Happy Birthday to Me! - I share my birthday with the following actors and actresses:

Kathryn Grant
Charles Emmett Mack
Ricardo Montalban

Nostalgia and Comfort - 2012 has been a year of major change for me and sometimes I want things to just slow down. I find some comfort in thinking about the past, looking at old pictures and watching movies that I know well and love. As I said in my previous Catching Up post, I have been having a difficult time with new-to-me movies. There is too much new in my life I need some more familiar.  I have found that if I watch one or two old favorites that I am more open to watching a new movie. For example, after watching Tony Rome (1967) and Ocean's 11 (1960), two of my favorite 60s standbys, I was more than ready to watch the new-to-me movie Walk Don't Run (1966). Too bad I didn't watch that during the Olympics! What a perfect tie-in.

Here are the films I have stacked by our DVD/Blu-Ray player so I have them ready to go whenever I need some comfort movie viewing. From top to bottom:
The Original Nancy Drew Movie Mystery Collection (4 films)
Bachelor Mother (1939)
Holiday Affair (1949)
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
Young Ideas (1943)
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)
Tony Rome (1967)
Ocean's 11 (1960) (looks so much better on Blu-Ray!)

I have also been reaching far back into my childhood and have been thinking about some of my favorite childhood cartoons. One of them in particular is Adventures of the Gummi Bears, a Disney cartoon from the late 1980s. I have been singing the song around the house (much to Carlos' dismay, he dislikes my random bouts of Gangnam Style dancing too). I even added the Gummi Bears DVDs to my Netflix queue so I can watch them again. Just yesterday, my friend Lisa forwarded me a link to none other than Alicia Keys performing her version of the Gummi Bears theme on Jimmy Fallon's late night show. What a strange coincidence. To have been thinking of this show and relishing the memory AND to have one of my favorite singers perform the song on TV. Weird how the universe works like that sometimes.

What's your favorite comfort movie? Which cartoon did you love as a child?
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