I love watching movies. There are those scenes that project on my inner screen, and songs that inseparably accompany key moments. Almost Famous; the bus scene singing Tiny Dancer – I was right there. There are nuances that feel like they write my life, and characters I could step in to. And, of course great style cues, Audrey Hepburn, and significant good hair days, Meg Ryan. If my life were cut as a movie trailer it would have to include a segment or two from the chronicles of my filmography.

When I was a girl we had an Admiral television set. You know the kind that was housed in a mahogany cabinet like a piece of furniture and was the focal point of any upstanding side-split it the sixties. The Wizard of Oz played once a year with an introduction by Danny Kaye. It was truly event television. On that night we ordered a pizza and got the blankets and pillows ready to camp out on the carpet in front of the TV to watch the film. This movie is noteworthy for me, not just because of the forever enchanting story, or the magic of black and white turning to colour, or every unforgettable song, but because as cliché as this sounds, it made me believe and ignited my imagination.

I simply adore Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Each scene has a moment that captivates me. One of my favourties is when she is sitting on the window ledge at the fire escape, wearing her signature cropped pants, flats, and a scarf around her head, playing the ukulele and singing Moon River. All the trimmings of Holly Golightly are stripped away here and she is at once so vulnerable and at peace. If my life had a sound track it would be Audrey Hepburn singing Moon River. Here is a fun fact. At the first screening of the film at the preview, the head of the company at that time, said “Well we can get rid of that song.” Audrey stood up at said “Over my dead body.”

Silver Linings Playbook, It’s Complicated and Something’s Got to Give are my ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ of recent chick flicks. At any given moment I can be Jennifer Lawrence in a dance competition, Meryl Streep smoking a joint in the bathroom, or Dianne Keaton, living in what I imagine to be my natural habitat – white beach house, and collecting white stones and shells along the shore. Not to mention she is a writer. Aside from the dance, sand and weed, at the crux of each film is that angst of heartbreak, disappointment interwoven in charming and serendipitous ways of dealing with the pain. If I see myself as a character in a film, it would be in that way. Stumbling upon the kinds of experiences we create or fall in to as we discover who we are, and how to get through the day. And, just like the dance scene in Silver Linings, each piece, each step of our journey collaborates and culminates in the acceptance and embracing of the life we have.

The secret is out. I am a hopeless, wearing my heart on my sleeve, romantic. So, I will close with Cinema Paradiso because the cinema of our lives should most definitely end with ‘that kiss’. I can still remember being in the theater mesmerized. It’s a small film and packed with so many beautiful little cinematographic intimacies. Here is the montage of kisses that closes the film with the stunning love theme soundtrack by Ennio Morricone

And also a photo montage with the names of the almost fifty iconic kisses that appear.

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