May is the month I turn 40. To celebrate, I thought I’d do a series of posts about some of my favorite things.

Let’s start: 5 Favorite Movies, in no particular order

1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This is a Trek classic from my childhood, and widely considered the best of the thirteen movies. I grew up on Trek, and STII encapsulates the best of the series and movies. Plus, who can forget Kirk screaming, Khaaaaannnnnnnnnn!

2. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This is a movie that I’ve found either you love or you hate. I fall into the former. I saw this movie for the first time in college, and no telling how many times since. If you watch it with me, I’ll try my best not to quote along with the whole thing.

3. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I make no promises that if you watch this with me, I won’t sing along to the songs. I don’t remember the first time I watched it, but I do remember recording it off a Disney free preview and then watching that VHS again and again and again. Okay, so the boat scene is weird, but we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams.

4. Batman (1989) and the Dark Knight trilogy. Okay, these are four movies, but they’re hard to separate out. Batman has been my favorite superhero for a long time. Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson rocked it to close out the 80s. Unfortunately, that gave way to George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the terrible Batman and Robin in the late 90s, but without that dud, we might not have seen Christopher Nolan take the helm.

5. O Brother Where Art Thou. The Coen Brothers take on The Odyssey with a 1930s prison break setting. How could you not like that. Plus… the soundtrack, don’t forget the soundtrack.

Honorable mentions: A Christmas Story, Transformers: The Movie, The Princess Bride, There Will Be Blood, Unbreakable