...and she's Musing on Movies! Thank you E, for starting this blog!

It's time for our feature presentation... the very first question from this meme!

"My Precious"
~~The Lord of the Rings

What are some of your all-time favorite movies? Why are they your favorites? What are some of your *least* favorite movies? Why don't you like them?

Oh boy, this is actually one of the hardest questions for me, although it's posed as one of the easiest ones. Favorite movies? At least it's in the plural.

The List (not in any order of importance or ranking)
The Princess Bride (As one of the taglines for the movies said: "Heroes. Giants. Villains. Wizards. True Love. - Not just your basic, average, everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum fairy tale." Come on folks, how much better than that does it get? He *dies* and it still comes out ok.)
The Goodbye Girl (Ah, the truly cynical girl meets her match in a sprouts eating, meditating actor)
Say Anything (Come on, what girl *didn't* want a Lloyd Dobler in her life)
(Starting to see a theme here about the guy gets the girl in the end, happy endings all around? Ok, gotta stop that then...)
Tomb Raider (Lara Croft kicks butt and plays with minds - gotta love it)
National Treasure (shut up, I like Nic Cage and I thought this was a good movie)
The entire Indiana Jones trilogy (gotta keep up with the Joneses... heee)
Electric Dreams (which I'm still pondering going and renting from a regular video store on VHS just so I can see it and relieve that urge, since I'm beginning to believe that it will *never* be legally released on DVD)

Ok, Ok, they're almost *all* guy gets the girl at the end, happy endings all around sorts of movies. I tell you, this is hard picking a favorite movie. The list goes on and on and on for a movie that I could pick into the DVD player and sit with a happy smile on my face about the story, the characters, the camera work, and everything else that goes along with making it an evocative experience that you can get lost in easily.

Oh yes, I can get lost in a movie very easily. I just... let go. All the thinking, the stresses of the day, any current situation that I'm in - I can just let it all go and exist in the world of the character. Some movies are pure pleasures to be lost in, and those are among my favorites.

Conversely, there are some really bad movies out there that I can't stand. Some of them I've turned off after just a few minutes and never made it to the end. Some of them I've watched all the way through.

The Ugh List (not in any order of ranking or importance)
Napoleon Dynamite
Clerks
Pompatus of Love
Brazil (sorry DH, maybe I'll watch it again since it's been 10 years and maybe I'll like it now)

You know I really believe that this list would be longer if I tried to remember other movies that were really really bad, but I tend to try and strike them out of my memory unless they're specially earmarked to tell people how bad they are. 'Brazil' was just too.... unusual for me. 'Pompatus of Love' lost me about 4 minutes in with the conversation they were having. 'Clerks' - forget it - I dropped out about 20 mintues in when the guy was talking about his girlfriend. And 'Napoleon Dynamite'? The darling of Sundance that everyone loved?

Why? Why was that movie even *made*, because it was so bad. I can't believe that I sat through the whole thing, but I kept hoping it would get better. It was touted so much as being a great underdog story, and was recommended by a friend of DH's (whose taste in movies I used to trust, but now question after this), and I just *wanted* it to be a good movie.

No such luck.

So, there you have it, the best and the worst in my opinion. Hrm. I think I need to watch a favorite movie tonight, or try and find a new favorite...

...I wonder what it's going to be?