Movie Meme

*cross-posted on my live journal*

Well, Solonia suggested I take up the mantle next, so I guess it's my turn. =)

1. Total number of films I own...
Like l_squaredd and Solonia, I have too many films (on VHS & on DVD) to count. I started counting what's in our collection and decided to give up at 313 because I don't feel like fishing through boxes. lol So, to quote Solonia, "over a hundred, under a thousand." ;-)

2. The last film I bought...
I'm not sure. I think it was Jim Henson's The Storyteller for my youger sister.

3. The last film watched at home...
Sunday I watched Earthsea and then Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

4. Five films I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me...
Wow, this is difficult. I'm not sure how to narrow this down to five. lol I guess I'll choose ones that have meaning (for whatever reason) and that I can watch a lot (not necessarily that I do watch them a lot).

I. Shall We Dance (1937). Fred and Ginger are wonderful together, and the character of Cecil Flintridge is hilarious. The scene where Cecil calls from the police station makes me laugh every time I watch it. The jazzy tap dancing in Central Park on roller skates is brilliant. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to ... Watching all the old Astaire and Rogers movies (along with Shirley Temple when I was but a wee one) made me desperately want to take up tap dance. :P

II. The Pink Panther. Fantastic Blake Edwards film that introduces the world to the bumbling Inspector Closeau, played by the talented Peter Sellers. My family always loved watching the Pink Panther movies together. No matter how many times we watched them, my mother laughed out loud as if seeing it for the first time; her laughter is contagious & soon we'd all be wiping tears from our eyes from the experience. *vbg*
movie with similar feeling: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

III. Signs. My reasons for including Signs are similar to Solonia's reasons for choosing The Sixth Sense. I'll start by saying M. Night Shyamalan rocks. *g* I'd love to make the kind of films that he makes. The movie attracted a wide audience, including those who wanted to solve the mystery of what the movie was really about and those who recognized that crop circles = aliens. ;-) I know a few people who went to see this, who usually avoid anything to do with science fiction, and enjoyed it. There's also another reason I chose Signs (which, imho, is a very spiritual film) - what to me is the underlying theme: Everything happens for a reason, even if we can't see it at the time. Everything is connected. In many ways it reminded me of one of my favorite X-Files episodes, "All Things," written by series star Gillian Anderson.
movies with similar feeling: Dragonfly, The Mothmen Prophecies, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, What Dreams May Come

IV. Star Wars (original trilogy). Star Wars is the first movie I remember seeing in the theater. It's also the first movie where I saw a female character who was as smart and as tough as the guys. It made me want to create something that would move others to feel what I did when I first watched it, something that people would lose themselves in. At the time (keep in mind, I was in kindergarten *g*) Star Wars was action-packed, funny, imaginative, intelligent, visually exciting. The release of the next two movies was an event itself. I so wanted to be a Jedi. *g* I hear the theme song, and I'm immediately transported to the Rebel Alliance.
movies with similar feeling: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T.

V. The Fifth Element. Bizarre, touching and filled with great performances, the more I see this movie, the more I like it. =)

Yellow Submarine. Okay, so I'm cheating and including a sixth choice. :P The Beatles, Blue Meanies, Pepperland, singing, psychadelic cartoon strangeness ... what's not to love? :D

5. Which five people are you passing the baton onto and why?
Anyone who wants to give it a go. :)

That was fun. (hehe)

Side note: Signal Room's official website is now up. Check it out! =)