How did your parents shape your movie habits? - Page 2

I was exposed to NOTHING when I was a kid. All things considered, I should probably have some kind of negative association with movies as my mom curses my dad for being at a screening of Raiders of the Lost ark when she went into labor with me. Supposedly, I may have even 'seen' Die Hard in the theater. But I was too young to know what the deal was so I went to sleep.

I was more of a Saturday morning cartoon kid. My mom had no particular interest in film. My dad always had dreams of getting into filmmaking (something I've never seen him display any knack for, to be honest), but ironically I don't think any of my enthusiasm came from him. He seemed to mostly keep that part of him to himself. So I wasn't exposed to cinema when I was young. I was more into video games and action figures. Ninja Turtles and Mario Bros. Batman was the first major blockbuster movie I remember being excited about, but I consider that more of an event as opposed to cinema. It didn't get me interested in cinema itself.

A neighbor once lent me a VHS tape of Disney's Beauty & The Beast they had rented from Blockbuster. I don't really ever remember that film having much of an impact on me, but clearly it did. Because I love the movie. I was utterly taken. I always thought such cartoons were for cootie-ridden girls. B&B led me to go see Aladdin in theaters to be amazed again. And when The Lion King hit... jesus. It was epic. It's my favorite Disney movie by default and I can pretty much quote and sing the whole movie (probably not as well anymore). But even then... not cinema.

Predictably, it was Star Wars that really did it. Got me into seeing film from a filmmaker's point of view. To think about having to make a film, you get more critical about elements of them. Star Wars opened up a world for me. It got me reading magazines like Entertainment Weekly (DON'T LAUGH!!!) and Premiere.

Then awesomely, my dad took me to see Face/Off in the summer of 97. That film opened up cinema for me on an international level. Now I knew about Woo, which led me to Tarantino, which led me to discover a lot of cinematic history that influenced him. From there, I kept reading around and discovered exactly WHY my public library never had any 'good' movies available for checkout. They were always on HOLD! Once I discovered that, I was watching all sorts of films. Kurosawa, Polanski, Keaton, more Woo, Tarantino, Lean, Verhoven, Leone, Coppola (in no particular order) ... All sorts of films I would never be able to rent from stores due to content (I had to be sneaky with the sex & nudity) and price. I took home piles of VHS tapes with me. Even better, the library tended to try to carry the widescreen versions of the videotapes. I was able to get into the OAR groove of things pretty early on.

I'm proud to say that I developed my movie habits independently for the most part. I'm just sad to realize that those habits have become significantly lacking due to laziness.

And about Patrick's story about being stuck in the video store... I TOTALLY had that happen to me too. Just trying to imagine the whole movie based on a lurid box cover and a sensationalized description on the back only to go home empty handed... it sucked.

My family hated going to the movies. So, I rarely got to do a lot of stuff like that. It was all outdoorsy for the most part.

But, then I discovered someone on The Movie Channel that I found interesting.

Joe Bob Briggs.


I liked the films he selected. I like his commentaries and I liked the personality. From his genre schlock, I discovered what I liked and what I didn't like.

In terms of classic cinema, I used to have a series of people in my life that forced me to read the book of any film adaptation that I wanted to see. This sort of baiting helped me to get into everything from The Diary of Anne Frank to In Cold Blood.

Then, I started getting into later High School when it became cool to try and one-up people on street cred.

You seen Faces of Death? Well, I saw I Spit On Your Grave?

or

You seen Sawdust and Tinsel? Well, I saw I AM CURIOUS YELLOW without subtitles.

This sort of double-dog daring helped to start the last leg of where I am today.

So, I can't say it was all my parents. But, they did 1/3 of the work. The rest you can blame on Joe Bob Briggs and peers.

My dad died when I was 10 years old. Before he died, he had taken me to see:

Jaws
Semi-Tough
Gator
Smokey & The Bandit
The Enforcer

He also had me watch Dracula (with Bela Lugosi) and The Thing From Another World (my favorite old B&W sci-fi movie). My dad was an older guy, and from that "tough guy" period where he routinely went to the Elks club and played cards, had a few drinks with dinner, smoked 2-3 packs a day, and never let anyone get away with anything. I never realized that he was kind of short (like 5'7") until much later in life, I saw him standing next to my mom in a picture and they were the same height. Since I was a kid, I always had to look up to him, so I thought he was a giant.

I think I can honestly say they havent influenced my movie habits much at all.

Face/Off warped my fragile little mind at age 9. I remember thinking the movie looked lame (because my mom did I think!) but finally we saw it on vacation at the insistence of my cousin. I fucking loved every second. My future stepdad loved it. My mom (who cursed me for dragging her to Con Air, my first R-rated movie) loved it. Around 4th/5th grade, I was sucked into the action genre. I was cautious of the Alien films and Predator (thought they'd be too gory and scare me...why!?), but I was in: all the Lethal Weapons, Die Hards, T2, The Last Boy Scout, The French Connection, Black Rain...the older I got the bigger cred I built up.

Unfortunately my dad died in 1994 when I was 6 1/2, so I don't know what he was a fan of or what he would have forced me to watch had he lived longer or still been alive.

In fact, my mom letting me watch movies became a problem at school. I'm not kidding. At all. This was, of course, post-Columbine in June of 1999, and I don't know every detail (and don't want to ask my mom since I hate hearing stories about me when I was younger in my presence), but I saw The General's Daughter in theaters at 11. Yes, I saw some adult shit for a 5th grader, stuff that people would try to come-up me on Are You More Fucked Up Than a 5th Grader? I said I saw it. The school panicked in some capacity. My mom defended. She made them look stupid for interfering in her parenting*. I stopped sharing what R-rated movies I saw to kids and teachers.

* - my mom has done far more hilarious acts of tearing school personnel apart, like telling a bullish female Marlon Brando science teacher who I failed a test for (and others too) that she failed to teach the material correctly. Like the C4-tipped arrows to my Rambo.

The General's Daughter does a number on you at any age.

In what way? Not that I like it...

Well, I haven't seen it, but I heard on the CHUD podcast that someone gets spread-eagled, fake raped, real raped, and then killed.