I'll never be alone on Valentine's Day again!

Your Pickup Line Is

Nice pants. Can I test the zipper?

The Magical Pick Up Line Generator

Hey, hey! Holy mackarel! No doubt about it!

My favorite headline on this snowy Valentine's Day is from today's Chicago Tribune:

CUBS SPRING TRAINING PREVIEW

Cubs Opening Day countdown:
47 Days.

My favorite romantic movie that never makes any "10 best" lists

In honor of Valentine's Day, I am praising It's My Turn. It did well enough at the box office back in 1980, but then it sank like a stone. I never see it on TV and it's never been released on DVD.

And yet, I love it. Along with Wonder Boys, this is my favorite Michael Douglas performance. He's an utterly natural, charming and ideal "Mr. Wrong."

Jill Clayburgh makes a terrific Everywoman. She's pretty in an aspirational way ("I look like her -- well, almost"). She's a successful, maybe even brilliant, career woman who is personally, endearingly clumsy and awkward.

And this movie is like life in that all the loose ends are NOT tied up neatly by the end.

Here's a synopsis from Amazon.com: Two events force Kate (Jill Clayburgh) to confront the dissatisfactions of her life: her father's impending wedding and a job offer that would take her from Chicago to New York. Her relationship with Homer (Charles Grodin) is pleasant but shallow. When she meets Ben (Michael Douglas) at the wedding's rehearsal dinner--he's her future stepbrother--there's an immediate spark. They flirt on the way home, finding themselves in an arcade where they both prove to be intensely competitive. Their first encounter gets a little prickly, but soon they find their relationship taking a deeper and more complicated turn. It's My Turn would never be made now; too many scenes of people talking, too many unresolved questions. But the movie's attention to the details of human interaction, particularly the negotiations around a sexual encounter, make it richly rewarding. Douglas gives a strong performance and Clayburgh is superb; it's delightful to rediscover how smart and sexy she could be. There's a general impression that dozens of women-centered movies were made in the late 1970s, but in fact movies that explore life from a woman's point of view are rare. More impressive, though, It's My Turn was written and directed by women, and the male characters are as fully developed and multidimensional as the women. It's a small movie--it covers a weekend in Kate's life and no tumultuous decisions are made--but within that short span, a lot of life takes place." --Bret Fetzer