Every time I visited my grandma’s house as a child, I would run to her stack of VCRs and choose my favorite movie, The Pagemaster. It’s a cheesy 1994 adventure movie starring MaCaulay Culkin that combines animation and live-action acting. Culkin befriends three books, Adventure, Horror and Fantasy, that come to life.
I can’t say why I liked that movie so much as a kid. Maybe it’s because I loved reading and watching movies, and that movie combines those two loves. I always wished I could dive so far into the books I consumed that I could literally find myself submerged in their worlds.
As an upcoming graduate, I find myself wanting to live in my favorite movies. I’m not ready to adult, so I find comfort in my old favorites. In the spirit of The Pagemaster, here are my favorite films from those three genres with a romantic comedy thrown in there:
Harry Potter
If you read any of my columns during the Fall Semester, you know I love Harry Potter. For my friends reading this, they know that because I never stop talking about the series. Every time a new film in the series would come out, my family and I would go to the theater as soon as possible. It was so cool to see people not much older than me fighting evil.
But when I reread or rewatch the series, I find nuances I didn’t catch the first time. I have a different interpretation every time, and that’s what I love so much about the series. I can enjoy and find meaning in it at any age.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
I’m not very keen on action movies. Most of the ones I liked fell into the fantasy genre better. But I watched The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with my family growing up, and it was a superhero movie I could get behind.
It’s very campy, and I’ve had people tell me it’s not a good movie. That doesn’t change my mind, though. For me, it has the same appeal as The Pagemaster: It takes well-known classic literature heroes and makes them into a dream team, and that is so cool.
A Quiet Place
I didn’t start watching horror films until my junior year of high school. I was a wimp and thought I couldn’t handle it. The horror genre is so ambiguous that the lines between thriller and horror blend fluidly. I didn’t like A Quiet Place necessarily for its horror elements, though those were great too. I liked the movie for what it did for John Krasinski’s career.
I like when artists push themselves outside of their perceived norm. Who would have thought Jim from The Office would direct, produce and act alongside his real-life wife in a horror film? Maybe a comedy, but not a horror. And the film was amazing. That was extremely impressive.
27 Dresses
When people ask me what my favorite movie is, I think they expect me to pick some off-the-wall indie film because I like artsy movies. But my favorite movies are ones I can rewatch over and over again. 27 Dresses is that movie for me.
I saw it once on FX in middle school. I asked my parents to buy it on DVD for me. It came in a pink box that eventually broke because I watched it too many times. My best friend Nicole and I would watch it at every sleepover. I would play it every night on my TV and fall asleep to it. It made me fall in love with dancing to Elton John’s Bennie and the Jets, and it taught me to not let people take my loyalty for granted. Those are invaluable life lessons I consider every day.
As I venture into the post-grad life, I will miss writing these weekly columns. I rarely got personal in them because I am a rational person. But you can learn a lot about someone just by asking “What are your favorite movies?” So to my readers, thank you for sticking with me, and I hope you were able to learn a little bit about me along the way.
Georgia Davis is a senior studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. What are your favorite movies? Tell Georgia by tweeting her at @georgiadee35.
