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There’s a reason why great lines from movies become part of the culture: they express feelings with a concision and accuracy that rarely, if ever, happens in real life. And nowhere is such eloquence more valuable than in affairs of the heart. Movies say what we would like to say, and in romantic movies they say what we would most love to have said to us.

The world’s truly great cities have their own DNA:  their distinct characters and moods, strengths and weaknesses.  They say London is a masculine town, Paris a feminine one. Is it true? Regardless, it’s fun to debate. For those of you like me, who are unnerved by the sound of crickets, and who crave the energy and color of urban life, here’s a batch of capital titles, and the capitals that inspired them.

Small towns, kind strangers, generous impulses, lasting friendships, and oodles of pluck are just a few of the pleasures you’ll find in these blasts of (and to) the past.

With the arrival of Spring and the sense of new beginnings, my contrarian spirit has me thinking about great endings. Great movie endings, to be precise.

Great movies often reveal the drama or comedy lurking in the more mundane aspects of real life. As with literature and theatre, the normal, everyday quality of a story makes us believe, while the creative magic worked on it makes us care.

Why not go outdoors for a run, you ask? Because I find that by working out on that machine in front of a great action movie, I feel the exertion less and time seems to go by quicker. It all has to do with adrenaline, I'm told.

Not surprisingly, the movies' depiction of women in the workplace has evolved roughly in line with societal changes. There weren’t a lot of female CEOs portrayed in film before the advent of feminism in the 1960s, but there have always been smart, charismatic women in extraordinary professional roles, many of them leadership positions.

As luck would have it, my musical consciousness dawned in the sixties, the most fascinating and turbulent decade of the past century, filled with music that reflected the foment, experimentation and intensity of the times.

We decided to look at a few of the past winners (and losers) to try to discern what might have contributed to some of the more head-scratching wins.