Movies and Books and Tigers, Oh My!

Someone asked me this weekend what my favorite movie is, and I was stumped. Lord of the Rings is the easy answer, but I don't know if that holds up. To me, the question is asking what would I always want to see and want anyone I know to see, and even LotR doesn't always capture me. Swingers, Princess Bride, Little Miss Sunshine, Shrek, so many movies would have to be in the conversation I don't know that favorite applies any more. I think writing and plot are my main attractors, though.

Someone today asked me about favorite TV shows (no idea why my media preferences are suddenly popular). In the non-singular, this is easy, but I realized that I seem to be attracted to TV musicals. Long before Glee, Buffy's musical episode might qualify as my favorite TV episode ever. Songs from Scrubs (not so much their musical episode, but they incorporated songs well), Buffy, West Wing, Joan of Arc, and other shows seem to have stuck episodes in my head as well. It doesn't apply so much to musical movies or shows per se - individual songs in random scenes suit me best. West Wing was one of the best at this - the Season 3 finale with Hallelujah playing over Agent Donovan's death, and the musical Shakespeare celebrating the glory of battle over the assassination order, haunt me when I come across a rerun on Bravo.

I can't tell if this makes me sappy or just very open to musical suggestion. Or especially sensitive to awesomeness, which is the conclusion I'm drawing.

One other note on media: I had a friend who protested for months (and apparently years before that) that Harry Potter couldn't be any good and she refused to read it. I finally badgered her into it, and today she raced through 200 pages of Order of the Phoenix. Moral of the story: I am always right, and your life will be better if you heed me.