High on my list of favorite movies is the original Blues Brothers flick. One of the few SNL skits to ever translate well into a full length film, it has an appeal to it which is entirely undeniable. Strong characters, insanely quotable dialog, tremendous music and a wacky, unbelievable-but-ridiculously-fun plot have turned the movie into a comedy classic. The film contains many icons -- people, objects and places -- but one of the real life icons was nearly lost this week in an unfortunate accident.

Pilgrim Baptist Church of Chicago, which was featured in the film as the location where James Brown performs, had been undergoing major renovations for some time, with money raised by the congregation. Sadly, shortly before an 89th anniversary celebration, an electrical fire caused major damage to the church, rendering it unusable for at least six months. On a positive note, however, nobody was injured and the church avoided major structural damage, so it can be repaired. The expense of rebuilding is yet unknown, but we can certainly pray it will not be prohibitive.

I like to have background noise while I am working. I don't know if it is because I am a product of the age of multi-tasking or simply because I have concentration issues, but my mind tends to get bored when it only has one thing going on. It is not particularly unusual to find me seated at my computer desk typing an article while simultaneously watching television, throwing down some Nintendo action, and chatting with my fiancee (I like to call this "living the dream"). After years of functioning in this manner -- as a college student, it is now nearly impossible for me to be working at my computer without at least one other function happening simultaneously -- I feel like I'm wasting good time if I'm only working. Ergo when I sit down with my laptop to blog, it is almost a guarantee that I'll be either listening to a Pirates game online or watching a film. Sometimes, I'll substitute Gamecast instead of audio for the Pirates; then I can keep track of the Pirates game while watching a movie.

Now as you'd expect from a guy who gets paid to write about movies, I own a lot of movies. However, It'd bankrupt me to own enough movies to have a new one for every time I blog or do other work on my computer. I've written before about my love of commentary tracks, as a good one can double the watchable length of a film. Every now and then you get a great DVD with two or more commentary tracks, and you've got that many more good viewings of the DVD in store. Bonus documentaries, featurettes, and making ofs can also extend the life of a DVD. But what do you do when you've got nothing new on the shelf and are jonesing for a good flick? You go to one of your standbys. We've all got them -- that handful of films you could watch on seemingly endless repeat for eternity and never get bored. It is a quality that video games refer to as "replay value," and although some films (like The Princess Bride and Monty Python and the Holy Grail) have almost universal rewatchability, some are highly dependent on the individual viewer. Here are a select few from the very top of my list, the movies I am most likely to grab off the shelf when I'm in need of something to watch:

Because a fresh new DVD special edition just isn't enough, the people behind The Blues Brothers celebrated the film's 25th anniversary with a screening and Q&A in Hollywood on Monday night. Among those in attendance were Dan Aykroyd (through the magic of technology), director John Landis, and Godfather of Soul James Brown, all of whom answered questions prior to the screening. Because we're all too slow, we missed the chance to be part of the event via satellite in one of 80 Regal Theaters across the country - but we can still do the next best thing, which is to pretend via the internets. The link below points to several clips from the Q&A, including Landis on John Belushi and Aykroyd discussing the writing and shooting of the film.