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Despite great reviews and a male and female lead whose respective work I just can't get enough of, I purposely didn't see (500) Days of Summer when it was in theaters for exactly the reason you'd probably guess, and I've employed the same logic in avoiding it on pay-per-view -- up until tonight. I'm way too tired right now to go into great detail about everything I just loved about this movie, but I'll throw out a few stream of consciousness thoughts.

It has three of the best quotes ever: The greeting card that reads, "Roses are red. Violets are blue. Fuck you, whore," Tom saying, "You know what sucks? Realizing that everything you believe in is complete and utter bullshit," and the attributed Henry Miller quote, "The best way to get over a woman is to turn her into literature," (which basically paraphrases the real Miller quote: "There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature,").

It confirms Joseph Gordon-Levitt as my absolute favorite young actor. Seriously, after Brick, The Lookout and now this, the guy can do no wrong.

The story was so undeniably recognizable to me, nearly perfect in spirit and occasionally even in detail, that I wanted to both laugh and cry at the same time. (I laughed out loud quite a bit, got wistful more than a few times, felt that spark of romantic exhilaration once or twice, managed to somehow avoid getting full-blown angry, and had to hold back tears only when Summer sweeps an eyelash off Tom's face with her finger and then holds it up for him to blow away.)

The musical number is a riot.

After watching it, I cannot wait to see Chloe Moretz as Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass. She's only in a few scenes in (500) Days of Summer but she just about steals the movie.

I kept chuckling to myself, "I used to think that way, dude, and it got me exactly where you're gonna end up."

The final scene, when Tom meets (I love it) Autumn and everything goes back to 1? Yeah -- read the end of Dead Star Twilight.

It's a really, really beautiful movie. And contrary to the opening narration, it is a love story -- one that plays out the way a lot of real love stories do (and most Hollywood romantic comedies don't).

Oh yeah, and one more quote: "Penis!"