Movies I Love, explained

Shades of immortals!

To expand on my tweet about #moviesilove, here is what makes my favorite movies worthy of love.

1. Slaves Of New York: Wondering what it's like to be an artist? Reminds me a lot of my art school days at Virginia Commonwealth University. And no wonder! Screenplay and book by Tama Janowitz who wrote about the world of Andy Warhol during the era when I was in art school. Heart warming in a satirical kind of way.
2. Defending Your Life: Albert Brooks' subtle humor gets better with rewatching. Even the concept is funny: purgatory as resort. Meryl Streep balances Albert nicely. Eating all you want and never gaining any weight? Puh-leese!
3. Galaxy Quest: I save this up to watch during the winter holidays every year.There's a parallel between the insanity of creating a universe based on fake science and families at Christmas. Everyone thinks they're doing the right thing but it all works out anyway. "... by Grabthar's hammer... by the Sons of Warvan..."
4. The Princess Bride: A lovely fairy tale for adults. A funny one. Full of sweet silly innuendoes. Sending up the fairy tale genre with a noble pirate, a gutsy princess, and a pretty villain. "Do you think it will work?" "It would take a miracle."
5. Star Wars: Do I really need to explain this? And, yes, I like them all in spite of "the phantom plot", other flung pejoratives, and JarJar Binks. I particularly enjoy seeing extra footage of Jabba the Hutt in the digital remake and being able to jump from III to VI to see Vader turn around. Although, it's kinda weird to see a young Hayden Christensen as the unmasked Darth Vader.
6. Harry Potter: I was dragged kicking and screaming into reading Harry Potter by my daughter who agreed to read all of The Lord of the Rings if I read HP – a mutually beneficial exchange. This series brought me understanding of the differences in storytelling technique between books and movies. I like each in their own way as great stories. Movie 6 (... The Half-Blood Prince) is so incredibly artsy. It even got a Cinematography Oscar nomination. 
7. Notting Hill: Most amazing long shot of changing seasons to the tune "Ain't No Sunshine." Lovely will-never-happen romance between a scuzzy book seller and famous actress. I hope Working Title won't flame me for telling you that I use this movie to go to sleep with every night. I watch it on my iPhone, enjoying all the little nuances that can only be noticed after 84 viewings. This title slid into seventh place because the number of tweet characters remaining precluded a lot of other favorites. Other options for 7th place: The Lord of the Rings, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Bridget Jones' Diary, Amadeus, Phantom of the Opera.

With Script Frenzy coming up I thought this an appropriate post. I am in a mild panic because I can't settle on an idea or even characters. I'm the Municipal Liaison for Richmond this year so I have to finish. Nine days to figure it out. Wish me luck. Or a broken leg or something.