deep affinity. This new love is blocked at every turn. But by whom or what? New York society closing ranks? Newland’s own pride of place? Or a moral code that wills out? It’s unbearably poignant, this life suspended between ideals.

THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY (1964)

This movie works hard not to be on this list. It questions all the romantic clichés: self-sacrifice, heroism on the battlefield, loyalty in the bedroom. Directed by Arthur Hiller from a script by Paddy Chayefsky, The Americanization of Emily stars Julie Andrews, in her most crystalline period, and James Garner, everyone’s favorite good guy. Emily, having lost her father, brother, and husband to W.W. II, is sick of the cultural complicity that pushes men to be heroes. She believes a living coward is better than a wounded (or dead) warrior with a medal. Garner thinks similarly but opportunistically, without the moral dimension. Events twist and turn. Somehow he ends up as the “first man on Omaha Beach.” The movie is beguilingly intelligent, funny, and, in the last reel, romantic. Andrews and Garner have both said it’s their favorite of their films.

BEFORE SUNRISE / BEFORE SUNSET / BEFORE MIDNIGHT (1995, 2004, 2013)

Eros on location. The first movie in this trilogy is about two students who meet on a train, get off in Vienna, and pass the hours before a flight walking, talking, and falling in love. As Celine, Julie Delpy, of the honey-colored hair and full mouth, could be a pre-Raphaelite nymph, and Ethan Hawke’s Jesse, with his glittering eyes and cool-dude goatee, is Mallarmé’s Faun (“Did I love a dream?”). The following two movies, at nine-year intervals, catch up with the pair in Paris and then in Greece. Action consists of dialogue interwoven with desire: Vienna is reminiscent of late-night dorm discussions about life; Paris is more psychologically revealing and tinged with confusion; in Greece resentments flare and shadows lengthen. Directed by Richard Linklater, the trilogy dispenses with the usual climb toward happy endings, a story tied up with a bow, and instead finds romance in immediacy-the blue dart in the eternal flame.

BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945)

Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard play “ordinary people” Laura Jesson and Dr. Alec Harvey, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2-practically another character-plays the crashing, roiling wave of love that takes them both by surprise. “Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter,” as the movie is formally billed, was based on Coward’s one-act play Still Life. It explores the deepening relationship between two married people of high morals who meet by chance in a train station. David Lean directed, pulling performances of understated passion from Johnson and Howard. Robert Krasker’s black-and-white cinematography, justly admired for its shadows and fog, wears a darkness both sooty and soft. Renunciation can be beautiful, but it can also be bleak. The ending-Johnson’s luminous eyes, Howard’s Arthurian brow-is wrenching.

Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain.BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005)

It’s testament to our increasing enlightenment that this movie about the secret love affair between two cowboys ranks 12th among the highest-grossing romantic dramas of all time. It’s a heartbreaker. The late Heath Ledger, in the role of Ennis Del Mar, underplays stoicism-which takes some doing. No one can know him because he hardly knows himself, except for one thing: he knows that he loves Jack Twist. Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack is less frightened by their love. He wears his heart, well, not on his sleeve but close at hand. (Ennis won’t wear his heart anywhere.) And he has a vision of the life they could have together. But Ennis can’t go there. So close, so far. Their two shirts in the closet-one over the other on a single hanger-embody everything, profoundly.

CARMEN JONES (1954)

“You go for me and I’m taboo. But if you’re hard to get I go for you.” That’s the motto of Carmen Jones, a red rose inside a red flame. One of the most successful updates of an opera, this artful film, conceived and directed by Otto Preminger, is not a conventional musical but more a drama with music. The melodies are from Georges Bizet’s Carmen of 1875, the words are by Oscar Hammerstein II, the time and place is North Carolina during W.W. II, and the cast is black, with a bewitching Dorothy Dandridge as Jones and Harry Belafonte as the love-obsessed Joe. This is romance as danger, as doom, a fate writ large in Carmen’s delicious wardrobe (designed by Mary Ann Nyberg). That sinuous coral dress with the slashes over the heart says it all. Dandridge was nominated for the Academy Award for best actress, a first for an African-American woman.

CASABLANCA (1942)

Where to begin? There’s the great cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre. And the great moment: nervous, nervy locals silencing Nazi officers with a passionate rendition of “La Marseillaise.” And the great song: Dooley Wilson singing Herman Hupfeld’s “As Time Goes By.” There are the immortal lines: “Here’s looking at you, kid,” and “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world she walks into mine,” and “We’ll always have Paris.” And the swift, punch-the-studio-time-clock transcendence of director Michael Curtiz. And the shocks of North African sun, of searchlights and moonlight in the night, courtesy of cinematographer Arthur Edeson. And there’s the last scene, blanketed in gray-velvet fog, in which a skein of glances looms the most powerful triangle in cinematic history. Bogart-Bergman-Henreid. But more than that: love-war-duty.

THE ENGLISH PATIENT (1996)

World War II again. Zinc bars, cartography in Cairo, the glorious English, and love blossoming like a succulent in strange, dry places. The desert, the plane, the scarf, the cave, Ralph Fiennes in profile, and Kristin Scott Thomas stepping out of her bath-afternoon tea and the Wagnerian “Liebestod” of it all. Anthony Minghella’s movie, based on Michael Ondaatje’s stunningly voluptuous novel, works on the scale of grand opera. Little lives, historic upheaval, gargantuan passions. Tears, more tears, and we all die alone.

GHOST (1990)

Commerce between the living and the dead is the stuff of ghost stories, but when that commerce is love we move into the realm of Orpheus. This genre-the supernatural romantic fantasy-contains masterpieces: 1947′s dashing and dansant The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and the 1956 screen adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. Jerry Zucker’s Ghost is not a masterpiece, but it has an aching lyricism unique in contemporary film. Demi Moore, tremulous in a pixie cut, is at her loveliest. And the late Patrick Swayze is a concentrated presence, one of those actors the audience just feels for. He was perfectly cast in the kinetic coming-of-age romance Dirty Dancing, and he’s perfectly cast here, as the ardent ghost with unfinished business.

HOLIDAY (1938)

While The Philadelphia Story (1940) enjoys most-favored status, its slightly older cousin, Holiday, which also stars Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, is a deeper, more poignant study of human nature. Derived from a play by Philip Barry (again like The Philadelphia Story ), Holiday is The Age of Innocence in reverse. Grant is freethinking Johnny Case, a self-made success who wrestles with whether or not he should marry into stiff, snooty society. Doris Nolan’s Julia Seton is a strong temptation. But her older sister, Linda, more insecure and vulnerable-played with fire by Hepburn-is the soul match. She’d follow Johnny anywhere (as would we), but will he see that she’s the one. Source – yahoo.com

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