When I first suggested a movie blog, I was asked why I liked movies so much. For me and many other movie lovers, this is a difficult question to answer without sounding like a complete and utter nerd or coming up with some cheesy, vomit-inducing answer. Therefore, I’ve decided to use a little “50 reasons I love movies” tag for movie fanatics and amateur critics that I’ve seen floating around the Internet in order to show my love for movies without seeming like too big of a nutcase.

Anyway, I love movies….

1. Because of late nights in the basement with friends attacking piles of movies armed with only popcorn and liters of Mountain Dew.

2. Because animation makes me feel like a little kid again

3. Because Hayao Miyazaki is my hero and his heroines inspire me

4. Because we all secretly wish we were Disney princesses

5. Because of Junior Mints, Icees, big screens and popcorn dripping with butter and shame

6. Because I love seeing my favorite literary works come to life and then complaining that the book was way better

7. Because I’ll always “get down to business to defeat the Huns”

8. Because of my love-hate relationship with horror movies and because sometimes the worst horror movies are the best

9. Because “Jaws” proved that two simple notes can immediately incite fear and suspense, and become a classic

10. Because “I was born at the wrong time, into the wrong era” and I’ve always wanted to see Paris at midnight.

11. Because I can “paint with all the colors of the wind”

12. Because I’d rather be “Singing in the Rain”

13. Because of those crappy Disney Channel Original movies that I grew up watching every night at 8 p.m.

14. Because “the power of Christ compels you!”

15. Because “the cold never bothered me anyway”

16. Because of Walt Disney and Tim Burton

17. Because “it’s not easy being green”

18. Because the characters in horror movies are so hilariously stupid

19. Because “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.”

20. Because of countless Halloweens spent watching the Addams Family and gorging on candy

21. Because of Lea Salonga, Judy Garland and Jodi Benson’s voices

22. Because of any movie inspired by Hans Christian Andersen

23. Because Toy Story made me believe my toys were alive and because Lotso the bear is the greatest villain ever

24. Because Gavroche’s death made me cry and “Do you hear the people sing?” makes me want to stage a revolution

25. Because Private Ryan stayed with the only brothers he had left

26. Because Aladdin has the best singing voice of all the Disney princes and “Proud of your Boy” makes me cry even though it never made it into the actual movie

27. Because Clareece Jones is “Precious” and taught me to dream regardless of the circumstances

28. Because I can spell “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”

29. Because of Andy Dufresne’s library and Red’s rehabilitation speech

30. Because “This is Sparta!”

31. Because of the end of “Shutter Island”

32. Because “Schindler’s List” taught me how painful hope can be

33. Because “Hotel Rwanda” made me regret becoming so desensitized to tragedies I see on the news

34. Because “what we do in life echoes in eternity”

35. Because “The Matrix” inspired a religion

36. Because of the top at the end of “Inception”

37. Because “Hakuna Matata”

38. Because I’ve watched Marlin find Nemo countless times and it still never gets old

39. Because “Here’s Johnny!”

40. Because of Wall-E and Eve, and Carl and Ellie

41. Because of deleted scenes and deleted songs

42. Because “it’s so fluffy!” and minions are awesome, whether with one eye or two

43. Because “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Rosemary’s Baby” were gloriously creepy

44. Because “Life is like a box of chocolates” and Bubba loves shrimp

45. Because “the hills are alive with the sound of music”

46. Because of the third-class dance scene in “Titanic”

47. Because traditional hand-drawn animation and computer animation can coexist

48. Because “I see dead people”

49. Because there are so many more great movies for me to watch out there

50. Because movies combine nearly every different art form into a hodgepodge of music, visual arts, theatre, photography and literature. Because movies connect me to people and places I can only imagine and take me back to my childhood. Because movies are portals into new worlds where your dreams are plastered onto a screen and you can immerse yourself in a story. Because movies allow you to escape your monotonous life and, for a few short hours, become the hero you’ve always dreamed of.