Petite Panoply

If you didn't remember from the 50 billion other times I've stated it, Halloween is my favorite holiday. During college I adopted my own tradition of watching a series of movies the entire day. It meant I had something to do no matter what day Halloween fell on. If there weren't any big plans for the evening at least I had candy and movies to fall back on. I've altered the movie watching schedule according to each year's plans but I always try to squeeze them in!  My Halloween movie marathon includes Hocus Pocus , The Nightmare Before Christmas , Addams Family Values , and The Rocky Horror Picture Show . You may notice that none of these are of the traditional horror movie genre. That's not because I dislike horror movies, but I tend to re-watch movies that make me genuinely happy in some way. Halloween is a happy and delightfully dark holiday to me so I want my movie marathon to match that feeling! I save the horror movies for other days! I don...

I hope you're all having a relaxing Sunday. I know I am! Next week I'll probably be watching Christmas movies every day so in honor of that I now present you with Part 2 of my Christmas movie favorites! 6. Elf (2003): We quote this movie year-round, but the quoting factor goes up exponentially once December hits. The quotable moments are magnanimous. I just love this film. It's happy and cute and hilarious. I can watch it over and over. My sister and I quite often recreate the way one of the arctic creatures cries. 7. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966): You gotta love this 22 minute TV special. The Grinch song is awesome. Have you ever listened to the lyrics? So great. "You're a crooked jerky jockey, and you drive a crooked horse" "You're a three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce" "Your heart's a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots" ( source ) I like th...

It's already mid-December and I haven't started watching my annual Christmas movies! I have time now that I'm off on break though. I thought I'd give a nice list [in no particular order] of my favorites since it's the holiday season and all. Here's numbers 1-5: 1. The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) : The premise of this movie is kind of ridiculous as Santa Claus is supposed to be a magical figure. Apparently he gets a cold and decides to "take a vacation" from Christmas for a year. Shouldn't a magical man be immune to the common cold? [Maybe Santa isn't magic...] I'll also never understand the aesthetic reasoning to give most of the characters in this movie epic buckteeth. Now you'll never be able to not notice the teeth! I'm pretty sure I could skip everything in this movie apart from the Snow Miser/Heat Miser songs. That's the best part, after all. ...