Significant films in your life

Started by luctruff, September 04, 2003, 01:00:15 AM

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SiliasRuby

INCLUDES BIG EFFIN' SPOILERS!!
Radioland Murders-the fast paced dialogue and the jumpy energy that was present in the movie encaptured what it was like to work on a stage, which I had done for many years

The Usual Suspects: I had a big connection to this film because Verbal kint had Cerebral palsy and so did I. Kevin did a great job at protraying a man who has, apparently, lived his whole life with a disability even though he, of course doesn't have it.

Taxi Driver: It encapsulated my utter lonliness that I have felt throughout my life and really pinpointed how I felt about culture and the world throughout my early to mid teen years.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: It literally took my breath away the first time I saw it at the arclight. I couldn't keep my eyes away the visuals were so stunning.

The Year 1999 was a significant year for me because it was the year that I really decided that I was going to be a screenwriter. It was also the year I saw the following films that inspired me in an immense way:

Goodfellas: the kinetic editing during Henry hill's last day of freedom at the end made me feel like I was on coke.

Pulp Fiction: I couldn't see it when it first came out because right before Uma gets stabbed in the heart by John travolta, my mom ran out of the room (because my parents were seeing at home on video, my dad for the second time, my mom, her first) and she didn't finish it, my dad kept watching. She said that it was too intense for a young kid like me. I finally saw it in 1999, my mom in her room reading, my dad watching it with me.

JFK: I saw this and was just amazed by the cimentography and the great handful of stars added fuel to the fire of my love for films.

American Beauty: The writing blew me away and I enamored by kevin's Spacey's proformance. This was the film that made me go out and write my first short film screenplay.

Magnolia: I remember exactly where I was when I first saw this and how things were going in my life, pretty shi**y actually and I saw this with my parents and they got depressed but it had a profound effect on me, I had not seen born on the fourth of july yet and this really brought out a side of cruise that surprised me. I came out of that film feeling exaused but ultimately optimistic about my life.

Short Cuts: My first delve into multicharacter movie. I rented this on tape one night because it had some great actors in it and I watched it when no one was home, making it ok to watch a scene where Julianne Moore is naked.

Fight Club: At the time that I first saw it, I thought it was the most brutal movie since I saw platoon, a year earlier, in 1998. The movie hooked me on to chuck as a writer, thus challenging me as a writer.

Boogie Nights: I was told that I would never be able to see this movie because my dad walked out of it ten minutes in (when Jack is talking to Eddie addams). I first saw a bootleg copy I think I either got it from a friend or downloaded it of this film in early fall of 1999 and watched it on my computer and then quickly got rid of it. Of course, I couldn't get enough of the film and I asked my friend Trevor if he would buy it for me if I gave him the money. Of course he did and in one night late November 1999 I had my copy of the double disc version of boogie nights. I gave Trevor a big hug and kept it a secret that I had this movie from my parents for quite a while and when they finally found out I was old enough that they didn't really give a damn.
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When you are getting fucked by the big corporations remember to use a condom.

There was a FISH in the perkalater!!!

My Collection

meatball

Age 4-11:
Star Wars
Jurassic Park
Gremlins
Backdraft

Age 13-17:
Boogie Nights
Fight Club
Snatch

Age 18-20:
Traffic
Magnolia
Punch-Drunk Love
Buffalo '66

cowboykurtis

pee wee's great adventure
cloak and dagger
flight of the navigator
never ending story
legend
willow
conan the destroyer
labrynth
dark crystal
fantasia
jaws
karate kid
e.t.
close encounters
dances with wolves
punch and judy shows
princess bride

these were all in HEAVY rotation in my youth.
...your excuses are your own...

Slick Shoes

my formative years...........
-Ferris Bueller's Day Off
-Back to the Future 1,2
-A Christmas Story
-The Karate Kid
-The Goonies
-Labrynth
-UHF

Pubrick

i'm feeling listy..

network - it's like, mind-blowing how well this holds up. but at the time i saw it first i was like 13/14, and i was amazed that i cared about this very 'adult' movie. like it was just about old ppl and their careers, and suddenly i realised growing old will be cool.. cos u can still be crazy.

umberto d - another old man movie, weird. anyway this was life-altering around the same time. it was the most touching black and white thing i'd seen, and i had just watched citizen kane for the first time and thought it sucked (which it doesn't) so i was thinkin black and white movies were prolly not sumthing i could get into.

hah, ok, honestly, Mrs Miniver - the colorized versioN! i just thought greer garson was the best chick ever, and that the movie was ahead of its time.  :?  

altered states - seriously apart from the ending (EL OH EL) and the fact that the story is totally schizophrenic, there is sumthing brilliant about it that stuck with me and has been there for countless repeat viewings. it's a gem.

and uh, kubrick, or sumthin.
under the paving stones.

Kal

I think its very hard to put a list especially for people in this forum who watch several movies every week/month. The more great films you watch and the older you get makes it even more difficult.

Some I can think of now that shocked me and made changes in my life maybe or defined more what I wanted to do...

Boogie Nights
Adaptation
The Neverending Story
Point Break
StarWars
The Matrix
A Clockwork Orange
Fight Club
Karate Kid

modage

Quote from: cowboykurtis(lots of stuff)
these were all in HEAVY rotation in my youth.
mmmm.... 80s.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Ghostboy

I can't believe I haven't responded to this thread yet.

It all started with the Star Wars trilogy, 2001, Dracula (the Lugosi version) and Pinnochio (the Disney version).

But mostly Star Wars, which then branched out into Indiana Jones, Willow, etc. (anything with George Lucas's name on it). Then when I was 10 I discovered Tim Burton and that, as they say, was that.

MacGuffin

Quote from: GhostboyThen when I was 10 I discovered Tim Burton and that, as they say, was that.

...until you were fourteen, then that was that...again?

Quote from: GhostboyI've wanted to make movies for as long as I can remember, ever since 'Star Wars' I guess, but the point where I stopped wanting to 'make movies' and become a filmmaker was when I saw 'Pulp Fiction' when I was fourteen...I saw it three times in a row and it changed everything.

http://xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=545
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Ghostboy

Quote from: MacGuffin...until you were fourteen, then that was that...again?

Not quite. From that point on, I was a cineaste with such a devorous appetite for motion pictures that I ceased to be enamored by just one film or filmmaker; 1994 was when I discovered just how much there was out there and the stopper was pulled, so to speak, the floodgates opened,  and the that that was that ceased to be that which it was (that being George Lucas and Tim Burton movies).

03

window water baby moving by stan brakhage
i saw this short film when i was 9; i was already learning about sexuality and my obsession with female physiology was making an interesting arc. the effects of my parent's lenience toward what i was exposed to had created a growing dissonance between me and everyone else my age, and also strenghtened my early interest in film. wwbm changed the way i looked at cinema, but more importantly it changed the way i looked at everything and i became frighteningly aware of the fact that my eye was a lens.

begotten by edmund elias merhige
this is more or less the same story. i saw this when i was 11, and i would have to invent a new language pronunciated with invisible vocal chords to be able to describe my emotional reaction to seeing it.

fantastic planet by rene laloux & roland topor
i don't know when i first saw this. my father worked in a hospital that had a film library and i know that he stole the film for some reason while i was in my infancy. he says that i watched it constantly when i was too small to remember.

the short films of mauricio kagel
i don't remember when i saw these first. i think i saw antithese or solo when i was 14, but i am unsure. these are significant because my girlfriend liked them and she cut open her throat with a steak knife in march while i was sleeping next to her. she would play them constantly, and i didn't mind because i'm quite fond of them.

meatwad


Pubrick

and that's the way it should be.
under the paving stones.

pete

bloodsport - first time I ever considered a movie to be unintentionally funny, I was 12.
pushing hands - first time ever engaged by a "boring movie", I was 9
dead poets society - first time crying at a film, I was 14
pulp fiction - first time realizing what a "writer-director" is
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton