to know lloyd dobler is to love him

I must have first seen Cameron Crowe's Say Anything... when I was about 13 or 14, a very impressionable age indeed, which goes a long way toward explaining why I still tear up a little every time I hear "In Your Eyes" on the radio.  Lloyd Dobler's boombox maneuver has become shorthand to my generation for the ultimate grand romantic gesture, the modern-day Romeo serenading his recalcitrant Juliet.  I have to watch the movie again every few years and am always pleased with how well it stands up, Ione Skye's outfits aside (which frankly looked pretty frumptastic even back in the day).  Crowe has always had a deft touch when it comes to portraying relationships, and here the emotional punch not only comes from what happens between Lloyd and Diane but also between Diane and her father.  Crowe also perfectly captures the heightened feelings, half dread and half eager anticipation, of that one summer between high school and the rest of your life, and along with the genuine laugh-out-loud moments in the film (hey that's Jeremy Piven as the "You must chill!" dude!) he never allows any of his characters, teenagers and adults alike, to become mere caricatures.  I do explicitly blame him for the fact that I spent all of high school looking for my Lloyd though.