What is it about romantic movies that have us dragging our friends and loved ones to the theaters, renting them off Netflix, and wearing out the DVDs with repeat viewings? These tales of star-crossed lovers — or best friends whose affection grows into something deeper — give us hope that we can have it, too. Not the kidnappings, letters from the grave, or time travel (though those would be fun), but the enduring, can’t-be-without-you love that powers each of the outlandish plots that we adore.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, here’s a list of our picks for the Most Romantic Movies Of Our Time. For the most part, I tried to pick more recognizable romantic comedies and dramas from the ’90s and ’00s, but there are a few ’80s stragglers. (I promise they’re worth it.)

This post is sponsored by Sony’s The Vow, in theaters February 10th. Watch the trailer here.

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Similar to our Independence Day, Australia Day celebrates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788. The fleet consisted of 11 ships that sailed from Great Britain to Australia to establish the first European colony on the continent.

Leaving on May 13, 1787, it took over eight months for the fleet to reach their destination and as you probably learned in history class, it did contain a large amount of prisoners. Yes, Australia was spawned from convicts. The 11 ships consisted of 1044 people total, with 696 being prisoners and 348 “free” persons that were made up of Civil officers, marines, their wives and their children.

Celebration of Australia Day dates back as far as 1808 and modern day celebrations include citizenship ceremonies, concerts, parties and festivals. Despite the revelry the national holiday is not without its controversy. Some of the Aboriginal community, who are indigenous to Australia, refer to it as “Invasion Day” or “Survival Day,” because, similarly to what Christopher Columbus and those who followed did to the Native Americans, that was officially the day that Australia was no longer their own.

Controversy and politics aside, let’s take a look at our favorite Australians. Of course, we’ll start with a koala.

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You would think that if Presidential candidate Rick Perry were to release an appallingly offensive ad wherein he talks about how it’s wrong for LGBT folk to serve openly in the military, he would’ve double-checked that he wasn’t dressing like one of these “gays” he so disdains. Tumblr user Carl Connor noticed that the jacket Perry wears in his campaign ad is almost identical to one sported by Heath Ledger in 2005′s ode to cowboy-on-cowboy love, Brokeback Mountain. The irony! It is so sweet.

Of course, a couple commenters have called out Carl for trying to make a big deal where there is none. Weakest argument ever, one wrote. It’s a goddamn Carhartt jacket. Everyone [in Texas] has one. Maybe so, but you would’ve thought someone on Perry’s campaign would’ve seen Brokeback, remembered the costuming, and suggested that Perry buy the same jacket in one of the four other colors it comes in.

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Today Heath died. I’m in love with him…. He was the love of my life. He taught me so much, and he was everything I’ve ever wanted and more.

I want to hear him laugh and hold me. I crave his touch and care.

When a person dies the world stops. I’m numb.

Now, “obtained” could mean anything from a resourceful paparazzo sneaking into Lindsay’s home, to Dina Lohan turning over her daughter’s pink-penned ramblings for the press to feast on. But let’s assume it’s real.

Star goes on to say that Lindsay and Heath were so close that she had plans to visit him in New York City just a few days after his death. Indeed, the world did notice Lindsay grieving (see the photo) but didn’t think much of it in light of the grief of Heath’s ex-girlfriend (and mother of his child) Michelle Williams. Ironically, there was some surprise about who he had been seeing at the time of his death, but that was Mary-Kate Olsen.

That said, the rumors definitely existed. Back in 2007, an Australian magazine claimed that Lindsay and Heath had a “purely physical” friends-with-benefits deal going on. However, sites like Technorati pointed out that the only “relationship” the two might have had was the notoriously hard-partying Lindsay supplying Heath with drugs. 

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Astonishingly, the person this most lends credence to is Michael Lohan. Back in 2008, he was shopping around recorded phone conversations with Dina, which alleged a romantic and dangerous mentor-mentee relationship between Heath and their daughter. RadarOnline (no surprise) published a transcript of one call in which Dina lays out her fears:

Because when she’s drunk or takes an Adderall with it she will do something like Heath Ledger did in a second without thinking. And she was dating Heath when he died. I don’t know if you know that, but I know cause I would drop her off and they were friends very, very close, ok? So that fucked her up.

Perez Hilton makes an observation that fills in another puzzle piece: Why LiLo was so angry when Michelle Williams nabbed the role of Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn. Not only did Michelle get to be the love of Heath’s life, but she also played Lindsay’s idol. Them’s the breaks, kid.

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I picked these based on the following criteria: 1) They’re celebrities that you all recognize, 2) the stories are a mix of behavior you’d expect and situations you wouldn’t, 3) they’re freaking hilarious.

DiabloPablo describes an anecdote that happened to his sister-in-law and that seems to sum up what we hate most about celebrity:

My sister-in-law was at a swanky club in NYC and had to use the bathroom but found it blocked off by Paris Hilton‘s bodyguards so she could use it privately.

Huge, long line and 20 minutes later Paris finally emerges and my sister-in-law makes a snotty (but well deserved) comment to Paris about making everyone wait in line to use the bathroom…Paris then pours a cranberry drink onto my sister-in-law’s white blouse. A bodyguard jumps in between the two and hands my sister-in-law a phone number and says to charge the dry-cleaning to it and ushers Paris out of the club.

I forgot about this one from coolitsember until I reread the thread to find today’s picks… Now I can’t stop giggling about it.

I was at an Obama rally back in August of 2007. We were at Florida A&M, in a smallish gym. We had shaken Obama’s hand and talked to him a bit, and ended up following him back behind the barricade, talking to him. He ended up hugging us and all this stuff, but security was not too keen on it so they asked us to move.

Obama climbs up on the bleachers to take a picture with the band. Security ends up pushing me to move on the other side of the barricade (not hard, but it was crowded), and I fell forward.

I reached up to grab the first thing to stop my fall.

It was Barack Obama’s ass cheek.

He laughed.

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Make sure you watch the video with the captions on; they tell you what the original intent was versus the improvised scene, and whether it was an actor or a director who came up with the twist.

It’s jarring, as a writer, to realize how many iconic lines came out of an actor’s quick thinking or another circumstance — like the rogue cab on the New York set of Midnight Cowboy – that the screenwriter couldn’t have come up with sitting in his office or cafe writing.

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Last night I found this teaser poster for The Dark Knight Rises floating around Twitter — starting the promotion early since Christopher Nolan‘s latest Batman film doesn’t come out til next summer. While the posters for 2005′s The Dark Knight could use the Joker (Heath Ledger) and Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to hype up the movie, this one seems more focused on the city of Gotham itself. As EW pointed out, the way that the infrastructure is crumbling resembles Nolan’s last big movie, Inception.

What’s also interesting is that the movies don’t have to rely entirely on Christian Bale to carry the posters and generate interest; although he’s seen in silhouette in the teaser for Batman Begins, he’s only on one of the posters for The Dark Knight; and as you can see above, it’s the bat symbol, not the man, who alerted us to the new movie’s conflict.

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Batman being one of the more fucked-up masked heroes, there isn’t room for a lot of humor in his movies — unlike the very campy persona West played in the TV show. West has carried that cheekiness to later roles, especially playing himself as the mayor of Quahog on Family Guy, while subsequent Batman movies have lost it with each iteration. He would’ve fit better into any of Joel Schumacher‘s rubber-nippled versions than Nolan’s reboot.

Still, as the wizened old man, West could be for DC what Stan Lee is for the Marvel superhero movies: A living Easter egg, playing cameos both obvious (Tony Stark mistakes him for Hugh Hefner) and subtle (a security guard at the facility from which the Hulk escapes). He’d be the tie to the franchise’s origins, a reminder of how the story has evolved.

And it’s worth pointing out that not every minute of Batman Begins or The Dark Knight is rooted in gravitas: Heath Ledger as the Joker infused wonderful grim humor into the sequel, and there’s something unintentionally hilarious about Christian Bale‘s gravelly delivery. Maybe Adam West has a place after all.

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Lapo Elkann

Nice tan, bro.

Maxwell Snow

He’s an artist.

Stavros Niarchos

The important thing is that she got to him before Paris.

Kanye West

This is the reason I had to say “alleged.”

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Movies, TV, and books make it so that we never fully lose the people who directed, acted in, or wrote them: Their likenesses and their ideas are captured in film and print, and can be reproduced until the end of time. But there’s a difference between admiring a celebrity and later mourning his/her death, and not discovering someone until after he or she has passed away.

It almost feels like your admiration for the person doesn’t count, because you never encountered him/her during his/her lifetime. Not that most of us see celebs in the flesh, of course — I mean actively engaging with that celebrity’s work, whether it’s perusing an article in People, seeking out his/her movies, or watching awards show footage.

Bea Arthur died right before my old roommate introduced me to The Golden Girls; for the next two years, watching repeats of the show became a roommate bonding activity and one of my preferred shows to fall asleep to. But I’ll always feel a pang of regret while watching, because Arthur was without a doubt my favorite Golden Girl, and I never saw any of her work while she was alive.

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