I am unashamedly and utterly a movie geek. I love movies, especially ones with a good story and characters that I can relate to. I’m more and more a fan of character-driven films and less and less a fan of the big-budget special effects extravaganzas. My tastes are very eclectic, as the following list will show (in no particular order):

1) The Lord of the Rings trilogy

2) The Red Shoes

3) Casablanca

4) The Maltese Falcon

5) Doctor Zhivago

6) Elizabethtown

7) Sunshine Cleaning

8) Amadeus

9) Ice Castles

10) Charade

11) Juno

12) High Fidelity

13) An Officer and a Gentleman

14) Gone With the Wind

15) Lawrence of Arabia

16) Heathers

17) Gladiator

18) Kingdom of Heaven

19) The Last Waltz

20) Grease

21) Moulin Rouge

22) Romeo + Juliet

23) The Blues Brothers

24) Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

25) Dead Poets’ Society

26) The English Patient

27) Gran Torino

28) Up in the Air

29) Charade

30) Rear Window

31) The Philadelphia Story

32) Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

33) The African Queen

34) Tombstone

35) Back to the Future

36) Breakfast at Tiffany’s

37) Roman Holiday

38) Mystic Pizza

39) My Big Fat Greek Wedding

40) Cinema Paradiso

41) Babette’s Feast

42) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

43) Bright Star

44) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

45) The Notebook

46) Shawshank Redemption

47) The Green Mile

48) To Kill a Mickingbird

49) Forrest Gump

50) The Straight Story

I could probably list at least 50 more, but I won’t (unless I do another favorite movies blog). As you can tell, these films are both old and new and range across every genre there is.

I’d like to know some of your favorites, both from a personal and from an artistic standpoint. I know I will probably look back at this list and see movies I left out that should have been in, but those movies can be in your list. It’s not supposed to be comprehensive.

Part III will have a listing of my favorite albums, and that will really be all over the map, so gird your loins for that one. And have a fantastic Memorial Day tomorrow!