Sheryl Roberts

I like musicals. I always have and I always will. Not everyone likes them, so we are generally guaranteed a good seat in the movie theater.

I've never seen a musical with Fred Astaire in it that I've disliked. Fred was not only talented, but he appeared to be as classy in real life as he portrayed in his movies.

The Producers. Yes, the musical remake. It's hilarious. Mind you, I loved the original too. Mel Brooks took the original and updated it and it worked. My family has been known to break out into "Springtime for Hitler" at all sorts of random moments. That movie also proved to me that Will Farrell was talented. I was rather amazed by his versatile performance.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's so bad, it's good. And the music is great.

Little Shop of Horrors. Sort of a Rocky Horror Picture Show wanna be, without all the sex.

But enough about musicals.

The Breakfast Club. It remains my favorite teen movie ever . . . and I saw it when I was in my 30's for the first time. You see us as you want to see us . . .

Revenge of the Nerds. Likewise, my favorite college themed movie of all time. I happened to belong to a sorority in my wild and flaming youth, because I found it hilarious that they would actually ASK me to join (yes, they really did. I looked at my Star Wars collection, my science fiction book collection and my reams of comics and giggled gleefully as I went to that interview.) I also found that the Greek system is badly misrepresented by a lot of people who don't know what it's really about, but that's a rant for another time and place. I know all about being a nerd in the Greek system and the movie is refreshing in it's basic honesty that deep inside, a lot of us really are just nerds, or at least feel like ones.

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. It's been 25+ years since I smoked my last joint, but that movie is hilarious. Just hilarious. I can't wait for the sequel.

Blades of Glory. Ok, so I'm a figure skating fan, I admit it. This movie savagely lampoons the entire sport, with cameos from some of the greats of figure skating. I thought I'd stroke from laughing so hard.

This one is very difficult to me, but I'll try and narrow it down. These movies aren't all "great" movies, but I list them because I can watch again and again and be captivated by them every single time.

X-Men 2
Hellboy
Sin City
Terminator
Terminator 2
Total Recall
First Blood
Planet of the Apes
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
Pulp Fiction

My favourite movie is "The Crow." It's not the best movie in the world, but it's well written, and entertains for 90 minutes, with a story of unending love, revenge, and rebirth. It's directed well, with stunning visuals, and it balances style with substance, which is a tough thing for action movies to pull off well.

OK, gonna have to just pick a few by genre here since I watch too many movies

Willow - Since I was a kid this movie has ranked high as one of my faves due to the mix of swords, sorcery and comedy. Plus an awesome score by James Horner. No similar movie has come close to it in my mind (OK, maybe Krull).

The Matrix - Wire-fu finally hits the US shores in a quality fashion. Throw in some nice special effects and it's oh so sweet.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - A foreign film that to me is more drama than martial arts, but shows off how the two can blend.

So I Married an Axe Murderer - Hilarious movie. Messed up and funny.

Transformers: The Movie - Before they were live, they were animated.

Juon (Japan) - Still my all-time scariest movie.

Arahan (Korea) - Take some comedy and add a bit of The Matrix martial arts feel. Original, fun. You're not finding this in a US video store.

The problem with coming up with my favorite movie is that I love so many movies. I'm not horribly fond of the television itself, but I love movies. Zack and I could practically open our own movie rental service with our personal collection. Narrowing this down was not easy, and you should be very grateful I've narrowed it down and haven't decided to go through my entire movie collection for you.

I'm going to start with an obvious answer:

Star Wars. Personally, I like The Empire Strikes Back best, followed very closely by A New Hope. Third, as sacrilegious as this may be, is Attack of the Clones followed by Revenge of the Sith in fourth. Yes, I did indeed put two of the new Star Wars movies in front of Return of the Jedi. I cannot stand the cop out feel that permeates Return of the Jedi. Writing me nastygrams will not change my mind. Yes, I honestly prefer the movie with the bad love scene that's delivered directly to Natalie Portman's breasts, to "He's my brother. I've always kind of known." I will point out for my credibility this leaves the unholy Phantom Menace in last place for my affections and first place for my ire. As for why I love Star Wars, Star Wars has it all: a hero, a rough and tumble Princess, a scoundrel, space ships, a wizened elder and a menacing bad guy. It's a modern fairy tale in space! What's not to love?

Next, I'm going to have to go with Equilibrium. It was a movie that was only released in the theaters out of the United States. In America, it went straight to video, and while this probably doesn't look good for it, I assure you, it's worth watching. It's part 1984 part Brave New World, part Fahrenheit 451, part Matrix-esque action special effects. In fact several people have called this movie a rip off of the Matrix, but I don't honestly agree. John Preston is a top Grammaton Cleric. His job is to seek out people who have chosen illegally to feel and the artifacts of art and beauty that stir feelings in people. Until one day when John misses his emotion numbing medications and starts to feel for himself. The absolute best thing about this movie is that they don't wuss out at the ending. That was the thing I was most impressed with the first time I saw it.

The next movie on my list is animated AND Disney. Fear me. There are not enough words in the world to describe my adoration and love for Beauty and the Beast. It has beautiful art, pretty songs and it's about an odd girl whose nose is constantly buried in a book. Do I really need to get any more into detail? Honorable mention goes to The Little Mermaid, but my personal favorite has always been Belle and Beauty and the Beast.

Next, I'm going to subject you to my most stereotypically feminine movie pick: Love Actually. Love Actually has got to be one of the best movies ever about love and the nature of love. It's not all happy. It's not all romantic. It follows a metric boatload of characters. It's one of my favorite Christmas movies of all time. It's witty. It's silly. It's serious. It's sad. It's part fantasy. And at times it's too real. But mostly it's fantasy. But it's good fantasy.

This leaves me rounding out this movie discussion with another great movie about friendship type love, hope, and prison. Yes, I'm talking about The Shawshank Redemption. Absolutely any time this movie in on the television, Zack and I will stop and watch it. It doesn't matter where in the movie it is. We will watch it from there on. It doesn't matter if there are commercials. We'll sit through those too, until we remember we have it on DVD and then we'll pop it into the DVD player. This is a movie based very faithfully on a short story by Stephen King. It's about the lives and friendship of a banker named Andy Dufresne who is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife and her lover, and Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding a black man convicted many years prior for a murder that he did commit. This might sound like a weird set up for an emotionally uplifting movie, but all I can tell you is that it is, and it's probably one of the best movies I own.

My favorite movie would have to be "The Bishop's Wife" with Cary Grant, David Niven, and Loretta Young. It's just a terrific movie that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.

Movies are hard. My tastes run broad and, in places, deep. I'll just mention movies I go back to over and over, that still have the power to entertain me. In no particular order:

Casablanca
Citizen Kane
Red River
Godfather I and II
Serenity
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Superman the Movie
Star Wars Eps IV, V, VI
Anything by Kevin Smith (Except "Jersey Girl", what were you THINKING??)
Free Enterprise
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn
Big Trouble in Little China
Hellboy
Bladerunner

I really like MirrorMask, due to the interesting visuals and fun dialog. And I have a deep-abiding love for the 1980s fantasy movies that I grew up watching over and over: Dragonslayer, Labyrinth, Willow, Princess Bride. These movies can probably be blamed for my current love affair with all things fantasy. Why do I love them? Nostalgia partially. They're like comfort food, but without the calories.

I'm not sure how to pick a favorite movie. I like so many of them, and it seems to be somewhat equally. Right now, I'm pretty enamored of the "Call of Cthulhu" by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. It was a well put-together version of one of Lovecraft's most famous stories. This group did the movie in the style of filmmakers at the turn of the century, and it worked out well. The extras on the DVD that I received were great as well, and I've seen this movie many times. If you ask me in a month, it might be "Kakurenbo" (in my opinion the best anime movie that I've seen) or Pan's Labyrinth.

"The Big Lebowski" because it's so well written even though it appears to be adlibbed, because it's so ridiculously funny, and because of all the swearing.

"Videodrome" because it's a perfect example of the kind of headfuck that great science fiction should be, because it's set in Toronto (my home town) around the time I used to live there, and because it makes me think every time I watch it.

"Sunset Boulevard" because one day I want to be a screenwriter AND a kept man, and it might be worth ending up floating face down in a pool afterward if I end up with a few expensive suits and the occasional lay.

Tough call. I love almost anything Marx Brothers. Mel Brooks is just a nut job. Orson Wells was a genius. It'd say 'The Sprinkler Sprinkled' but I think anyone who hasn't had two years of film school was thinking I was making it up. So I guess the safe answers are either 'The Princess Bride' or 'The Great Muppet Caper' depending on my mood.

"Oliver!" - it was one of the first movies I ever saw. "Superman: The Movie" -- it was the first 'superhero/comicbook' movie to be released in my lifetime and it didn't disappoint.