IMovie crashing, can't access my projects

Question

Hi everyone, sorry, i can't find a similar topic already open?
I used iMovie 11 to create an hour long collection of home movies, with transitions, audio tracks, some sped up sections, etc. I tried to export it to iDVD yesterday, but the audio went out of sync with the video clips. So, I detached the audio from the clips, but just before completing this task, iMovie started crashing as soon as I would try to open my project.
My project was saved on an external hard drive, so I tried opening it on another iMac with iMovie 11. It worked at first, enabling me to finish detaching the audio, but because all my music tracks were saved in iTunes on my first computer, I needed to bring in all the music to iTunes on the second computer so that iMovie could access the tracks. Since bringing the music tracks into iTunes, i haven't been able to open my iMovie project at all. iMovie crashes as soon as I launch the application - it won't even show my project, it just crashes straight away.
It is crashing on both computers, I have tried deleting the .plist caches (I followed some online instructions, but don't really understand it), and I cleaned up my computers with OnyX. I did software updates, and do these regularly. I've tried restarting a million times. Both computers are only 3 months old and have plenty of memory available.
I'm at a loss, as I spent weeks of late nights working on this project, and now i haven't got a clue how I'm going to access it, yet alone burn it to a DVD. It was supposed to be a Christmas gift for family, and now I've got no Christmas presents to hand out! This is a total nightmare. If anyone can help I would be so grateful! Please help quick!
Kate.

Answer 1

Thank you so much for your reply, I'm desperate for some help.
This afternoon my iPhoto said it couldn't be opened "because it was incomplete or damaged", so I decided to uninstall iLife 11 and reinstall it. This seems to have stopped the crashing problem in iMovie and has restored my iPhoto back to normal.
The problem I have now, is that when I open iMovie, I can see my project, but I can't edit it at all. I can click on 'Edit Project' but only if I open the project via by external hardrive (where it is stored), not directly from iMovie.
When it does open, I can't edit it, I can't preview it, the viewer isn't working (although sometimes i can see distorted, broken bits of images), and I can't play the project at all (not using space bar, not in the viewer, not in the preview mode). The only way I can play any clips is in the event browser. It doesn't seem to recognising the clips used in the project (as there are no longer any orange lines underneath the clips I've used).
I don't know what to do with it now - I can't even begin a new project because the viewer isn't working in a new project either. Is my project corrupted, and causing functionality problems in iMovie? And if so, is there a way of repairing the project?
Thank you for your kind help! It's really appreciated!!
-- Kate.