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Valentine's Day is the American holiday of love. This day brings out the best and worst of many people. The connotation behind the day is to be thankful for the ones you have in your life and give them the recognition they do not receive the other 364 days of the year.

The movie "Valentine's Day", directed by Garry Marshall, is a portrayal of how Los Angeles celebrates Valentine's Day. Marshall assembled an all-star cast of actors that show the various views of love for every generation. The movie is centered around a Los Angeles flower shop owner, who "loves the idea of love" and with a social network webbing involving the lives of those who are trying to find love, hide love, reconnect love, cheat love and to keep loving.

I felt the movie was just below being a quality film. The movie entailed a lot of funny one-liners, heartfelt and sad moments, but I never felt like the movie connected. It was based on a single day, Valentine's Day, but with all the various lives occurring in the film, the audience did not get a chance to connect with the actual meaning of Valentine's Day.

Being a guy, I have certain opinions on Valentines Day; there are a lot tactics, pressure and presumptions that we, as men, must follow. Going into the film, I expected a film of lovey dovey people who go on these extravagant dates. These dates would only remind me how lame I was by going to the movies on Valentines Day. Contray to popular belief, the film did not go as expected. The film actually portrayed just as much heartache as it does defining moments of love. Is that the message of love? Did the director want the audience to feel as if there is just as much pain as pleasure in the realm of love?

The best feature of the film is the various stages of love shown, in the various generations. In the movie, you can see the love of a mother and son, high school puppy love, the old couple after 51 years still crazy about each other, the young man who wants to just be married and continue his beliefs of true love and finally the heartbreakers. Seeing these various forms of love can make one remember when they were the puppy-love-stricken high school student, head over heels for the high school track star.

The overall movie was good. I felt given the release on Valentine's Day weekend, the film was a perfect date movie. But I also feel that if the movie was released on any other weekend it would not have done so well.