it's a list, it's a list, it's a list list list

As you probably know by now, I am a fan of lists, and had some time to think of a few during the drive back and forth to Rehoboth this weekend. I even wrote stuff down on a post-it pad I found in the glove compartment, like a real writer. But instead of deep philosophical musings, or lyrical prose, you are getting a list of my favorite movies (to be followed shortly by a list of boys I think are cute...informally known as "My Boyfriends" -- watch this space!). Like my list of favorite songs, this list includes movies that I have a nostalgiac attachment to for some reason, as well as movies that I just think are amazing. I am relatively picky about movies, but I am not a movie snob -- you will not find any Fellini or Bergman on my list. I think I am putting this list in chronological order. Let's start with the early years.

1) Grease. This movie came out in 1978, to much fanfare. I was seven, and I wanted to see the movie so badly, and my mom promised she would take me. And she did. Unfortunately, on the way to the movie theater, the clutch went out on the car, and my mom knew that if she stopped the car, she wouldn't be able to start it again, so instead of going to the movie, we had to take the car to the repair shop. I was wailing the whole way, saying "You promised! You promised!", completely unable to understand why we couldn't go see the movie. Looking back, I feel sorry for my mom -- I know it killed her to disappoint me -- but at the time, I just thought she was mean. She got so sick of listening to me wail that she decided to take me home before taking the car to the shop -- but since she couldn't stop the car, I had to jump out while it was moving. It was very exciting. My mom did take me to see the movie a few days later, at the fabulous Tri-State Mall theater, which had about 2 inches of standing water on the floor. Didn't matter. I was mesmerized. And I was lucky enough to get the soundtrack album, which had 2 records, and an amazingly lifelike pencil on the cover. As my friend Lindsay will be happy to tell you, we sang the songs over and over, and I always made her sing John Travolta's part. I was bossy -- so shoot me.

2) The Outsiders. This is not a good movie by any means. But if you saw this movie when you were a 12-year-old girl, like I did, this movie had it all. Lots of cute boys (C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise before he became a freaky scientologist), teenagers living wild without parents, star-crossed lovers from opposite sides of the tracks, a tragic hero burned in a fire, a rumble in the rain, and the classic Robert Frost poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay".

3) Footloose. Yes, the scene where Kevin Bacon dances alone in the empty grain warehouse is almost unbearably awkward, and no, Lori Singer is not a very good actress. But honestly, if you haven't seen this movie in awhile (and why would you have, really?), it is actually still pretty cute. John Lithgow and Dianne Weist are great as the repressed parents, and Sarah Jessica Parker is cute as the nerdy best friend (she was so much cuter before she became a fashion icon), but Chris Penn (may he rest in peace) steals the show as Willard, Ren's dopey sidekick. And I had a huge crush on Kevin Bacon throughout sixth grade. Just ask my sixth grade diary.

4) Sixteen Candles. If you were a teenager in the 80s, you had a favorite John Hughes movie. I can quote widely from The Breakfast Club, found Some Kind of Wonderful almost too painful to watch because I identified with it so much at the time, and loved my cassette tape of the Pretty in Pink soundtrack (sidenote: the Psychadelic Furs played at my college's Spring Weekend one year and both opened and closed their set with "Pretty in Pink" because, really, that's all they had), but the John Hughes movie I could watch again and again is Sixteen Candles. It is so tragic and funny and digressive...and when Jake shows up to get Sam after her sister's wedding, and she turns around to look behind her to see who he is looking for, and she points at herself and says "Me?" and he mouths "Yeah, you," because really all the time, he was looking for her....words cannot express the eternal and repeated melting of my heart. And then, to top it all off, the final scene with the birthday cake and the Thompson Twins song? Perfect. (I do have some trouble with the whole Anthony Michael Hall/Rich Girl drunken sex scenario -- is it date rape? But I try not to think about that too much.)

5) Truly Madly Deeply. Have you seen this movie? If you haven't, you should. It is a touching and goofy love story featuring the amazing Alan Rickman. Plot summary: Nina and Jamie are soul mates, he dies suddenly, she can't cope, he comes back as a ghost, and bittersweet events ensue. If you think it sounds like "Ghost" with British people, you are wrong. I don't have much else to say about it except that I love it, and you will too.

This is long, and I want you to read and enjoy all of my opinions, so I will finish the more modern era of the list in a separate post. Stay tuned.