5 movies that have inspired my writing

Today marks our first theme day. The 250+ bloggers participating in the WordCount Blogathon this month were asked to blog about the "five movies that have inspired my writing." Of course, there will be variations, as bloggers were told they can stray from the theme, stick to the theme, or not follow the theme at all. It's merely a suggestion, and I accept the challenge.

There's an additional challenge for me, though, because I don't watch movies with that much intention (meaning, I watch them merely to wind down and don't spend too much time analyzing them), so I had to cheat for this theme day. I visited a list of 100 inspirational films I found on Belief.net to find out what stood out to me. After coming up with a short list of four -- "Big," "Miracle on 34th Street," "The Sound of Music," and "Forrest Gump" -- I decided the films were probably favorites of many, a bit cliche' and not very original. So what to do?

Well, bikes, of course! So I searched Google.com for movies about bikes, looking for a connection of some sort or another, large or small. I wanted to see if that might inspire me to write something. Here's what I found:

5 movies that could have inspired my writing if...

• "E.T."  Who could forget the scene in the movie that introduced us to Drew Barrymore where the cute and adorable E.T. is taken home into the night sky on a bicycle! Isn't the little alien sitting in a basket? Ah, the stuff that fantasy is made of. I don't write fantasy or science fiction, but if I ever do, maybe this scene will influence me then. And you know what? It reminds me of the scene in the "Wizard of Oz." The Wicked Witch of the West does something similar. She rides off on a bike, for sure, but then disappears into the tornado.

• "Napoleon Dynamite"  "You got like three feet of air that time," says Napoleon to his new classmate Pedro. Napoleon's such a nerd, and so angst-filled, but his dry, whiny personality makes the movie for me in scenes such as the one where he asks Pedro to show him some "sweet jumps." I do not do sweet jumps, nor sour ones. I'm not a jumper at all, and it's not likely bike jumps will show up in my work. But you never know...I have written fiction before.

• "The Day I Became a Woman"  This one is an Iranian movie about three woman, one of whom risks divorce so that she can take part in a bike race. The brave woman is willing to give up her husband rather than her freedom. If I had seen this film, I think it might have inspired my writing in some way. In fact, I bet it would inspire my life!  Maybe I should see this one.

• "The Muppet Movie"  I couldn't remember that Kermit the Frog rode a bike in the series starring The Muppets. But he did. In the 1979 movie, he rides from his home in the swamp to Hollywood -- on a Schwinn bike. Very stylish, don't you think? Of course if I knew more about animation or puppetry, I might have been inspired. But I just prefer to sit back and enjoy a film that anthropomorphizes little green frogs who can sing "Rainbow Connection" while strumming a banjo. The bike ride is just a plus.

• "The 40-Year-Old Virgin"  Andy Stitzer rides his bike to his job at the Smart Tech electronics store where, when his co-workers learn he's still a virgin at age 40, they to help him get what they think he needs. Hilarious events unfold on the bike and elsewhere. If I knew how to write scripts, maybe this movie would have inspired my writing. But probably not, because the bathroom humor (albeit, really funny) isn't something I intend to master.

What movies would have inspired your writing, or your creative work, if...?