Top Five: Christmas Movies!

As you know, I love the holiday season. One of my favorite things to do is cozy up on the couch with Travis and the pugs and watch Christmas movies by the light of the Christmas tree. Here are our favorites:

1. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: Like everyone else I grew up watching this on tv every year. Last year I took the plunge and bought my own copy. This one is such a classic, I love the songs, I love the stop motion animation, I love the unlikely dentist side plot. I even love the weird noise Rudolph's nose makes when it lights up. The Bumble is the cutest I think, though my mom told me when she was a kid it made her cry!
2. A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All: Chock full of hilarious weird songs and cameos I like to watch this special a few times every season. The Toby Keith number makes me crack up every time, and Travis and I love to sing the John Legend gem "Nutmeg." And then there is the Colbert and John Stewart duet "Can I Interest You in Channukah?" We've been listening to it while we drive around doing our Christmas shopping. I just have one gift left to buy!
3. Love, Actually: I'm kind of embarrassed that I love this movie so much? I don't know why because I'm not embarrassed about much lamer interests. If you haven't seen it, it is a movie featuring about every British actor you know of, and has all kinds of interwoven stories about love and Christmas. We were just watching it while I was typing this and I cried about five times. It's just so lovely. This is one of those we'll watch during the year sometimes. I think my favorite story is the guy in love with his best friend's wife, or the guy who goes to America to meet girls, or the aging rock star with the lame Christmas single. It's just all so good! (This one barely nudged out The Holiday for top five status. Jack Black needs to be a romantic lead more often! Haha. )
4. The Nightmare Before Christmas: My grandma gave me a VHS copy of this for Christmas when it came out and I was OBSESSED. I watched it every day for weeks until my mom hid it from me. I was always into things that were a little weird, even as a kid (I blame Pee Wee's playhouse). This one is another watch all year favorite. I have a big collection of figures from this movie, and the soundtrack on tape, and picture vinyl, and cd. Beautiful stop motion, great songs, wonderful sweet story about getting in a rut and finding yourself again and not being afraid to fail, and vampires! And a ghost dog! I'm sure you've seen it, but if not go find a copy immediately.
5. Christmas Vacation:  I had to put this one in the top five just because I've probably seen it the most. Like I said the other day, it is Travis' favorite movie of all time and we watch it a lot. It is still funny to me after exactly 1 million viewings. My favorite part is when Clark tells the kids that he heard Santa had been spotted on the radio and Cousin Eddie looks at him deadpan and says "You serious Clark?". I still laugh out loud!

Here are some movies that were close to being in the top five. When I was a kid I had a little cardboard cut out of Ernest in my room. Another weirdo that I loved.  Home Alone is the first movie I can remember going to see in the theater!Of course A Christmas Story has to be in there, and The Muppet Christmas Carol is very nostalgic to me. I feel like it's up there with the original Muppet movie, but I think I'm in the minority on that one. We listen to the John Denver and the Muppets Christmas album every Christmas morning. Magical!

What are your favorites? You would think I would have more classic Christmas movies on my list, but I really haven't seen that many. We're going to see It's a Wonderful Life at the local indie theater, and it might be my first time watching it all the way through!

Top Five! Movie Musicals

Recently we bought tickets to see The Book of Mormon when the national tour comes to Nashville in November. We saw Wicked earlier in the year and at some points I had a hard time understanding what they were singing so I decided to go ahead and listen to the Broadway cast recording of Book of Mormon. And oh my gosh it is HILARIOUS. I was crying laughing in my car listening to it the first time. I can't wait to see it in a few months! Here is a clip of the opening number when they performed it at the 2012 Tony's.

I have always loved musicals, and now that is all I want to listen to! We drove to Missouri this weekend and all I took were musical soundtracks (Thankfully Travis loves musicals too. We really belted out Les Miserables). It gave me an idea for a new little series. We'll see if I keep up with it. Every once in a while I'll talk about my "top five" something or other. So let's start this off with my top five movie musicals!

It was REALLY HARD for me to narrow it down to five. The more I thought about it the more movies I thought of that I have seen over and over. Then I asked Travis and he named a few I hadn't even thought of! Here is what I finally came up with:

Little Shop of Horrors: This one was easy, because it is my favorite movie of all time! My grandparents took me to see the play when I was about 4 years old and I was traumatized! All you had to say was "Feed Me!" and I would freak out! But now I love it. If you haven't seen it ,you NEED TO SEE IT. It is the story of a dorky young man who finds a man-eating plant from outer space. It is set in the 1950's and the chorus is three girls named after some of the best girl groups of all time (Ronette, Crystal, and Chiffon). I love all the music, I love Rick Moranis as Seymour Krelborn (if we ever had a kid you can almost bet I'm naming him Seymour), and Steve Martin plays a sadistic dentist! The play is better of course (and has a completely different ending) but I could watch the movie every day for the rest of my life. Here is my favorite part, "Suddenly Seymour." Which you could probably guess since I have a pretty huge tattoo of Audrey 2 (the flesh eating plant) with those words under it.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: I didn't see this movie until I was 19. We went to one of Travis' friend's house to watch it and I was totally blown away. I bought the dvd the next day and watched it every day for a week! I feel like everyone has seen it, but if not it's another weird one: newlyweds Brad and Janet are traveling to visit their science teacher and take shelter in a strange castle because their tire blows out in a storm. Tim Curry is incredible as Dr. Frank-n-Furter who is a mad scientist transvestite trying to create the perfect man in a lab. The music is so good! We've been to see it at midnight a bunch of times and I'm hoping we'll be able to this year on Halloween.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch: This show is getting lots of press this year because it is on broadway staring Neil Patrick Harris. I would love to see it on stage, because the movie is amazing! John Cameron Mitchell plays Hedwig for the movie and is perfect. The movie is about a rock band fronted by East German transexual Hedwig. It is about Hedwig's journey to find herself. It's really beautiful and makes me cry every time (I love movies that make me cry!). The music is all kinds of glam rock inspired, my favorite songs are Wig In a Box, Sugardaddy, and Wicked Little Town (the Tommy Gnosis version).
The Sound of Music: This one had to be included on the list because it is a family favorite. My grandpa recorded the soundtrack onto two cassette tapes for me, and my dad had the piano book and loved to play pretty much all of the songs from the movie. This movie is a classic and I'm sure you have all seen it. Julie Andrews is the most perfect musical star and I think this is my favorite movie of hers. I don't own this one yet, I think I need to remedy that.
West Side Story: I can vividly remember the first time I saw this. My dad rented it for me from a little gas station near our house that rented movies called the Rapid Pak. It was summer and I was probably 10 and I sat in our papasan chair and watched it while everyone was outside in the yard. I was totally blown away and was obsessed with it for the rest of the summer. (Are you sensing a pattern? I can never just like something, I always get totally obsessed!) This one is set in the mid 1950's in New York and is based on Romeo and Juliet. Instead of the warring families it involves to rival gangs. The final scene makes me cry every single time, no matter how many times I've seen it. They are performing this soon at the symphony center downtown (as in the symphony is playing the music over the movie!) and I'm regretting not getting tickets!


And here are some titles that narrowly missed being in my top five! A local theater troupe is doing Jesus Christ Superstar next week and we're definitely going to see it!

What is your favorite musical? Do you think they are too cheesy? Did you ever have a part in a musical? I always regret not trying out for one in high school.