A Three-Day Weekend

AND FOR WHAT (hashtag Valentine's Day)

Love is in the AIR — or at least it’s in the aisles at CVS! (Editor’s note: don’t buy any plush toy from a pharmacy). Valentine’s Day is upon us and so is a 3-day weekend (spare me the jokes along the lines of “lol celebrating our president are we???”). With my Aquarius birthday next week, I’m usually lucky to celebrate with an event or trip around this long weekend. But the 2026 calendar has assigned me a Wednesday, *shudder*. Given all of this, we just have Valentine’s Day this weekend.

Valentine’s Day is usually a time where studios release romantic movies, or shows have special holiday episodes, and you’re asked to wear pink to the office (no, is this just me?) But in between planning when I’d see “Wuthering Heights” and regaling anyone who will listen when I wail that the book was too far above my reading comprehension level, my mind was racing around various other things I’d watch to “celebrate” this silly holiday. HahahahaI’mSinglehahaha.

Here are some recommendations:

Modern Family, “My Funky Valentine” (season 1, episode 10, 2010)

No sitcom achieved the high of the Valentine’s Day episode like Modern Family in their amazing first season. Harken back to the era when we were still falling in love with Emmy winner Ty Burrell, and he and his wife have a date night out to role play romantically. Romance and Comedy… there has to be a cute word for THAT.

would

Pluribus

Feeling alone this Valentine’s Day? Don’t fret, your life is probably better than Carol’s, the lead from this fun AppleTV show that takes away everyone in the world to a hive-mind virus and leaves her figuring it out all alone. Meanwhile, you can still go out and order a donut from somebody on Valentine’s Day, regardless of your romantic entanglements.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

Sorry to middle school health class, but I think I learned more about love and sex from this motion picture than any other source. I learned about the trials and tribulations a man may go through, such as being cryogenically frozen so your love interest ages and then you have no other choice than to fall in love with her daughter. This hasn’t happened to me yet but there’s still time. See also: young me googling words like “shag”.¹

Avatar (2009)

Valentine’s Day is fake they say; it’s made up by corporate entities to sell candy and merch, they say! Well you know what else is fake? The planet of Pandora. Show it to me on a map; you can’t. Anyway, despite my negative-to-maybe-average review of threequel Avatar: Fire and Ash, I will go to bat for the 2009 franchise starter, and I stand 10 toes down that it should have won that Oscar over The Hurt Locker. THE HURT LOCKER!!!

“Till the World Ends” - Britney Spears

One of Britney’s best songs, the closing number from Piece of Me in Las Vegas, and it’s barely about love but just about DJ’s getting you on the floor? Catch me dipping it low like it’s new every few months because it has aged exquisitely. Unrelated but Britney Spears just sold the rights to her entire music catalog this week and we don’t really know the ramifications of that but it’s lightly sad. Stream her last album Glory too.

Set It Up (2018)

A Netflix romantic comedy before that was the derogatory label for has-been millennial stars (post- The Kissing Booth though), Glen Powell before he became 💪🏻Glen Powell💪🏻™ and a Lucy Liu as if you needed to add an angel of Charlie’s in here. Two assistants for high powered executives work set up their bosses in order to relieve some of their own pressure at work. I’m not a cynical person, so while many entires on this post are in jest, this is earnest and silly and charming, and I watched it on a plane and think I need to watch it again! See also: peak Netflix romcom Someone Great (2019).

Look at those cups actually filled with liquid! Budget!!

The Parent Trap (1998) but just the opening sequence and also the end

The rest is not about love but about hijinks and body double VFX and rests on my Letterboxd top 4 and should be viewed in October, not February.

1. I did lie awake at night reconciling that I wasn’t generally allowed to see PG-13 movies until I was 13 but I did see this upon its release in 1997. Make that make sense.