The "Thank the unverse for Dad/Mom's movie influences" thread

My mom has horrible taste in everything, including film. My dad, though, rented Dawn of the Dead for my ninth birthday party. He showed me The Fly and The Thing and he drove the young me to the nearest theater that was showing Spirited Away. He loved sci-fi and horror, but respected quality in general, which probably helped to prepare me for this site.

I guess that I can thank my dad for introducing the Shaw Bros films to me. Other than that, he likes a lot of crap movies, some of which I can enjoy from time to time. I must have gotten a little of the crap gene from him too I guess.

My dad's passed on but one of the greatest gifts he gave me was his love of horror films. I can remember being five years old and sitting in the theater peeking thru my fingers while kids around me screamed in delight during Halloween (initial '78 release). The old man and I must have seen it 5 times that year. He also used to take me to midnight showings of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead. Sure miss those days.

My mom has never been a real film enthusiast, so, usually, I'm the person who introduces her to stuff. However, during my freshman year of college, we were in a Blockbuster together and she strongly recommended the original The Manchurian Candidate to me. It's pretty much her one and only film recommendation so far and it was quite solid.

My mom was always good with showing me the classics whenever they were on, but I give her extra special kudos for trusting my 8 year old self and my patience enough to say "It's called 2001. Wanna watch?"

I've often been grateful that my parents managed to sit me down in front of Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, The Third Man and Dr Zhivago.
The problem being that I now need to watch them again.

my dad really cultivated my teenage film watching experiences. he showed me so many classics that i hadn't been allowed to watch previously.

First on the list: Aliens.
still one of the single greatest movie experiences of my life. i remember standing on my couch paralyzed with a mixture of fear and exhilaration.

then came other action classics, Die Hard, the Terminator, The Warriors, Last Man Standing etc...
then some real classics, Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca, Cool Hand Luke and others

My Dad really nurtured me with quality film from a very young age. He got me into John Carpenter by watching Escape From New York with me when I was 6, and letting me stay up on saturday nights, and watching genre flicks on local stations like The Fly, Aliens, The Hidden, The Termintor, and Predator.

My Mother as well, watching First Blood with me, and some of the genre flicks they'd show on friday night on USA. One in particular that stands out is Jaws 2.

I've seen a lot of flicks with them in the theater, and some of my best highlights ever were watching Darkman in the theater with them, and Jacob's Ladder. Jacob's Ladder scared the piss out of me, but it's a movie that I really connect with my Dad, just like Carpenter's The Thing, and Unforgiven, which I also saw in the theater with them.

He's also been a member of Columbia House for years, so when I was 6 he showed me The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, and throughout my childhood, I saw Blade Runner, Chinatown, The Deer Hunter, and many others. So yeah, pretty much all of my film/comic/soundtrack/toy collecting geekiness was inherited from him, and I'm extremely proud of that.

My parents are really... patriotic? Not sure if that's the right word, but they insisted on watching a lot of films, just nothing really foreign. I saw Swedish films, and almost everything Bergman's ever done, and a lot of slovak and czech films, but I didn't see more than five films outside those three countries until I landed in the U.K. years ago. I guess if anything I've developed a strong appreciation for the films of where I come from, and the importance those have in establishing a cinematic...identity. God that sounds pretentious, but it's late and that's all I'm able to think of.