1. The Fellowship of the Ring
This movie and the original Star Wars trilogy had a similar effect on me. I'd read The Hobbit as a child and liked it, but it left me utterly unprepared for when I first popped the VHS of this film (I'd won it in some youth group competition) into my player and watched it. It remains the single closest thing for me to stepping into another world, one that's strange, dangerous, and beautiful. The other two films, which I saw much later, are awe-inspiring as well, but this one will always remain my favorite.
2. Sweeney Todd
I was familiar with several musicals prior to this one (Oklahoma!, Beauty and the Beast, etc), but this is the one that cemented my love of the genre. In addition to being the first R-rated movie I watched illicitly on my computer, throwing glances over my shoulder to see if my parents were catching on, it's the first film that really made me sit back and notice all of the intricacies of musical scores—this was intensified when I listened to the original Broadway recording (Sondheim is the master of counterpoint). I've been in love with musical theater ever since, and this remains my favorite example of the craft.
3. The Princess Bride
I actually had the exact reaction that the little boy does at the beginning of the film when my parents sat me down to watch it—"Eww, a kissing movie!" I wasn't convinced to fully engage with it until the swordfight began. From that point on, I was enthralled. I immediately demanded to rewatch the film so I could pay more attention to the beginning. Over the next month, I watched it at least a dozen more times, and then bought the book and devoured it (it's one of the titles I've re-read the most; probably fifteen times at this point). In terms of scenes I can revisit time and again and characters that feel like old friends, the film and the novel both are unrivaled in my mind. Also, the score is quite soothing to listen to while writing or studying (if you can get past the synthesized stuff).

Basically just summarizing the above comments far less eloquently—ever since I read The Stand, I've thought that, in terms of characters and stakes, this movie needed to be the first third of that novel, only with a happy resolution instead of most of the world dying and paving the way for Randall Flagg. Say what you will about King, he's great at assembling a core cast with distinct personalities that the reader cares about. If Contagion featured a Larry Underwood or a Nick Andros for us to latch onto, and put them in a nasty situation similar to Larry's walk through the New York tunnels or Stu's escape from the government quarantine, I'd love it.

Cannot. WAIT.

Update: pretty sizable main page with more tropes on the way as I relisten to old episodes. YMMV has several as well, and Funny and Awesome are slowly but surely expanding. Is it lame that I'm devoting way more time to this than to the short fiction I should be working on?

Done for the night. Think we've got a pretty good start. Damn, WAYDM and TV Tropes, two of the things that are already incredibly addicting to me on their own, should never be combined if I plan on getting to bed on time. 

Well, I'll take a shot at the belief/nonbelief system one (specifically nonbelief for me). WAYDM actually factored into this choice of beliefs, for me.

I was born and raised in a very Christian household, and was saved at the age of seven. I was homeschooled from kindergarten through my sophomore year of high school, and all of my friends went to my church, so I was a very sheltered child. The only way I came into contact with atheistic/evolutionary points of view was in the context of a Christian's counterargument to such points of view. I remember obsessively listening to radio plays that were basically propaganda for creationist science, and devouring books by Billy Graham and Chuck Swindoll that were in my parents' library. As I became a teenager, I became intensely interested in apologetics and defending my faith logically. I really liked the pastoral staff at my church, liked my friends, and firmly believed that all of what we talked about in church was true. I loved knowing that God was there all the time, and that I could talk to Him whenever I wanted.

I have always been a voracious reader, and as I grew older my tastes matured with me. Star Wars was what began my journey through adult science fiction and fantasy literature, and it was with those books, I think, that my innocence began to experience some cracks. I knew that my parents would not be at all okay with a lot of the stuff I was reading—the language, the sex, the graphic violence—and that they would be considered immoral by many of my friends, but I read anyway. Mostly, my parents never bothered to examine what I read. When I got into rock music through Green Day, however, it was a different story. They read the lyrics to the album American Idiot and were horrified by the language and drug references, and made me delete the band's entire catalogue from my computer. They didn't seem to understand that the music did not inspire me to take drugs or act immorally myself—it was that the album's story connected to me on an intensely personal level. This is the first time I can remember that I fought them on something I felt they were seriously wrong about. When I lost, I downloaded the band's music again and kept it secret. Still do four years later.

When I discovered [Redacted], about a year after it started, I knew my parents would object to my listening if they were to listen to it—profanity, sexual jokes, etc. But I loved the show, and it was teaching me more useful things about writing and moviemaking than I had ever known, so I listened in silence. There was one thing about it that did bother me, though, and it was the occasional slights they made against God. To me, Brian's comment that "we made God in our image" seemed the height of arrogance, and I hated the part of the Raiders commentary where Dorkman presented facts about Old Testament history and Jewish polytheism that I wasn't prepared to hear. Despite my freethinking attitude when it came to entertainment, I was still thoroughly a believer, and hated the twinges of doubt that these moments would cause in me.

Late last year, I had hit a low point in my spiritual enthusiasm. For my junior and senior years of high school, I had gone to a Baptist private school whose staff were shockingly ignorant and intolerant (homosexuals are evil, rock music should be [and was] burned, any Bible other than the King James version is of Satan, sci-fi and fantasy are of the devil, etc.). I did not do well there; academically, I was at the top of my class, but socially I didn't have many friends, and I was in trouble several times because I unwisely attempted to debate the school's ignorant views. This was a side of my religion I had not seen before, and it made me nervous. I no longer felt as if God were there and listening to me—praying was like talking to a brick wall. In addition, typical teenage sexuality was making me feel unbearably guilty, even though it nagged me that there was really no good reason as to why masturbation was wrong, etc. I felt as though it had to be a problem with me—that my faith wasn't strong enough.

Then, one day on YouTube, I stumbled upon a video by accident—an assortment of video clips of the late Christopher Hitchens expressing his view on religion. It was roughly the spiritual equivalent of being hit by a freight train. I had heard bits and pieces of Hitchen's style of arguments before, but always in a setting in which they were then "refuted" by apologetics. Hearing Hitchens speak was an utterly different experience than reading strawman arguments. His bold, confrontational, angry style did not allow me to simply brush the questions aside, and they were numerous: how can God be moral and order the rape of women and death of children? Why should we follow an eternal dictator who we did not appoint? Why should we all be born sinful? And on and on. I did my best to answer these questions to myself, and could not. I begged God to show me some sign that He was there and He was good, and received none. I even went so far as to stage an intervention with my youth group, but their best argument was, "Well, you have to have faith." That wasn't good enough.

By May of this year, I was an antitheist in all but name, but I couldn't bring myself to say so. I knew that many of my friends would be horrified and saddened, and some of my relatives might even cut off contact with me. Also, I still felt a sense of guilt, as if I was being a bad person for acknowledging that God was really a nasty sort of person. I was sick with guilt and worry, and didn't know what to do.

And then [Redacted] came in again, this time to save me.

The Friends in Your Head thing has always been literally that for me. I don't make friends very easily, and my new school had not helped at all in that regard. But whenever I was feeling lonely or needed a laugh or some intellectual "conversation", the guys were there for me. I could listen and relisten to episodes, on the bus or late at night or in the car, and laugh again at old jokes, or learn something new. They really were my friends, and got me through a lot of hard times. Listening to them had been a huge source of comfort to me throughout the months of my trials in faith.

And then, one night, I was reading Dorkman's old blog entries. I mean *old* old, from four or five years back. I discovered an incredible number of posts about the issue of atheism and Christianity, and reading them helped me further understand why I was doubting so much. Dorkman came at it logically as well as morally, which helped me in understanding that God wasn't just a bad idea, he was just an idea. He doesn't exist. The most important entry I read, though, was his account of his own deconversion. As I read it, it finally clicked for me: leaving the faith does not make you a bad person. Choosing to ignore something you don't believe in rather than lying to yourself is the only morally responsible choice to make. Here is a man who has made me laugh, has inspired me, has taught me, who is in that bizarre Internet way a friend to me, even though I've never spoken to him directly. He is a good man—as are Teague, Brian, Trey, Eddie and all the rest—and not in spite of his lack of faith. And at that moment, I said to myself. I am an atheist.

It was the most liberating feeling I've ever had.

Apart from a few close friends, who are also atheistic (fellow saber fencers all), I have not told anyone I know of my deconversion. I'm going to a Christian college in the fall, because my dad's financial situation is precarious right now and I can't switch colleges when he's in that position. But as soon as he's recovered, I am going to tell my family and then my friends and church that I am no longer a believer. I have no doubt it will be hard, and change some of my relationships forever. But the friends in my head will always be there to help me through it.

Current prompts:
Worst work related incident?
Weirdest booze?
One fictional work that has most changed your life?

Okay, didn't know for sure if that was okay. Thanks.

Okay, Crowning Moment of Awesome page is online.

I hah had the semi-impression that it was, becaause back when the show was [Redacted], I saw it advertised on TV Tropes' adspace. Guess not, unless whoever created the article is wrong, which is quite possible.

I have to wonder what Dick would have thought of the whole "Deckard is an android" thing had he lived. In the novel, Deckard actually has someone else perform the Voight-Kampff test on him, and he checks out as human--no ambiguity there. (Also, it was interesting to me that Rachel's VK was the only scene in the film that really corresponded to any specific scene out of the book, and was practically word for word the same).

...

And my sister and father ate it up. *sighs*

My mic's not up to snuff (one of those $10 Radio Shack jobs), so I wouldn't be able to help; just wanted to tell you that your narrations are really awesome.