I've been Tagged!

Ok, I'm offically answering the tag:

1. The total number of books and movies I own:

Movies I own: Somewhere around 50, not counting those I left at my parents house when I left home.

Books I own: In the neighborhood of 400, though that fluctuates on a monthly basis.

2. The last movie I bought: Well, the last movie *I* bought was Napoleon Dynamite, for David’s birthday. We buy most of our movies on EBAY, and David is the EBAY expert in our house. The last movie we bought together was Embrace of the Vampire, because it looks like one of those movies that will either be a fun B-movie or horrible, but I love vampire flicks, so hopefully it will be the former.

The last book I bought was Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World, which seemed like an interesting biography, but I got completely distracted by a gift copy of Requiem for a Dream and haven’t had a chance to really read it yet.

3. The last movie I saw:
In the theater: Revenge of the Sith, twice. It’s awesome, in a Star Wars way.
On Video: Big Fish, which was also awesome, in a Tim Burton way.

Hey, both movies starred Ewan McGregor! Coincidence? I think not. That’s the key to the movies, folks. If you want me to go see a movie, stick Ewan McGregor in it.

Last book I read:Much like David, I am in the middle of several books, mostly for Philosophy class, though as mentioned above I have a Chaucer Biography I need to get back to and I have the ever present editing project for David’s books going on. The last book I finished was Requiem for a Dream, which was better than the movie (no surprise, the only book I ever read that was worse than the movie was the Neverending Story, but that’s a whole other post). It’s a tough read, but very rewarding and thought provoking, so I highly recommend it. I also think it should probably be required reading for High School students, but again, that is another subject entirely.

4. Five movies/DVDs that mean a lot to me, in no particular order:

1. Requiem for a Dream: The look, the emotion, the directing, the acting, it was just mesmerizing. I think it is now my favorite movie ever. Very few movies make me cry. This one made my soul ache. Powerful stuff.

2. Sleeping Beauty: My favorite Disney movie ever, also my favorite animated film in general. The art of this movie is really well done, and unlike the latest Disney flicks it actually kept the Tchokovski ballet score. It also helps that David sang “Once upon a Dream” for me while we were dating and it is now my daughter’s favorite Disney movie.

3. Napoleon Dynamite: I cannot watch more than two minutes of this movie and not sit down and watch the whole thing. It’s addictive, it reminds me way too much of my own childhood, and it’s funny without being gross. It’s also amazingly quoteable. Gosh!

4. Natural Born Killers: To be fair, I’ve never actually seen this movie all the way through, and I may never do so. But in terms of emotional impact, I have to say that this is the only movie I’m scared to watch, not because of the movie itself, but because of the circumstances I first watched it under. Note to sociopathic incest-minded estranged (Thank Goodness!) older brother: This is not a date movie and even if it was, your 16-year-old sister does not count as a date. End of lesson.

5. The Rocky Horror Picture Show: I really wrestled with putting this movie on this list, but to be honest I don’t think any other single film has had more impact on my life. How many movies spawn whole subcultures? Sure you have Star Wars and Star Trek, but it’s just not the same thing, because, well, the movies are actually good, whereas with Rocky the subculture is the draw. Anyways, I’ve never quite managed to get away from my Rocky roots; my sis-in-law was ever in a rivival of the stage play two summers back. When David and I started dating he had been playing “the man with no neck” at the Redondo Beach Rocky and I had done a very brief stint as a tranny there, mainly because most of my friends were also on cast. Anyways, for better or worse, the movie and the subculture it spawned are forever attached to my life, and I can’t say that about many other movies.

Honorable Mentions: Resevoir Dogs, The Princess Bride, Rocky, Army of Darkness, Monty Python & The Holy Grail, Trainspotting, Mallrats, Dark City, The Graduate, The Bells of St. Mary’s…and far too many others. I love movies.

Five Books...

1. The Bible – Actually the weird thing about the Bible has been that I never really read it until a few months after I became a Christian. So, I can’t say the Bible led to be becoming a Christian, but it’s certainly (for obvious reasons) been important to my walk as a Christian. Not to mention the Bible is really, really interesting when you approach it fresh, because there are so many things there you never hear about in most churches and so much not there than many chuches pretend there is.

2. The First Man in Rome – I actually started reading this because David was reading it as research for his book series and I couldn’t put it down. The book is just fascinating and a good history lesson to boot, without putting you to sleep. We both read this book so much that it literally split in half and is currently bound in duct tape, because for some reason we’re too cheap to buy a new copy…I mean, for sentimental reasons.

3. Hamlet – Okay, I know it’s a play. But Shakespeare is so…good. The way he plays with language is well worth the time it takes to decipher what the characters are actually saying. We read a version for a literature class that had the most awesome translation notes and I was amazed to realize that for all its tragedy how funny the play actually is, in a witty sort of way.

4. The Four Loves – This is currently my favorite C.S. Lewis book because it tackles a subject I don’t think enough of us think about, particularly Christians – What do we really mean when we say “Love”? It also illustrates how completely inadequate the english language is when it comes to concepts like Love. I, mean, the Greeks apparently had at least five words for Love, all of which are far more precise in meaning and would probably help people avoid that wierdness of saying things like “I love her, but I don’t love love her.”

5. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a genius. Sherlock Holmes was a genius, but then you realize that someone had to come with all the cool stuff he said and did and then you realize, no, the author is the genius. Anyways, this book started my love affair with British Lit and it has not stopped since, ergo, the biography of Chaucer sitting on my bookshelf.

Honorable Mentions: The Canterbury Tales, The Jungle Books, Black Beauty, The Princess Bride, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, LOTR, Requiem for a Dream, Alice in Wonderland, The Dark Tower trilogy, The Eye of the Dragon, and far too many others to list right now.

Now I have to tag five people and I’m not even sure five people (and the only 3 I am sure of have already been tagged), ok, here goes nothing:

Joseph Riesen (I’ll post your answers if you’ll email them to me), Robin Nair (who probably doesn’t read this, but I’ll email him), uhhhhhhhhh…huh.
Ewan McGregor (yeah, right. I wish he read my blog)
Donna B. (She’ll say she doesn’t read this blog, but I bet she does, just to think up new insults to throw at me on CW.)
Pastor Mark Roberts (I don’t know if he reads this or not, but I go to his church sometimes and his blog is cool.)

Somebody should do a music version of this.