In My Life: Your ESSENTIAL Movies

Were there ten Police Academy movies?

Actually, there were seven.

I think only seven, you can pad the rest out with Revenge of the Nerds.

EDIT: I'm going to give you a real answer Elvis, I'm actually thinking on this one.

I would give a real answer but some of it would conflict with the 80's draft.

/thread

Fastest time ever.

But, in all seriousness, and in no particular order:

Jurassic Park (one of my first 'holy shit' theater experiences)
Star Wars (obviously)
2001: A Space Odyssey (showed me what movies could reallllly be)
Princess Mononoke (the movie that got me into anime; magnificent, one of the most breathtaking animated films I've seen)
Raiders (the movie responsible for getting me interested in archaeology, but more importantly, the movie that made me want to make movies
Grand Hotel (I saw this with my mom years ago, and it was one of my favorite experiences ever; simply wonderful)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (saw it with my dad, began my love affair with the Western and with Clint Eastwood)
The Lion King (best Disney movie ever, was 11 when it came out and oh man...greatness)
Pi (inspiration; went 'hmmm...if he could do that with that budget, there's no telling what I could do!)
The Phantom Menace (I know, but it's the movie that showed me that gasp! films can disappoint, even if I didn't realize it until years later while staring down my closet of Episode I action figures and going 'oh fucking hell...')

Wow, that's a very...safe list? Have I even seen a non-Hollywood movie...let me check on that.

Halloween
Boogie Nights
Ghostbusters
Back to the Future
Aliens
Billy Madison
Pulp Fiction
Clerks
The Terminator
The Rocky Horror Picture Show

I apologize in advance for the length. But it's not like I could actually do a blog about this.

These are the movies that had some kind of an effect of my life. I have divided into sections.

LIFE EXPERIENCES

La Segunda Hora de Esteban Zayas - A Cuban film. Back when my dad was in Havana working on his documentary, I used to roam the halls of ICAIC. (Cuban film institute) and I made friends with the director. He allowed me to sit in on looping and editing sessions. He showed me an early cut of the movie (which is about a man named Esteban Zayas who is tortured and killed for political reasons. It's 100 minutes of him hanging out with his girlfriend in the morning, then going downtown to shoot some pool with his buddies, then going home, getting kidnapped by the military who take him to a rocky beach, torture him, beat the shit out of him and shoot him to death. That's the whole movie) and he asked for my opinion. I was 7 years old. I had the balls to tell him I thought his movie was kind of pointless and felt long. He laughed and shook my hand as his producer nodded in agreement.

Flash Gordon - Because they used to show this once a week on television back when I lived in Cuba. I ended up memorizing a movie I didn't particularly like.

La Niña de los Hoyitos - Mexican melodrama about a young man in love with his pretty blond classmate. "Hoyitos" means little holes - they refer to the dimples when she smiles. The kid's father is an air force pilot and he dies halfway through the film in a fiery explosion. The kid wins the soccer game at the end and it ends on a freeze-frame of him going: "That was for you dad!" Saw it in Cuba when I was 8 years old and cried like a bitch. It taught me a valuable lesson about shitty manipulative Mexican cinema. (Nine out of ten Mexican films are manipulative tear jerkers) it's why I can see right through Alejandro (Overrated) Iñarritu.

Mackenna's Gold - More crying. I wept buckets when Gregory Peck blows Omar Sharif away. I remember it was such an unpleasant experience that it made my dad and stepmom fight and we all made quite a scene on the streets of Budapest in 1984. I didn't know it then, but I was learning that it's actually possible and interesting to have a sympathetic villain in a movie.

Apocalypse Now - This was Hungary and they wouldn't let me in the theater because I was too young. (8. I think) Somehow I was escorted to the projection booth (my dad talked to some people... whatever) and I watched the whole movie from there. Strange. I eventually fell asleep.

Supergirl - Saw it in Canada with my dad. We walked into the theater 10 minutes late. After the movie was over, my dad said we could wait for it to start again to see the beginning. We did. And I actually made my poor father sit through that entire piece of shit movie a second time. (I think he took a nap) It was the first and only time I've ever done that in my life.

The 400 Blows - On Monday, as all my other school mates were talking about The Golden Child or Jumping Jack Flash or some other movie they had seen over the weekend, I realized this was the sort of thing my parents were taking me to see and I would never really be able to fit in. I remember envying them and wanting to have a "normal" upbringing. I remember quite clearly how fucking stupid I was.

My Beautiful Launderette - Saw this with my stepmom and our friend Relda when it opened in 85. The important thing is it incited me to discuss homosexuality with my parents. I was able to talk about a beloved gay relative and start on the road to being an open-minded person. Just another example of the kinds of movies I was taken to see. The week after this, I think we went to see Oliver Stone's Salvador... At the same theater in the East Village.

After Hours - My favorite Scorsese. The texture of the movie is so vivid. You feel like you're actually there. That, plus I grew up in Chinatown, not too far from where the movie takes place. It was the first movie that had a profound impact on me and I couldn't get it out of my head. I couldn't walk around my neighborhood at night without thinking about it.


DIY FILM SCHOOL

Monty Python and the Holy Grail/Meaning of Life - Shaped my sense of humor. We used to do home movies with my cousin. We had a little weird sketch comedy show with absurdist plotting and surreal elements. He thought we were ripping off You Can't Do That On Television. Then I showed him the Python movies and he realized that was what we were actually ripping off.

The Shining - I fan edited the shit out of this movie with my cousin back before fan editing existed. (Two VCRs) We would use it as the basis for all kinds of different types of plots. (One of them involved The Scatman being a pedophile). You know that really funny Shining trailer on the web? We did that shit first. Years ago. It taught me storytelling through creative editing.

Die Hard - A terrific action film. But also a master class in genre screenwriting. The first screenplays I attempted were genre scripts and they followed this template.

Scarface - It inspired me to write my first "epic" screenplay. An unfinished gangster opus. That, plus the fact that the Bolivian guy Tony doesn't want to kill? That was my father. We have a family joke: Scarface died for you dad.

Pulp Fiction - I thought QT was a great writer since I saw True Romance. But this movie just inspired me to really get on my game. It was the most fun I had ever had in a theater up to that point. And when I realized, without a doubt, that I wanted to be a director rather than an actor.

Judge Dredd - The first published film review I ever wrote. Being the film critic for Bolivian Times (English language weekly) was my unofficial film school.

PERSONAL TASTE

Magnolia - The bar for me. I hope I can one day make a movie as good as this. And I know I never will.

An American Werewolf in London - My favorite movie of all time.

Thanx for reading, if u got this far.

PS: I can't settle on a specific Cassavettes movie. But, before starting work on Nocturnia, I screened Faces for the crew. I plan to make it a tradition to screen a Cassavettes the night before production on all my films. The man just inspires me to tell whatever story I feel like telling and fuck what anybody says.

For now, I'm just going to do my list. I'll pop back in later and add my reasoning for each choice.

Star Wars
Pulp Fiction
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Clerks
The Thing
Blazing Saddles
Ghostbusters
Robocop
Evil Dead II
Full Metal Jacket

So I thought I’d do this choronologically

7 Years Old - Who Framed Roger Rabbit

The first film that actually makes me excited about movies in general. By this point I’d been shown a ton of classic films by my mother, but seeing this in the theatre was what got me into movies themselves.

10 Years Old- The Big Blue

The first film I fall in love with in a visual sense. Even today I think about that use of colour and music.

11 Years Old - Seven Samurai

The first film which I seek out for a second viewing and discover I really like it. I’d seen this earlier and due to my age had never got into it. Catching it on TV I was just transfixed by the film.

11 Years Old – Delicatessen

The first film I discover myself, flicking through TV I caught the opening sequence of this and was just amazed by it.

12 Years Old - Project A

My first Kung Fu film and it’s the reason why I still favour Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung’s stunt based work to the older Shaw Brothers stuff

14 Years Old – Blue Velvet

The first film I ever watch which I don’t get. It’s my first challenge and it just completely fascinates me.

15 Years Old – M

Introducing people to this film was an incredible experience. I realised it was playing at a cinema near me and I literally had to drag some of my friends to see it.

17 Years Old – Zatoichi

Completely blew my mind in terms of what Asian cinema was doing. Up until that point I hadn’t really been interested in contemporary asian cinema at all and that film made me want to find out what I’d been missing

20 Years Old - Until The End Of The World

Realising that this was a film that I personally loved, but also recognising its flaws. The first time I was really able to separate an emotional reaction from the critical process

21 Years Old – Aliens

When I realised that an infallible childhood classic wasn’t all that infallible.

Heat- I've always loved movies but after watching (and subsequently becoming obsessed with) this and everything Michael Mann and co. put into it, I became hooked on movies as a craft. Film became something more than just having a good time at the theater with my buddies or my dad or something to fill up shelf space. It became something I wanted to study and learn and immerse myself in.

Star Wars- Like everyone else, next to no explanation is needed. Very few other movies have managed to spark my imagination like this did.

Seven Samurai- This floored me the first time I saw it. Everything about it, every actor, shot, everything is just an amazing achievement that gets better every time I watch it.

The Fountain- I can't remember the last movie that truly left me speechless like this one. I remember sitting in the theater at the end for about five minutes in absolute silence (which wasn't hard considering there was only three or four other people in there) just blown away by what I had seen. It took me another five minutes of sitting in my car before I tried calling up a friend of mine and attempt to describe the emotions swirling through my mind.

The Thin Man- I took a class in college called Literature & Film. The movies we watched were supposed to relate to the books we read but it was mostly the professor's chance to show off his favorite movies. Which was fine with me since they were all fantastic and I got exposed to some great stuff in there, one such film was this. Obviously the pairing of William Powell and Myrna Loy was what hooked me. Their chemistry is still unmatched to this day, in my opinion. One of the all-time perfect screen pairings.

Dr. Strangelove- The first Kubrick movie I ever saw. (Also another one my prof. showed us. Yes, my passion for film bloomed quite late in my life. I have a lot of catching up to do.)

Fight Club- This was one of the first movies that I ever really had a lenghty discussion with my friends over. I saw it my senior year of high school and it was completely unlike anything I had ever watched. I know that sounds kinda pathetic, but I had also lived a fairly sheltered life and hadn't been exposed to a whole lot in the way of film. My parents were very strict in what me and my siblings could and could not watch, so pretty much anything R-rated I had to either go to a friend's house to see or just wait until I was 17 to see it on my own and none of my friends had very good taste in movies, either.

Evil Dead Trilogy- I had always had fun watching these, but it wasn't until I read Bruce Campbell's autobiography (which was ridiculously entertaining in and of itself) where he talked about things Sam Raimi would come up with to get the shots he needed on a shoestring budget that I truly developed an appreciation for the kind of "Do It Yourself" approach Raimi had in those early days.

Brazil- This will, for me, forever be the film that completely sums up everything that makes Terry Gilliam special as a filmmaker. No one will ever make a movie quite like this one.

A Night At The Opera- Duck Soup may get more laughs out of the whole running time, but this one feels more focused in terms of the actual film. The first Marx Bros. movie I ever watched and still my favorite.

1. Seven Samurai - it was the only film my parents agreed was great and I adored getting to stay in and watch it even when it was pretty outside.

2. The Blob - This film terrified me when I was six and still gives me heebies today.

3. Swing Time - Watching Ginger "teach" Fred to dance is an image that has stuck in my head for nearly 20 years.

4.Last of the Mohicans - First film I let myself cry through.

5. Driving Mrs. Daisy/Steel Magnolias - My dad pirated these two films onto the same VHS tape. My cousins, sister and I would do a double feature every Saturday. Even now I can't watch one without the other.

6. Clue - Shaped my humor and made me want to become a writer. In fact when I was 8 my cousins, sister and I wrote a play STRONGLY based on this. It was a hit....with no one.

7. Notorious - A fantastic spy film that first led me to understanding film lighting and cinematography.

8. Star Wars - Led to my love of archetypes and "traditional storytelling" and literary theory.

9. Clash of the Titans - Led to my life long obsession with Greek mythology. I would watch it and then detail all the inaccuracies and deliver it as a speech at dinner....I had patient parents.

10. Back to the Future - According to friends they watch that film and understand me...which disturbs me greatly.