Another list

I like lists. Can you tell? This one is all the movies I got for Christmas!!!! In the past I would have listed books, but I asked for lots of DVDs this year so that's what I got. Although I still got two books: Tales of Beetle the Bard by J.K. Rowling and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (which I am WAY excited to read! Thanks Sarah!)

Anyway, back to movies (in alphabetical order for your convenience):
1. August Rush. Great music, cute story. Heartwarming tear-jerker. A young orphan, played by Freddie Highmore, who hears music in everything, runs away from the orphanage to find his parents, while they search for meaning in their lives. The kind of movie you watch when you're in the mood for a happy ending.
2. Bourne Identity and Supremacy. Great music, great story. Finishes my collection! (last year I got Ultimatum for Christmas) A man who believes his name to be Jason Bourne has almost complete amnesia. While he tries to remember who he was and what he did, his old associates from a covert operation in the CIA are after him. Great action film.
3. A Chorus Line. Haven't watch it yet; my mom thought I'd like it. Something about Broadway productions.
4. Cool Runnings. Family-friendly and cute. Four Jamaicans who tripped out of one of the pre-Olympic foot races make a bobsled team and journey to Canada for the Olympics against all odds. This is a great family night movie, and the Jamaican accents are hilarious.
5. Get Smart. Good music, hilariously funny! Some language and sexual innuendos but definitely worth seeing. Maxwell Smart (played by Steve Carell) is promoted from analyst to field agent when terrorist group KAOS nearly destroys Max's anti-terrorist employer CONTROL. The movie is all about his strange ideas and funny reactions to things as he and Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) try to save the world. Also starring Dwayne Johnson.
6. Hotel Rwanda. Most heart-wrenching tear-jerker of them all, but as Joel Siegel said on Good Morning America, this is "the kind of film that can change the world". If you can't handle war or racial conflict, don't watch this movie. Don Cheadle stars as the manager of a five-star hotel in Rwanda in 1994, when a civil war broke out between the race in power and the other race that was being exterminated (I can never tell the difference just by looking at them). All the whites leave and the UN isn't working fast enough to help solve the conflict, so the hotel manager opens the hotel to over 1200 refugees, with only his wits and words to keep the army at bay. Very intense.
7. Indiana Jones boxed set!!! It's the old one though, so it doesn't have Crystal Skull. That's okay; maybe I'll get it next Christmas. :) If you haven't seen Indiana Jones (played by Harrison Ford), then I'm not going to tell you about it. Go rent them. IJ and the Last Crusade is the best one.
8. Karate Kid. Family-friendly martial arts movie (duh). And those keep getting harder and harder to come by. A teenage kid and his mom move to California from somewhere back east, and he immediately gets picked on by the local bullies. The apartment complex janitor, who happens to come from Okinawa Japan, teaches him karate, the appropriate way to use it, and little bit about growing up. If you liked Ninja Turtles, you'll recognize some things from this movie and probably like it, too.
9. The Mummy. Halloween movie, although it's not necessarily frightening. Just supernatural. Treasure-seekers in Egypt go to the city of the dead and accidentally awaken a cursed mummy, and then must find the Book of Life to kill him.
10. Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest. Also finishes a collection! Here we learn more about the relationship between Jack Sparrow and Davey Jones. Probably my least favorite of the three Pirates movies but worth seeing once to get the story. It just amazes me that Disney made a movie off nothing more than a ride and popular myth.
11. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Another chick flick, but with a good amount of action. Kevin Costner stars as Robin of Locksley, and Morgan Freeman as his Moor friend who follows him home after the Third Crusade to lead a band of outlaws and woodsmen in a revolt against the evil Sheriff of Nottingham, played by Alan Rickman. Fabulous acting, great music. One use of the f-word (but still rated PG-13. It was made around the time the ratings changed)
13. Sleeping Beauty!!! I love this movie. Aurora and Belle are my favorite princesses. You have sinned if you have not seen this movie. It's rated G; it has beautiful music; modern villains are based off this movie's villain; it's a classic Disney princess movie. I understand if some people have chosen not to watch PG-13 movies, and that lots of the movies I just listed have that rating. Here that is not the case. You have no excuse not to have seen this movie. Go rent it. Right now. Watch it with girls, especially those younger than 10.

So I am way excited to have expanded my movie collection by so much! And since I'm alone at my apartment right now because I came back early, I'll probably get most of them through my new DVD player on my new 13" old-fashioned TV in my room.

If you have any comments about my list, or you know of some movies you think I should see, please leave a comment below.