Movies That Make Me Happy

                My family and I love watching movies together. It’s definitely one of our favorite things to do together besides camping, hiking, or otherwise anything fun outside. My dad sometimes even goes out and randomly buys a film just so we can check it out. We don’t go out to the theaters much but we have a fairly large TV at home and a killer sound-system from the 70’s that makes it all pretty awesome. Sometimes, we pop a little corn and make a delicious treat out of chocolate chips and cashews! It really is a blast.

                Well, recently, I got my dad the movie Cowboys and Aliens as a gift. We decided to watch it last night since it was a Friday and early enough so as to not disrupt our natural sleep pattern (yes that is a real reason my family uses to keep ourselves from not staying up too late). And boy, did we enjoy it! At least, I totally did. You really can’t go wrong with Harrison Ford, especially when he’s tag-teaming with Daniel Craig! I pretty much had an action-hero-overload-of-pure-awesome. Sure, some of it was fairly predictable and even a little cheesy but I thought, as a whole, the movie worked; the story was fun, the characters were believable (except Olivia Wilde’s Southern accent; ugh!), the graphics were amazing, and the music was fabulous! It was great! I even think my dad – a big movie critic – liked it, which is saying something of today’s movies.

                As movies go, I enjoy most kinds except horror; I still get nightmares, and that’s just not cool. Rom Coms are usually predictable but mostly enjoyable, if not a bit silly, and I will frequently go for a classic comedy from the 70’s – 90’s. I tend to not like many comedies made now-a-days because they just aren’t written with the same ingenious humor like they used to be; it’s all inappropriate jokes and repeated clichés. The kind of comedy I like is classy slapstick, punchy one-liners, and witty banter. Sometimes I find a comedy of today that makes me belly laugh but mostly I just quietly giggle to myself. As for action and adventure, I’m pretty much up for anything that has massive explosions, robots, hot men, spaceships, sci-fi elements, and epic graphics and fight scenes, or any combination of said things, as long as the film has a semi-decent plotline. I enjoyed The Expendables but it was definitely targeted at those who don’t really care about plot and just want explosions. This being said, I still loved seeing all of my most memorable action heroes all in one place.

                Now, I have some friends here at college who have not seen some of the movies that I say are some of the best ever made, and a couple of them are film majors. Imagine this; a film student who hasn’t seen the original Star Wars or any of the Lord of the Rings movies, films that are cinematically genius and pioneering in their field. So, taking this is to account, I decided to compile a list of the films I personally think everyone should watch before they die. Keep in mind that I myself haven’t seen every film ever made, and some would say that my list is incomplete, but I’m just basing the whole thing off of the films that I have seen. If you have more movies you think should be on it or you think that I should take some off, go make your own list.

                Here it goes, not in any particular order:

-          The original Star Wars trilogy

-          The Lord of the Rings trilogy

-          The original Indiana Jones trilogy

-          Donny Darko

-          Blazing Saddles

-          Waterworld

-          Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

-          The Postman

-          Monty Python and the Holy Grail

-          The original Planet of the Apes

-          The Charleston Hesston Planet of the Apes (“Get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape!”)

-          2001: A Space Odyssey

-          Disney’s The Jungle Book

-          Robin Hood (live action)

-          Robin Hood: Men in Tights

-          The Princess Bride

-          The King’s Speech

-          Pride and Prejudice

Well, that’s all I have now for that list. I enjoy a ton of movies but these are definitely my top films of all time. I hope you’ve seen most, if not all, of them! If not, GO DO IT NOW. They are all wonderful in their own aspects, and they all have flaws too. But they are films that I will be watching till I’m old and decrepit, sitting in my nursing home drinking prune juice (yuck!). Also, if you haven’t been keeping up on your classic Disney animated feature films, you should get on that, because they are ALL awesome.

Tell me your favorite movie! Maybe I haven’t seen it yet! And I’d sure love any recommendations if you think I’d like it. Thanks!

Stay classy.

xoxo