What is your favorite movie and why?

It was a question posed to a room full of fairly devout Catholics.  So it generated answers like:  “The Passion of the Christ.”  “Therese.”  “Ben Hur.”  “Chariots of Fire.”

My answer (the correct answer, obviously:  “The Blues Brothers.”

Why?

Let me list the substantive and compelling reasons:

1. Jake gets out of jail and he and his brother go to visit the nun who helped raise them in boarding school – The Penguin. Rather devoted of them, don’t you think?
2. They find out the school will close if it can’t raise money to pay its property taxes.
3. They set out to put their old band together and have a big concert to raise the money, which they actually do.
4. Their justification for wreaking mayhem in the process? “We’re on a mission from God.”
5. They destroy the most police cars ever destroyed in a single movie chase scene.
6. The drive through an indoor shopping mall without hurting anyone.
7. It is a Chicago movie and that is where I live.
8. The music is glorious.
9. Virtually everyone in the movie is someone I’d like to sit down with and share stories over a cup of coffee.
10. It makes you simultaneously laugh and cry.

I could go on, but I believe I’m made my point.