How to tell how "overwhelmingly romantic" the movie you're viewing is

Today is Valentine's Day -- a holiday marked by sappy cards and even sappier movies. This year's offerings included "Dear John," a film that has been described as the "most overwhelmingly romantic movie since 'The Notebook.'" I don't know exactly what makes a movie "overwhelmingly romantic" as opposed to "just sort of romantic," but I got to thinking about this claim. What if there was a way to actually determine a movie's romantic-ness? And so I came up with the SAP-Max Scale. That's right, the SAP-Max is a measure of a film's Sadness Potential, Actor Hotness, Plot, and Maximum Sparks. To demonstrate how this method works, I will compare "Dear John" and "The Notebook" using the SAP-Max Scale.

Sadness Potential: How sad is the movie in question? Let me preface this by saying I know a lot of people thought "The Notebook" was super sad, but I didn't really. It had a happy ending. Of course, when I walked out of the theater with dry eyes, it prompted my two friends who were with me (both crying) to accuse me of having a heart of stone. Be that as it may, I'm only giving "The Notebook" 3 teardrops out of 6. "Dear John," on the other hand, is getting 4 teardrops.

Actor Hotness: How hot are the actors? The two actors we are comparing here are Ryan Gosling in "The Notebook" and Channing Tatum in "Dear John." Gosling is an Oscar-nominated actor who is one of the more respected performers of his generation. His roles in films such as "Half Nelson" and "Lars and the Real Girl" have earned him a reputation as a thinking woman's hottie. Meanwhile, Tatum boasts two Teen Choice Awards from his appearances in "Step Up" and "She's the Man." Yet what he lacks in prestige and heavy-weight dramatic roles, he makes up for with his technically good physique (aka, hot bod.) I'll give them both a 10, but "The Notebook" also gets 5 bonus points for featuring James Marsden in a supporting role.

Plot: Is the plot romantic? "The Notebook" is about a young couple who have a whirlwind summer romance, but then are driven apart for various reasons. She goes off to college, he goes off to war, and she gets engaged to someone else. But ***Spoiler Alert***, it all works out in the end. There are a few differences, but just for the sake of saving time, "Dear John" has basically the same plot. They both sound pretty romantic though, so I'll give each 3 hearts.

Maximum Sparks: Is the movie based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks? If the answer is yes, then it earns Maximum Sparks.

So there you have it, based on their SAP-Max ratings, "Dear John" and "The Notebook" are indeed both overwhelmingly romantic. And before you start to argue, this is not subjective, it's science.