A few years ago I wrote a blog post about My Favorite Books.  It was kind of fun to track down my favorite books from their various resting spots around my house and stack them together on a bookshelf, then talk about why I loved each of them.

It was so fun, actually, that I thought I’d write a similar post about my favorite movies/DVDs.

When someone comes to my house for the first time, they usually take a few moments to check out the DVDs I have on display because it’s a great way to get to know someone better.  The first thing you can discover from my DVDs is the fact that I have fairly eclectic tastes.

I didn’t bother shuffling around the order, so these are the movies and TV shows that just happened to be on the top two shelves tonight. I’m sure there are many of my favorites missing, but this should give you a good sampling.

No Brainers

There are a few movies and television shows that are common to many peoples’ DVD libraries:

• It’s a Wonderful Life – The favorite of my favorite movies
• To Kill a Mockingbird – A very, very close second
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy
• The first two Hobbit movies

There are also some that you should expect to find in my home if you’ve carried on a conversation with me for more than three minutes total.  Examples of these include:

• Supernatural (Seasons 1-3, 5-6)  In my world, Season 4 didn’t really happen, so I don’t own the DVDs. Also, I stopped buying the box sets at Season 6 because that’s about the same time they started streaming on Netflix.
• Sherlock (Seasons 1-3) I feel slightly less guilty searching the internet for BBC spoilers that haven’t been released in the US yet, because I know I’m going to buy the DVDs anyway. It’s not like they’re losing any money on me.
• The Princess Bride – The most quotable movie in the history of the world. Also, it holds a special place in my heart for many reasons.
• Dirty Dancing – I watched this movie at least a thousand times in college, and that was the place where I had the time of my life. (I know… it was too easy…)

Weird Old TV Shows

Many of my DVDs are unfamiliar to casual TV viewers. Actually, when I was growing up, I considered myself a cancellation jinx when it came to TV programs. As soon as I watched a show and fell in love with it, chances were pretty good that it would get cancelled.  It was a bummer when I was a kid, but when I grew older, I was consoled by the fact that every terrible television show I watched in the 80s was eventually released on DVD.

• Riptide– Perry King wearing pink polo shirts with the collar popped; the geeky friend owned a robot that I think was on loan from the “Short Circuit” movie franchise; and like every TV show in the 80s, the main characters ran a detective agency.
• Bordertown – a Western that played on the Christian Broadcasting Network in the late 1980s. I don’t know how I found it and I don’t know why I liked it, but I was obsessed with it for years.
• North and South – When this Civil War miniseries first aired, I tuned in because it starred James Read, an actor I liked who had a minor part on Remington Steele. He was starring opposite a new actor I hadn’t yet heard of – Patrick Swayze.
• Voyagers– Some day I’ll do a blog post about Jon Erik Hexum who starred in this 80s historical fantasy. What I remember most about the show now, though, is that the kid who also starred in it was named Meeno Peluce, and his sister is Soleil Moon Frye.  At a certain point, those names become child abuse.
• The Man from U.N.C.L.E. – I thank Nick at Nite for introducing me to this amazing 60s spy show. Also, if you only know Robert Vaughn from his Joe Bornstein commercials, do some additional research. He was a huge political advocate in the 1960s and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the McCarthy hearings and blacklisting.  I am looking forward to the new Guy Ritchie movie with equal parts excitement and trepidation.
• The Sentinel –  Please don’t ask my law school girlfriends about this show, because they had to live through my constant waxing poetic about they all needed to start watching it immediately. They didn’t. Neither did anyone else for that matter…

I’m running out of steam and the SNL40 Special just ended, which means I should go to bed. So, I’m going to leave on a cliffhanger, and will be back tomorrow night to finish up with the following categories:

• Weird New TV Shows
• Rom-Coms and Rom-Not-So-Coms