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Seven make-out movies perfect for Valentine's Day

Moulin Rouge!

Baz Lurhmann made opera accessible to mainstream audiences with this pop-and-sequins songfest, but he did something more, too - he took a paper-thin, well-worn melodrama and turned it into a dizzying, unforgettable spectacle of booming emotion and unyielding passion.

The plot is simplicity itself - a young poet (Ewan McGregor) falls for a dying prostitute (Nicole Kidman) amid the glitz and decadence of Lautrec-era Paris. Lurhmann knows that he has to sell the material with earnestness, which he does, but he finds a unique solution for connecting the fierce feelings of familiar characters with the jaded, prove-it-to-me sensibilities of the MTV generation. He has his characters sing, a lot, and with ferociousness, humor, style and full-on openheartedness. Not to mention that he has them belting out anachronistic ballads like "I Will Always Love You" and Elton John's "Your Song."

Miraculously, the high-wire act succeeds, and more miraculously, it never feels like an ungainly cobbling-together of previous elements. Madonna and Queen songs fit right into the same universe as courtesans and tragic love, and the visceral rush of this brave new world is too much to resist.

As McGregor springs atop the head of an elephant statue singing "Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong" with a grin a mile wide and eyes afire with idealistic romance, it's hard to argue him down. Even if the affair is headed for an operatic downer of an ending, "Moulin Rouge!" retains a joyous romanticism that survives everything the story throws at it, from rivalry to jealousy to death to despair; its heart takes a licking and fights back with a song.

Go to The Reflector if you want to see what the other six movies are.