My Movie Milestones
[x-posted to my movie LJ, flixtails]
Here are the 25-Or-So Top Movie influences in my life. This is not to be confused with a “25 Best” or even “My faves.” Most of these movies are great, but a few of them are awful. These movies stick out in my mind as mile markers in my own life. I'll give a short drive-by synopsis of each (or maybe not), and a few reflections. In no particular order:
The Breakfast Club, 1984: Five teenagers find themselves in high school detention, and end up finding themselves in each other. My God, I should write movie taglines. This was the ultimate brat-pack movie, and I grew up in the middle of this era. Hell, what '80's teen watched this film and didn't identify with at least one of the characters? Many milestones coincide with this film. My first time watching it, I was at my first cast party of my first high school play - drunk for the very first time. My best high school friend Barak and I watched the film religiously again and again. I wore out many, many copies of the soundtrack, which I still consider to be one of the best ever. I adapted and directed a stage production of this gem at Polk Community College in the mid-90's with some of my friends who graciously allowed me to pull time from their busy schedules. There were some classic lines that are still used today - “Eat … My … Shorts.”
Taboo II, 1982: Synopsis - It's a porn with an unsurprising number of naked people. This movie was shown at the same cast party right after Breakfast Club. My first porn film, and I'm drunk. Needless to say, this film plus the alcohol made me a very, very witty person.
A Clockwork Orange, 1971: A dystopian view of our already outdated correctional system from the view of one troubled teenager. My first true appreciation of serious film comes from this Kubrick gem. I had the best job a 16-year-old high school student could ask for - I worked at Spec's music and video. I had access to all the latest releases of movies on VHS and music on the hottest format to date, the Compact Disc. The CD's came in artfully printed long boxes fit to hang on your wall, which were designed to thwart would-be shoplifters. One of the assistant managers steered me to certain titles that shaped my movie tastes for years to come. The first time I rented it, I was transfixed by the story. As I watched it for the first time at about 2am on our family VCR, I had just gotten to the point where Alex is being showcased for a bunch of bureaucrats. In one of the demonstrations, Alex is put in front of a beautiful naked woman to show that he is unable to have thoughts about sexual violence without physical pain. I was 16 years old, and here was the most absolutely perfect set of tits on the screen (I have yet to see a better pair anywhere on film or otherwise). In this situation at 2am, I want you to picture the worst thing that could happen. My mother forbade me to watch the rest of the film, and I was unable to watch it for almost a year.
Full Metal Jacket, 1987: Kubrick's Vietnam War epic follows a Marine from boot camp to his first kill. I saw this movie once on the big screen before going into the Marine Corps a few years later. The drill instructors showed us this movie on Thanksgiving Day. Having seen several Marine Corps movies depicting boot camp in all its glory, I am here to tell you: Full Metal Jacket captured the Parris Island experience perfectly. I have seen documentaries about Parris Island that don't evoke memories like this fiction does. Other Vietnam movies can't touch this film. For example:
Born On the Fourth Of July, 1989: Oliver Stone's vision of the Vietnam War. I didn't put this movie here just to compare it with Kubrick's film - it has a milestone memory of its own - but I'll go ahead and get the comparison out of the way: It doesn't, so there. The memorable moment was that this is the only time that I, before or since, paid to see a movie and walked out after the first half hour. It wasn't the gore, it wasn't bad acting, it was … well, I'm not sure what it was. The movie just didn't blow my skirt up. As I said, it wasn't that bad - just completely uninteresting to me. I have since seen it, and it fails to move me. I have sat through worse pieces of cinema, outraged that I was paying to see such tripe, but this movie wasn't even actively bad. It was a unique movie that left me completely unmoved, even to trash it. I liken the experience to a generic starburst mint you get from a restaurant - you pop it in your mouth, and don't even notice it's there until you want to say something to your date, and absentmindedly spit it out.
Young Frankenstein, 1974: Okay Sherman, set the Wayback for 1974. I was 4 years old and my father took us to see my first movie on the big screen. I marveled at the hugeness of this big TV set as well as the fact that there was no color. That's right, my first trip to the movies wasn't to see a Disney film; it was to see Madeline Kahn get raped by Peter Boyle … and she liked it! It remains as one of my favorite movies of all time for its classic humor blah blah blah. Another interesting personal tidbit is that I seem to have to buy another copy of this film every time I lose a girlfriend.
Citizen Kane, 1941: Orsen Wells' classic tale of the fall of a modern day feudal lord. What kind of milestone movie is complete without Citizen Kane? I include it not for its historic place in cinema, but for a late night in 1983 when I first watched (and enjoyed) an entire film on PBS that had no car chases, explosions, ninjas, spaceships, chainsaws or pie fights. It holds a place of honor in my DVD collection.
Kids In the Hall - Brain Candy, 1996: Say what you want about this unappreciated masterpiece. I contend that this is arguably tied with The Big Lebowski for first place as the smartest and funniest satire of the 1990's. I'm a huge KITH fan, and have every single season on DVD. For almost two years, I went to sleep every night with this movie playing in the background. This is also another movie that ex'es seem to get custody of.
Student Bodies, 1981: A comedy slasher film with Richard Belzer as the scary guy. As cheesy as it was, this was my first slasher film, and the first time I saw boobies on TV. The next door neighbor girl was a whole lot of firsts for me, and she had cable. Bless that girl, she opened up a lot of worlds to me … otherwise, this is a horrible movie. Bad effects and bad acting, it may be worth a look if you're a b-film fan. And did I mention boobies?
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, 1998: Terry Gilliam's masterpiece, this movie quickly made me an avid Hunter S. Thompson fan. I have since read Where the Buffalo Roam as well as Fear and Loathing and Hell's Angels. When I die, my ashes are going into fireworks. This is the movie that prompted me to switch to the DVD format. It is also the first movie I had ever seen that portrays a drug attitude similar to my own - drugs aren't evil or good. They're not something to be lorded or glamorized, but they shouldn't be condemned or vilified either. They are just there, and should be treated with respect … much like a warm and cuddly, vicious dog. Drugs have wrecked a lot of lives, but they also brought us the Beatles.
Bill Hicks Live - Satirist, Social Critic, Stand-Up Comedian, 2004: This man influenced George Carlin, Sam Kinison and many other "angry" comics of the 80's and 90's. His biting humor and bald faced social commentary gave a voice to many of my views in college. I discovered him at the same time I discovered that wonderful new medium of music exchange, Napster. I damn near filled my hard drive with his comedy and drove my conservative dorm mate batshit in the late '90's. I was crushed to find out he had died in '93 - I would have loved to see him live.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975: Having watched Flying Circus on late night PBS for years, I was finally privy to Holy Grail while working at Spec's in the mid '80's. Anyone who knew me in high school knew me as one of those annoying bastards who constantly quoted line after line to anyone who would listen, willingly or otherwise. This movie was another unifying bond to those of us into Dungeons and Dragons, Fawlty Towers, and Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It was a geek badge of honor to those of us who were into computers before computers (or geeks for that matter) were cool.
Bowling For Columbine, 2002: Whether you think he's the Limbaugh of the Looney Left or a Crusader for … well, for the Looney Left, Michael Moore certainly gained attention with this, his third feature documentary. I personally agree with most of his views, though I find his tactics darkly (for lack of a better or more appropriate term) Karl-Rove-ish. I have always liked documentaries, but this movie got me into a whole new realm of political activism and social documentaries. It was one of the only movies that I saw in the theatre and openly cried.
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, 1989: Michael Gambon (the second, not-dead guy who plays Dumbledore) has a wife who seeks an affair with an ordinary man after becoming bored with the mob scene. Tim Roth also stars. This is one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen, both for its overly rich cinematic presentation and for its thematic content. I saw this while working in a Lakeland movie theatre, and I was struck by how hard that Jamey (a high school friend and assistant manager) had successfully lobbied to get this foreign art film into such a mainstream-oriented venue in a rather conservative community. Though the movie didn't do very well, Jamey stuck by his guns and defended the movie to his rather stiff general manager as something he believed in. It also opened up a world of film where neat, cut-and-dry endings aren't necessary to make a great story.
They Live, 1988: During my stint at Spec's, my friend Barak and I had a weekend tradition. We would get a twelve-pack of Mountain Dew and rent the absolute worst B-grade film I could find on the video shelf - movies like Clan of the Cave Bear, The Stuff, Saturn 3, and the RHPC sequel Shock Treatment. Sometimes, we would dig up a gem that was surprisingly good. Former wrestling star “Rowdy” Roddy Piper in the starring role of a John Carpenter film? It sounded like the nails had been welded into the coffin, but we loved it! The story line was interesting, and the parts that Carpenter's budget couldn't support were wisely thickened with gooey cheese. The best fight scene in the movie (which lasts a good ten minutes) is between the two good guys over a pair of sunglasses. I recently found out that someone is remaking this movie in 2011. I'm a little leery of B-film remakes. The originals are almost always narrowly-avoided train wrecks - it should have been a disaster, but seeing the locomotive barely hang onto the rails of a shoestring budget is half the fun of a B-film. The audience not only roots for the good guy, but waits with bated breath to see the director's house of cards withstand the hurricane. Pushing money at them to shore up the risky production takes the fun out it. I'm looking at you, Blob. You too, Escape From LA. Okay, there are a few exceptions, like:
The Evil Dead trilogy, 1981 through 1992: Another great find from the B-film archive, this one was all Barak's idea. This plucky little engine-that-could showed me that a creative endeavor can step outside the boundaries of itself to make something else entirely - if the artist is flexible enough to laugh at himself. The first movie is meant to be a horror film, but was so bad it was funny. The second installment, Dead By Dawn, was a mulligan - Sam Raimi simply tried again with more money, making a truly scary film that kept the laughable manic flavor of the first. In Army Of Darkness, Raimi realized that these movies were just damned funny and focused on the camp value of the overwrought but headstrong Ash character. Raimi went on to direct some truly great films like Spiderman and A Perfect Plan.
The Last Temptation Of Christ, 1988: Not to be confused with the snuff film, Passion of … This movie came out during a spiritually rebellious phase of my life. Normally, I would have ignored it during this time, but since the church was protesting it I had to see it. Far from being a blasphemous finger at God, it shows the humanity of Jesus. Nowadays, I am by no means a devout follower, but I am not actively opposed to religion either. I think this movie helped to let me see that beliefs are just that - beliefs. Scorning them doesn't make them any less true, but fervent discipleship doesn't make them any more true. Some fundamentalists distort the simple truth that mankind is fallible into a pornographic travesty that all men are inherently evil and all imperfection is doomed to burn. I learned that imperfection does not warrant whole-cloth damnation, but a desire to improve. I think the reason this second approach doesn't sell as well is that there are far less explosions and car chases.
A Thief In the Night, 1972: Speaking of fundamentalist apocalyptic gloom and doom, Patty ignores the warnings both from friends and the book of Revelations, and finds herself trapped in the Tribulation, left behind after the second coming of Jesus. If you've ever seen Left Behind, picture it with about a tenth of the budget and a lot more polyester clothing. Not to spoil the movie, but things end badly for our protagonist, but not before a vain struggle to resist both the Evil Forces of the antichrist and the last vestiges of the church. This movie scared the life out of me when I viewed it in my Pentecostal church with the entire congregation. This was shown at the end of a two-week seminar at our church with preachers who specialized in the apocalyptic teachings of Revelations. I had nightmares and panic attacks for years afterward. When I would arrive at home with nobody there, I was convinced that I had screwed up somehow, and that Jesus had come and gone. This is a heavy trip to lay on an 8-year-old. Showing this movie to a child is like carving a live dog up to show that knives are dangerous: “See how Missy yelps when we cut into her liver? We won't play with sharp objects anymore, will we?”
The Day After, 1983: Fundamentalist zealots haven't cornered the market on overly fearful movies with poor production values, heavens no! “See how Missy's insides rot from the middle from fallout? I guess we won't be playing with ICBM's anymore, will we?” My family and I actually skipped church to watch this two-part made-for-TV movie about life after they drop The Bomb. It definitely formed a solid anti-war sentiment inside me that sticks to this day. I'm not talking about just big nuke wars - I also formed an anti-war opinion against those pesky little wars where they only kill hundreds at a time instead of millions. Again, it gave me nightmares.
Goodfellas, 1990: Best. Mob. Film. Ever. This film got me into the mob film genre, having previously only seen Brian DePalma's lackluster The Untouchables. This movie prompted me to rent the Godfather trilogy as well as several other mob films that Kevin Costner might have otherwise soured for me. I saw this film while working in the movie theatre as a midnight employees-only preview the day before its public release. I remember seeing several great movies at these midnight parties like Silence Of the Lambs, Ghost, Hunt For The Red October, and that icon of cinema, House Party II. There was always an air of superiority at those parties with the knowledge that we were the first normal people to watch the whole movie. We would break all the theatre rules of bringing in outside food and smoking while we watched. When I got up to use the restroom, I was struck by an anachronistic image that sticks with me to this day: Facing the rear of the theatre from the front of the aisle, I saw the shaft of flickering light from the projection booth filtering through our cigarette smoke as it shown over the audience of tuxedo-shirted patrons while Joe Pesci gave his famous “Am I a clown to you?” speech. It was straight out of the 1940's.
The Dark Crystal, 1982: Creepy Muppet story of a Gelfling who quests to restore the balance of good and evil in a world of magic. This was the first movie I ever saw in a theater by myself, and the first I ever saw twice in a theater. The Grove Park Twin Cinemas in Lakeland was playing this movie next door to Kubrick's The Shining, and there was a teaser poster in the lobby for the next installment of the Star Wars trilogy, Revenge Of the Jedi. Yep, “revenge.” I am told this poster is worth a ton of money now. During my second viewing, I went to use the restroom during a slow part, and on the way I peeked into the theater next door. I was greeted with the disturbing sight of an elevator opening up, pouring an ocean of blood toward the audience. I was so scared, I forgot about the restroom and huddled in the safety of The Dark Crystal until it ended.
Raiders Of the Lost Ark, 1981: I had absolutely no desire to see this film. I didn't like westerns, and this guy had a cowboy hat on, so that made it a western. We were in a long line to see Superman II (again at the Grove Park Twin) when a groan filtered toward us: soooolllld oooouuuut … I was crushed. My father insisted that we stay and watch Raiders. A typical 10 year old, I sulked in the back of the theater and reluctantly watched stupid stinky Raiders of the Poopy Ark Thing. But wait a second, that's Han Solo being chased by a boulder. That's pretty okay! And Nazis are shooting at him? He's punching his way through everybody! Whoa, did Han Solo just shoot that guy who challenged him to a sword fight? That dude's face just freaking melted off his skull! This was the biggest cinematic surprise of my life. It surprised me so much that from that point on, I tried to see as few previews and reviews of movies as possible. To this day I will literally stick my fingers in my ears and hum when a preview for a new Star Trek movie comes on. Oh, and the Han Solo guy became the Indiana Jones guy in my mind.
The Paper Chase, 1973: I don't remember much about this film except that I was watching it alone one night on PBS when I was 7 or 8 years old. All I remember is the dream sequence where John Houseman's character reaches toward Timothy Bottoms and violently throttles him in fast motion. It scared me so bad that I didn't turn on my bedroom TV for a few days. When I finally got the courage to turn it back on, I would flip past the PBS station very quickly. I still have yet to see this film in its entirety. As a matter of fact, I'm going to check for it on Netflix right now … okay, it's at the top of the queue now. Face your fears and all that.
Star Trek - The Motion Picture, 1979: As a child, I was raised on Kirk and Spock. My mother kept a journal that I once found at my grandmother's house in which she wrote of me “... playing Star Trak [sic] (Spock and Bones) ...” parenthetically referencing the characters as if they would be forgotten in a year or two. While this wasn't the best Star Trek film, it was the one I most eagerly looked forward to. I was born after the series prematurely ended, but syndication was still going strong.My loyal love for the characters in the original series prevented me from watching the blasphemous “Next Generation” for a couple of years until Barak forced me, in his words, to “sit down and fucking watch this.” The Director's Cut of this film sucks. It sucks real bad. The extra footage is the masturbation of the visual effects department, and it amounts to watching the crew stare at the viewscreen at this marvelous new world of the best visual computer graphics that 1979 had to offer. For 10 minutes. For 10 life-sapping minutes.
Pink Floyd - The Wall, 1982: There are musical rock operas out there that we all love. The Who's Tommy, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Rocky Horror Picture Show … but these films all lack one vital element: Animated flowers that turn into man-eating vaginas. Until this film, labia-tipped floral symbolism was left to the viewer's mind; it took Pink Floyd to bring us the full impact of hot bloom-on-bloom action. I love this movie, but looking back on this particular scene, it's hard to believe that I needed this much bald-faced, elementary visual aid to realize, “Hey, maybe this guy has been hurt by a couple of women in his life.” Roger Waters might as well have appeared on-camera with a sad clown face, made an okay sign with his right hand and stuck his left index finger in the hole with an in-and-out motion. Wait a second - why am I trashing this movie?!? I love this movie! I just got a little carried away, but what I wrote is so entertaining to me, I'll let it stick. Pink Floyd rocks.
Jabberwocky, 1977: This was my first foray into Terry Gilliam films. After getting past the confusing fact that this was, in the director's words, “definitely NOT a Python film,” I enjoyed its dark tone. The only time I ever saw it in stores was in the $5 bin in Wal-Mart, and it disappeared along with a girlfriend. Even though it's not his best, I was able to appreciate Time Bandits, Fear and Loathing, and his (in my opinion) best film, Brazil.
The Way Of the Gun, 2000: I am so glad that stylization has made a comeback in cinema. Unashamed make-believe and over-the-top scripting is why the big screen was built. I don't have any particular single memory that sticks in my head about seeing this film; rather, whenever I see this film, it's almost always with a group of friends or with a loved one who appreciate this movie for what it is, tossing reality aside for a couple of hours. Isn't that what the movies are all about?
So there you have it. 25 or so movies that have touched my life. Like I said, I don't recommend all of them. I just needed a little nostalgic venting.
Here are the 25-Or-So Top Movie influences in my life. This is not to be confused with a “25 Best” or even “My faves.” Most of these movies are great, but a few of them are awful. These movies stick out in my mind as mile markers in my own life. I'll give a short drive-by synopsis of each (or maybe not), and a few reflections. In no particular order:
The Breakfast Club, 1984: Five teenagers find themselves in high school detention, and end up finding themselves in each other. My God, I should write movie taglines. This was the ultimate brat-pack movie, and I grew up in the middle of this era. Hell, what '80's teen watched this film and didn't identify with at least one of the characters? Many milestones coincide with this film. My first time watching it, I was at my first cast party of my first high school play - drunk for the very first time. My best high school friend Barak and I watched the film religiously again and again. I wore out many, many copies of the soundtrack, which I still consider to be one of the best ever. I adapted and directed a stage production of this gem at Polk Community College in the mid-90's with some of my friends who graciously allowed me to pull time from their busy schedules. There were some classic lines that are still used today - “Eat … My … Shorts.”
Taboo II, 1982: Synopsis - It's a porn with an unsurprising number of naked people. This movie was shown at the same cast party right after Breakfast Club. My first porn film, and I'm drunk. Needless to say, this film plus the alcohol made me a very, very witty person.
A Clockwork Orange, 1971: A dystopian view of our already outdated correctional system from the view of one troubled teenager. My first true appreciation of serious film comes from this Kubrick gem. I had the best job a 16-year-old high school student could ask for - I worked at Spec's music and video. I had access to all the latest releases of movies on VHS and music on the hottest format to date, the Compact Disc. The CD's came in artfully printed long boxes fit to hang on your wall, which were designed to thwart would-be shoplifters. One of the assistant managers steered me to certain titles that shaped my movie tastes for years to come. The first time I rented it, I was transfixed by the story. As I watched it for the first time at about 2am on our family VCR, I had just gotten to the point where Alex is being showcased for a bunch of bureaucrats. In one of the demonstrations, Alex is put in front of a beautiful naked woman to show that he is unable to have thoughts about sexual violence without physical pain. I was 16 years old, and here was the most absolutely perfect set of tits on the screen (I have yet to see a better pair anywhere on film or otherwise). In this situation at 2am, I want you to picture the worst thing that could happen. My mother forbade me to watch the rest of the film, and I was unable to watch it for almost a year.
Full Metal Jacket, 1987: Kubrick's Vietnam War epic follows a Marine from boot camp to his first kill. I saw this movie once on the big screen before going into the Marine Corps a few years later. The drill instructors showed us this movie on Thanksgiving Day. Having seen several Marine Corps movies depicting boot camp in all its glory, I am here to tell you: Full Metal Jacket captured the Parris Island experience perfectly. I have seen documentaries about Parris Island that don't evoke memories like this fiction does. Other Vietnam movies can't touch this film. For example:
Born On the Fourth Of July, 1989: Oliver Stone's vision of the Vietnam War. I didn't put this movie here just to compare it with Kubrick's film - it has a milestone memory of its own - but I'll go ahead and get the comparison out of the way: It doesn't, so there. The memorable moment was that this is the only time that I, before or since, paid to see a movie and walked out after the first half hour. It wasn't the gore, it wasn't bad acting, it was … well, I'm not sure what it was. The movie just didn't blow my skirt up. As I said, it wasn't that bad - just completely uninteresting to me. I have since seen it, and it fails to move me. I have sat through worse pieces of cinema, outraged that I was paying to see such tripe, but this movie wasn't even actively bad. It was a unique movie that left me completely unmoved, even to trash it. I liken the experience to a generic starburst mint you get from a restaurant - you pop it in your mouth, and don't even notice it's there until you want to say something to your date, and absentmindedly spit it out.
Young Frankenstein, 1974: Okay Sherman, set the Wayback for 1974. I was 4 years old and my father took us to see my first movie on the big screen. I marveled at the hugeness of this big TV set as well as the fact that there was no color. That's right, my first trip to the movies wasn't to see a Disney film; it was to see Madeline Kahn get raped by Peter Boyle … and she liked it! It remains as one of my favorite movies of all time for its classic humor blah blah blah. Another interesting personal tidbit is that I seem to have to buy another copy of this film every time I lose a girlfriend.
Citizen Kane, 1941: Orsen Wells' classic tale of the fall of a modern day feudal lord. What kind of milestone movie is complete without Citizen Kane? I include it not for its historic place in cinema, but for a late night in 1983 when I first watched (and enjoyed) an entire film on PBS that had no car chases, explosions, ninjas, spaceships, chainsaws or pie fights. It holds a place of honor in my DVD collection.
Kids In the Hall - Brain Candy, 1996: Say what you want about this unappreciated masterpiece. I contend that this is arguably tied with The Big Lebowski for first place as the smartest and funniest satire of the 1990's. I'm a huge KITH fan, and have every single season on DVD. For almost two years, I went to sleep every night with this movie playing in the background. This is also another movie that ex'es seem to get custody of.
Student Bodies, 1981: A comedy slasher film with Richard Belzer as the scary guy. As cheesy as it was, this was my first slasher film, and the first time I saw boobies on TV. The next door neighbor girl was a whole lot of firsts for me, and she had cable. Bless that girl, she opened up a lot of worlds to me … otherwise, this is a horrible movie. Bad effects and bad acting, it may be worth a look if you're a b-film fan. And did I mention boobies?
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, 1998: Terry Gilliam's masterpiece, this movie quickly made me an avid Hunter S. Thompson fan. I have since read Where the Buffalo Roam as well as Fear and Loathing and Hell's Angels. When I die, my ashes are going into fireworks. This is the movie that prompted me to switch to the DVD format. It is also the first movie I had ever seen that portrays a drug attitude similar to my own - drugs aren't evil or good. They're not something to be lorded or glamorized, but they shouldn't be condemned or vilified either. They are just there, and should be treated with respect … much like a warm and cuddly, vicious dog. Drugs have wrecked a lot of lives, but they also brought us the Beatles.
Bill Hicks Live - Satirist, Social Critic, Stand-Up Comedian, 2004: This man influenced George Carlin, Sam Kinison and many other "angry" comics of the 80's and 90's. His biting humor and bald faced social commentary gave a voice to many of my views in college. I discovered him at the same time I discovered that wonderful new medium of music exchange, Napster. I damn near filled my hard drive with his comedy and drove my conservative dorm mate batshit in the late '90's. I was crushed to find out he had died in '93 - I would have loved to see him live.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975: Having watched Flying Circus on late night PBS for years, I was finally privy to Holy Grail while working at Spec's in the mid '80's. Anyone who knew me in high school knew me as one of those annoying bastards who constantly quoted line after line to anyone who would listen, willingly or otherwise. This movie was another unifying bond to those of us into Dungeons and Dragons, Fawlty Towers, and Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It was a geek badge of honor to those of us who were into computers before computers (or geeks for that matter) were cool.
Bowling For Columbine, 2002: Whether you think he's the Limbaugh of the Looney Left or a Crusader for … well, for the Looney Left, Michael Moore certainly gained attention with this, his third feature documentary. I personally agree with most of his views, though I find his tactics darkly (for lack of a better or more appropriate term) Karl-Rove-ish. I have always liked documentaries, but this movie got me into a whole new realm of political activism and social documentaries. It was one of the only movies that I saw in the theatre and openly cried.
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, 1989: Michael Gambon (the second, not-dead guy who plays Dumbledore) has a wife who seeks an affair with an ordinary man after becoming bored with the mob scene. Tim Roth also stars. This is one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen, both for its overly rich cinematic presentation and for its thematic content. I saw this while working in a Lakeland movie theatre, and I was struck by how hard that Jamey (a high school friend and assistant manager) had successfully lobbied to get this foreign art film into such a mainstream-oriented venue in a rather conservative community. Though the movie didn't do very well, Jamey stuck by his guns and defended the movie to his rather stiff general manager as something he believed in. It also opened up a world of film where neat, cut-and-dry endings aren't necessary to make a great story.
They Live, 1988: During my stint at Spec's, my friend Barak and I had a weekend tradition. We would get a twelve-pack of Mountain Dew and rent the absolute worst B-grade film I could find on the video shelf - movies like Clan of the Cave Bear, The Stuff, Saturn 3, and the RHPC sequel Shock Treatment. Sometimes, we would dig up a gem that was surprisingly good. Former wrestling star “Rowdy” Roddy Piper in the starring role of a John Carpenter film? It sounded like the nails had been welded into the coffin, but we loved it! The story line was interesting, and the parts that Carpenter's budget couldn't support were wisely thickened with gooey cheese. The best fight scene in the movie (which lasts a good ten minutes) is between the two good guys over a pair of sunglasses. I recently found out that someone is remaking this movie in 2011. I'm a little leery of B-film remakes. The originals are almost always narrowly-avoided train wrecks - it should have been a disaster, but seeing the locomotive barely hang onto the rails of a shoestring budget is half the fun of a B-film. The audience not only roots for the good guy, but waits with bated breath to see the director's house of cards withstand the hurricane. Pushing money at them to shore up the risky production takes the fun out it. I'm looking at you, Blob. You too, Escape From LA. Okay, there are a few exceptions, like:
The Evil Dead trilogy, 1981 through 1992: Another great find from the B-film archive, this one was all Barak's idea. This plucky little engine-that-could showed me that a creative endeavor can step outside the boundaries of itself to make something else entirely - if the artist is flexible enough to laugh at himself. The first movie is meant to be a horror film, but was so bad it was funny. The second installment, Dead By Dawn, was a mulligan - Sam Raimi simply tried again with more money, making a truly scary film that kept the laughable manic flavor of the first. In Army Of Darkness, Raimi realized that these movies were just damned funny and focused on the camp value of the overwrought but headstrong Ash character. Raimi went on to direct some truly great films like Spiderman and A Perfect Plan.
The Last Temptation Of Christ, 1988: Not to be confused with the snuff film, Passion of … This movie came out during a spiritually rebellious phase of my life. Normally, I would have ignored it during this time, but since the church was protesting it I had to see it. Far from being a blasphemous finger at God, it shows the humanity of Jesus. Nowadays, I am by no means a devout follower, but I am not actively opposed to religion either. I think this movie helped to let me see that beliefs are just that - beliefs. Scorning them doesn't make them any less true, but fervent discipleship doesn't make them any more true. Some fundamentalists distort the simple truth that mankind is fallible into a pornographic travesty that all men are inherently evil and all imperfection is doomed to burn. I learned that imperfection does not warrant whole-cloth damnation, but a desire to improve. I think the reason this second approach doesn't sell as well is that there are far less explosions and car chases.
A Thief In the Night, 1972: Speaking of fundamentalist apocalyptic gloom and doom, Patty ignores the warnings both from friends and the book of Revelations, and finds herself trapped in the Tribulation, left behind after the second coming of Jesus. If you've ever seen Left Behind, picture it with about a tenth of the budget and a lot more polyester clothing. Not to spoil the movie, but things end badly for our protagonist, but not before a vain struggle to resist both the Evil Forces of the antichrist and the last vestiges of the church. This movie scared the life out of me when I viewed it in my Pentecostal church with the entire congregation. This was shown at the end of a two-week seminar at our church with preachers who specialized in the apocalyptic teachings of Revelations. I had nightmares and panic attacks for years afterward. When I would arrive at home with nobody there, I was convinced that I had screwed up somehow, and that Jesus had come and gone. This is a heavy trip to lay on an 8-year-old. Showing this movie to a child is like carving a live dog up to show that knives are dangerous: “See how Missy yelps when we cut into her liver? We won't play with sharp objects anymore, will we?”
The Day After, 1983: Fundamentalist zealots haven't cornered the market on overly fearful movies with poor production values, heavens no! “See how Missy's insides rot from the middle from fallout? I guess we won't be playing with ICBM's anymore, will we?” My family and I actually skipped church to watch this two-part made-for-TV movie about life after they drop The Bomb. It definitely formed a solid anti-war sentiment inside me that sticks to this day. I'm not talking about just big nuke wars - I also formed an anti-war opinion against those pesky little wars where they only kill hundreds at a time instead of millions. Again, it gave me nightmares.
Goodfellas, 1990: Best. Mob. Film. Ever. This film got me into the mob film genre, having previously only seen Brian DePalma's lackluster The Untouchables. This movie prompted me to rent the Godfather trilogy as well as several other mob films that Kevin Costner might have otherwise soured for me. I saw this film while working in the movie theatre as a midnight employees-only preview the day before its public release. I remember seeing several great movies at these midnight parties like Silence Of the Lambs, Ghost, Hunt For The Red October, and that icon of cinema, House Party II. There was always an air of superiority at those parties with the knowledge that we were the first normal people to watch the whole movie. We would break all the theatre rules of bringing in outside food and smoking while we watched. When I got up to use the restroom, I was struck by an anachronistic image that sticks with me to this day: Facing the rear of the theatre from the front of the aisle, I saw the shaft of flickering light from the projection booth filtering through our cigarette smoke as it shown over the audience of tuxedo-shirted patrons while Joe Pesci gave his famous “Am I a clown to you?” speech. It was straight out of the 1940's.
The Dark Crystal, 1982: Creepy Muppet story of a Gelfling who quests to restore the balance of good and evil in a world of magic. This was the first movie I ever saw in a theater by myself, and the first I ever saw twice in a theater. The Grove Park Twin Cinemas in Lakeland was playing this movie next door to Kubrick's The Shining, and there was a teaser poster in the lobby for the next installment of the Star Wars trilogy, Revenge Of the Jedi. Yep, “revenge.” I am told this poster is worth a ton of money now. During my second viewing, I went to use the restroom during a slow part, and on the way I peeked into the theater next door. I was greeted with the disturbing sight of an elevator opening up, pouring an ocean of blood toward the audience. I was so scared, I forgot about the restroom and huddled in the safety of The Dark Crystal until it ended.
Raiders Of the Lost Ark, 1981: I had absolutely no desire to see this film. I didn't like westerns, and this guy had a cowboy hat on, so that made it a western. We were in a long line to see Superman II (again at the Grove Park Twin) when a groan filtered toward us: soooolllld oooouuuut … I was crushed. My father insisted that we stay and watch Raiders. A typical 10 year old, I sulked in the back of the theater and reluctantly watched stupid stinky Raiders of the Poopy Ark Thing. But wait a second, that's Han Solo being chased by a boulder. That's pretty okay! And Nazis are shooting at him? He's punching his way through everybody! Whoa, did Han Solo just shoot that guy who challenged him to a sword fight? That dude's face just freaking melted off his skull! This was the biggest cinematic surprise of my life. It surprised me so much that from that point on, I tried to see as few previews and reviews of movies as possible. To this day I will literally stick my fingers in my ears and hum when a preview for a new Star Trek movie comes on. Oh, and the Han Solo guy became the Indiana Jones guy in my mind.
The Paper Chase, 1973: I don't remember much about this film except that I was watching it alone one night on PBS when I was 7 or 8 years old. All I remember is the dream sequence where John Houseman's character reaches toward Timothy Bottoms and violently throttles him in fast motion. It scared me so bad that I didn't turn on my bedroom TV for a few days. When I finally got the courage to turn it back on, I would flip past the PBS station very quickly. I still have yet to see this film in its entirety. As a matter of fact, I'm going to check for it on Netflix right now … okay, it's at the top of the queue now. Face your fears and all that.
Star Trek - The Motion Picture, 1979: As a child, I was raised on Kirk and Spock. My mother kept a journal that I once found at my grandmother's house in which she wrote of me “... playing Star Trak [sic] (Spock and Bones) ...” parenthetically referencing the characters as if they would be forgotten in a year or two. While this wasn't the best Star Trek film, it was the one I most eagerly looked forward to. I was born after the series prematurely ended, but syndication was still going strong.My loyal love for the characters in the original series prevented me from watching the blasphemous “Next Generation” for a couple of years until Barak forced me, in his words, to “sit down and fucking watch this.” The Director's Cut of this film sucks. It sucks real bad. The extra footage is the masturbation of the visual effects department, and it amounts to watching the crew stare at the viewscreen at this marvelous new world of the best visual computer graphics that 1979 had to offer. For 10 minutes. For 10 life-sapping minutes.
Pink Floyd - The Wall, 1982: There are musical rock operas out there that we all love. The Who's Tommy, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Rocky Horror Picture Show … but these films all lack one vital element: Animated flowers that turn into man-eating vaginas. Until this film, labia-tipped floral symbolism was left to the viewer's mind; it took Pink Floyd to bring us the full impact of hot bloom-on-bloom action. I love this movie, but looking back on this particular scene, it's hard to believe that I needed this much bald-faced, elementary visual aid to realize, “Hey, maybe this guy has been hurt by a couple of women in his life.” Roger Waters might as well have appeared on-camera with a sad clown face, made an okay sign with his right hand and stuck his left index finger in the hole with an in-and-out motion. Wait a second - why am I trashing this movie?!? I love this movie! I just got a little carried away, but what I wrote is so entertaining to me, I'll let it stick. Pink Floyd rocks.
Jabberwocky, 1977: This was my first foray into Terry Gilliam films. After getting past the confusing fact that this was, in the director's words, “definitely NOT a Python film,” I enjoyed its dark tone. The only time I ever saw it in stores was in the $5 bin in Wal-Mart, and it disappeared along with a girlfriend. Even though it's not his best, I was able to appreciate Time Bandits, Fear and Loathing, and his (in my opinion) best film, Brazil.
The Way Of the Gun, 2000: I am so glad that stylization has made a comeback in cinema. Unashamed make-believe and over-the-top scripting is why the big screen was built. I don't have any particular single memory that sticks in my head about seeing this film; rather, whenever I see this film, it's almost always with a group of friends or with a loved one who appreciate this movie for what it is, tossing reality aside for a couple of hours. Isn't that what the movies are all about?
So there you have it. 25 or so movies that have touched my life. Like I said, I don't recommend all of them. I just needed a little nostalgic venting.