John Cusack just starred in Hot Tub Time Machine—and I didn’t see it. I saw the promos, and that was enough, because they showed me what I already feared, deep in my heart:

John Cusack is old. Not just old, John Cusack is old as balls.

It was horrifying. John Cusack is sixth on my list of most influential people in my life, behind my parents, my brothers, and J.K. Rowling. John Cusack taught me everything I know about romance. John Cusack is a bro. If there is one person I would like sit around and have a few beers with, it’s Rubeus Hagrid, but since he’s not real I’ll go with John Cusack instead.

That is, John Cusack from his twenties to early thirties. Not this horrifying, wrinkly, pudgy John Cusack, who slopes and minces around his current movies, providing only a pale, flickering glimmer of the bright young man who once ventured bravely into exotic romantic territories with insanely beautiful women.

John Cusack once showed me that it was okay to be young, weird, and moony. He was kind of wrong, in that he was still romantically more successful than I’ll ever be—but whatever. I may have never dated my high school’s Diane Court, but Lloyd Dobler did, and that’s enough for me.

Lloyd Dobler, Martin Blank, and Rob Gordon were guys who reminded me of myself and my friends. Cusack personified the other American man, who didn’t care that much about football, and preferred instead to waste his testosterone on movies and music (and, as in Grosse Point Blank, the occasional murder). Most importantly, Cusack’s characters weren’t afraid to admit that they believed in love.

But the John Cusack Era is over—and really, it has been for about ten years now. In memory of that, I’d like to whip out an old playlist of mine from high school—the “John Cusack Movie Special.” Because if there’s one universal truth about iconic Cusack characters, it’s that they have impeccable taste in music.