Stealing meme’s is all I seem capable of which means this Monday ritual is probably played out, but let’s give it another week, shall we?

Rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen films you’ve seen that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall. Tag 15 friends, including me because I’m interested in seeing what films my friends choose…or don’t and just comment. I like comments.

1) Gone With The Wind – because it cemented for me the idea that the novel is the best source for good story although I love the first half of this film. I even went to see it on an honest to goodness big screen when it was released for one of it’s anniversaries. It’s a must see on a real movie screen.

2) Moonstruck – I don’t know why I would have so strongly identified with the main character, Lorretta, when I first saw it. I was still in college and didn’t know anything about love, but her loneliness was something I understood. My favorite lines are from that movie:

Love don’t make things perfect. Love ruins everything.

Do ya love him, Lorretta? No, Ma. But I like him. Good, ‘cuz when ya love ’em, they’ll drive ya crazy ‘cuz they know they can.

Someday you’ll drop dead and I’ll come to your funeral in a red dress.

3) The Empire Strikes Back – not the best one of the six but I loved Yoda and movies I can remember lines from must be important.

This one long have I watched. Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing.

4) Much Ado About Nothing – my favorite Shakespeare film adaptation. I used to show it to my students and they loved it too. Emma Thompson is fabulous.

I cannot be a man through wishing, so I will dying a woman weeping.

Or

Thus goes everyone to the world but I and I am sunburnt. I can sit in a corner and cry ‘hey ho’ for a husband.

I can get you one Lady.

Can you get me one of your Father’s getting? Your father made excellent husbands if only a maid could come by one.

5) LadyHawke – I remember taking a break from studying for finals my junior year to catch a matinee of this movie. I went alone. It was an old theatre in downtown Iowa City. Smelled like vaudeville with seats that sunk to the floor. This was another film I used when teaching folktales.

It’s like escaping mother’s womb. God, what a memory.

6) You’ve Got Mail – Better than that insipid Sleepless in Seattle but probably not the best of the romcom genre. Still I love Tom Hanks in his everyman romantic lead suit and the supporting cast is awesome.

The answer to all life’s problems is in The Godfather.

7) The Godfather I and II – I read the Puzo novel when I was in 7th grade. Sr. Marilyn was appalled to discover that yes, my parents not only knew but approved of the idea that I could read whatever struck my fancy. She had no idea that my parents weren’t moved to actually find out what any of the books I was reading were about. They were just happy to have at least one literate child and content to feed my hobby in whatever way they could – short of actually reading themselves. I first saw this on television. I believe both my folks watched too. They were part of a boxed set that Will and I bought when we got our first dvd player. They were his favorite movies.

8) Fight Club – I never saw it when it came out. I never read the book it was based on until I decided that doing so might help me better understand Mick, who is a Chuck Palahniuk reader. I am still torn about it, but I think it holds kernels of wisdom.

9) Cinderella – name a film version and I have probably seen it. My favorites are the Drew Barrymore version, Ever After, which tries to explain where the fairy tale originated and Disney’s musical version with Brandy and Whitney Houston. Yeah, corny and I don’t care. Cinderella has always spoken more to the core of me than any other of the princess tales and I am familiar with my versions of the different folk tales from my English teaching days. I used to tell my students that folk/fairy tales existed because they represented the commonality of human beings in terms of what we need and dream of, and I still believe that.

10) A Christmas Carol – I can watch just about any version of it, but my favorite is the George C. Scott television movie. Did you know that Dicken’s working title for this was “The Sledgehammer”? There is nothing about it I don’t love.

Okay, so this could easily be one of my last Monday meme’s, so I’d appreciate a comment from my normally reticent lurkers.