Warren Beatty? Mick Jagger? Kris Kristofferson? No one knows for sure in whose honor this song was written. My guess is Dick Ebersol, the NBC executive who paid $50,000 to find out. Yup, it's about you, Mr. NBC man, you and all the other dicks out there.

You had me several years ago
When I was still quite naive
Well, you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved
And one of them was me

Everyone gets fucked in this movie. Literally and figuratively. No one is spared. Fucking brilliant. A sample of choice lines, delivered flawlessly by Glenn Close and John Malkovich...

Madame de Rosemonde: I'm sorry to say this but those who are most worthy of love are never made happy by it. Do you still think men love the way we do? No... men enjoy the happiness they feel. We can only enjoy the happiness we give. They are not capable of devoting themselves exclusively to one person. So to hope to be made happy by love is a certain cause of grief.

Vicomte de Valmont: You see, I have no intentions of breaking down her prejudices. I want her to believe in God and virtue and the sanctity of marriage, and still not be able to stop herself. I want the pleasure of watching her betray everything that is most important to her. Surely you can understand that. I thought betrayal was your favorite word.
Marquise de Merteuil: No, no..."cruelty." I always think that has a nobler ring to it.

You wanna sleep with mommy and kill off daddy? You wanna coddle your ego and diddle your winkie? You wanna be both anally expulsive in bed and emotionally retentive everywhere else? Look, kiddies, it's all of a piece: You're fucked up, but it's OK, so is everyone else. Keep it simple: fuck yourself.

A waiflike simpleton is sold by her own mother to a gruff, bullying circus strongman as a servant and assistant. Treated no better than an animal, she nonetheless falls in love with the brute. He eventually kills her only friend, breaks her spirit to the point of insanity, and then ends the film alone and despondent at the heavily symbolic seashore.

In five short minutes frontman Robert Smith takes us on the very short journey that starts with two lovers and soulmates walking before a sunset in Paris, to a dawning devastating understanding that in an instant you can learn the truth about someone you thought you knew, and the consequences of acquiring that knowledge...

And this is why I hate you
And how I understand
That no-one ever knows or loves another

Routine bites hard, indeed, but who knew it could be so blasé? If this song doesn’t drain the marrow from your little scrap of joy and spit it back in passion’s puckered face, then what the fuck does, you tell me?

You cry out in your sleep - all my failings expose
There's a taste in my mouth, as desperation takes hold
Just that something so good just can't function no more
When love, love will tear us apart again

Part of the “Dark Lady” cycle (published 1609, written probably late 16th c.): In this early, vital Black Hearts text, the author declares that love is a disease for which reason is the only physician (though his reason has abandoned him, “angry that his prescriptions are not kept,” and “desire is death.” The author is also frantically upset that even though his beloved, who he thought was fair and true, has turned out to be an evil, lying whore, he still really, really wants to keep sleeping with her.

Marvin Gaye issues this song in response to a harsh court order mandating that he deliver all revenue generated from his next album to his ex-wife. He compiles one of the harshest Fuck-You's in musical history; tracks like “Anger” and “When Did I stop Loving You, When did I...” bring Marvin’s painful, ugly divorce right into your hi-fi. From the title track...

I guess I'd have to say this album is
dedicated to you.
Although perhaps you may not be happy,
this is what you want,
so I conceded.
I hope it makes you happy.
There's a lot of truth in it, babe.

You think you have problems. Meet the novel that will shut your whine-hole and teach you what relationships look like in hell. It's a cold and lonely road to a tragedy of anti-romance, with devastating consequences.

The heroine, Ruth Patchett, systematically decimates and then appropriates everything of value to her husband and his mistress. For her final retribution she cuckolds her wayward husband and appropriates the mistress's possessions and physical appearance. Ultimately this is her defiance to a god that made her so ugly and unfortunate in the first place. Perhaps the ultimate roadmap for revenge and vengeance.

Emo boys in cordoroys using sad songs to get laid can blow it out their ass. Give me unsullied, sober, self-loathing anytime. The 13-month romance ends with...

I kind of said your name
but you'd turned to your plane
so I backed my car out.
I knew we'd never write
(somehow that seemed all right)
but this counts as calling three years out.

"In the Company of Men": Two male executives systematically seduce, then destroy, a deaf secretary... as a means of karmic revenge against the entire female gender. "Your Friends and Neighbors": Three men and three women systematically seduce, then destroy, each other in various combinations... because they have nothing better to do. "The Shape of Things": A female student systematically seduces, then destroys, a geeky museum guard... as a conceptual art project. Mr. LaBute is one bastard who GETS it.

Flaubert reveals romantic aspirations for what they really are: agonized gulps of poisonous air taken in between long stretches of treachery, deceit, humiliation, and emotional amputation - in short, seductions at a pig fair. By the end of the book Emma is literally rotting away with the poison she's swallowed in the Name of Love, and all the worst people in the book emerge victorious.

The depth of metaphor and tonal ambivalence behind such lyrics as “Why’d you spit on my snatch?” and “Every time I see your dick I see her cunt in my bed” will leave you wondering for days what’s got Marianne so worked up…

True, the bulk of this film is committed to your standard love triangle plot (Boy, who is married to Girl 1, lusts after coworker Girl 2. Girl 2 is mildly interested in Boy when he's living in the head of actor John Malkovich, but is really much more into having sex with said actor when Girl 2 is in his head.) But it's the last scene that puts this film near the top of our list. [If you haven't seen it yet don't read any further]. Imagine spending an entire human lifetime helplessly trapped, watching two lovers who happen to be your ex-wife and the woman who jilted your lusty advances, through the eyes of their daughter. And you can't move, or communicate with anyone, you can only see what she sees...

Look away... look away...