I got to reading about some of my favorite directors and not so favorite directors and despite my love or hate for them, I have something in common with them. A love for film and aspiration to create movies. And something that always interested me was what movies inspired them. What movies inspired everyone here to come to love and admire movies?
For me it was The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. I don't particularly love the movie though I do own it and let it play in the background on occasion just because, but I remember sitting on my dad's lap and watching it when I was at least four or five and thinking, "This is so awesome. How did they do this?" Soon after I remember seeing the Terminator 2 trailer and all of a sudden movies were important to me.
So that's the question, what movie made you love movies?
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Inspiration
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I know it is totally cliche, but I know Star Wars is where my love for movies truly blossomed.
When I was younger, I had seen plenty of movies of course. The ones I remember most would be Star Wars, T2, Aliens, Die Hard, Indiana Jones, Lost Boys, Monty Python, Revenge of the Nerds, Charlotte's Web, Ninja Turtles and Goonies. And also Heavyweights. Quite the eclectic collection I say.But very rarely did we ever go to see movies at the theater. We were a family of five. I couldn't drive, or easily reach the nearest theater, so I had to rely on a family event to come up in order for us to go to the theater. Birthdays, Grandparents, good grades...All were used as reason to go see a flick. Hell I didn't get to see Jurassic Park in the theaters, and everyone saw that.
Shortly before we moved to Germany, I got to see the original trilogy on the big screen albeit the special editions. What I had been forced to witness on a 24 inch TV screen was now blown up over a hundred feet. It was an awe inspiring moment in my childhood. It was here that I witnessed just how great an experience at the movies can really be. Not just seeing the movie itself, but the entire experience. The food, the sound, the scope, the crowds, the applause, etc.
Once we moved to Germany, ticket price went down immensely for us. You could go see a movie for like two bucks. And in a country where you couldn't do a whole lot without knowing the language, I turned to the movies for comfort. I remember vividly seeing Titanic, Mercury Rising, Good Will Hunting, Blue Bros 2000 (thats right), Jackie Brown, Dark City, City of Angels, LA Confidential, Men in Black, George of the Jungle, and a whole lot more. And I didn't even go to the movies as a social event. I didn't often go with friends. I would bike there myself, and sit and have a a good time.
And naturally I've maintained that enthusiasm seeing a whole range of films. This week alone I saw a Woody Allen pic, a French comedy, a '44 film noir, a Zombie flick, a documentary, a three hour miniseries, a philosophy meditation epic, Johnny Utah & Bodhi surfing, #2 on AFI's Best Films ever list, and the definitive 90s pic, Clueless. My love for cinema keeps growing. I don't know of any other medium, that has inspired so many. Except for porn, but that is another topic altogether.
Good topic.
For me, it wasn't Star Wars or E.T. or even The Godfather.
Nope, to me (and this may lose me a lot of credibility, but)... it was Jean Claude Van Damme. It was Steven Seagal. It was Sylvester Stallone. It was Arnold Schwarzenegger.
To me as a kid, movies were a bonding experience mainly with my dad - and those are the films he loved. Plus any type of martial arts or action film.
It's weird to think about it now, considering I've become an admitted film snob, but that's where my roots were. Kickboxer, Predator, Bloodsport. Those played on repeat in my house.
But the #1 inspiring film for me was one already mentioned, Terminator 2. I've honest-to-God watched that film probably more than 100 times in my life (although most of that was within a few year span as a kid).
So while now I would cite Lawrence of Arabia and the Leone westerns and any number of Spielberg or Scorsese film as inspiration... T2 is the real answer to that question.
And that's one of the reasons it maintains a spot in my Top 5 or 6 films of all-time and has since I first saw it.
Those dumb bloody martial arts pictures were also a big part of my upbringing. I use to love the "Best of the Best" series with Eric Roberts and Chris Penn. I even ended up taking Tae Kwon Do for two years because of my love for those flicks. I was also big into Chuck Norris because our instructor knew him. I loved Sidekicks with him and Jonathon Brandis, whom would later kill himself. And obviously as a kid, I loved the 3 Ninjas films.
My mom also started a tradition for us called Fright Night. Every Friday night we would rent a horror flick. I don't know why she did this because she doesn't care for those types of films, but we did anyways. As a kid I always loved Chucky, Jason, and Freddy, but my favorite horror series was Puppetmaster. I saw those repeatedly. My favorite was Leech Woman. Her "power" was she would sneak up on you when you were sleeping and would vomit an infinite number of leeches on you till you died. How dumb is that?
So we can all safely say that Terminator 2 was one of our biggest influences as film enthusiasts.
Fuckin' movie about a time traveling killer mercenary robot went and did all that.
This actually rather tough. I think I've been in love with film since my first memory of it, but my obsession with it has certainly changed over time.
The first movie I can remember watching was Return of the Jedi. It's one of my earliest memories, as I was somewhere between 3 and 4. I can remember not knowing what the hell was going on. How could people move stuff without touching it? Why is the one dude seeing some old guy that's see-thru? What the hell is that tall walking shag carpet? Despite the lack of understanding, I was immediately in love. I can remember being thrilled by the space fights and light saber battles. Being terrified of Jabba and the Rancor and the Emperor. I know I cried when Yoda dies, even though he only had like 5 minutes of screen time. And I remember wanting an Ewok....badly. From that film on, I was hooked....albeit in a very child-like manner.
My parents never let me watch R-rated movies, so my childhood was filled with the classic kid films of our and previous generations. The next film I remember seeing was ET. Aliens were totally my thing for awhile. I was raised on the great Disney animated flicks...the ones from way back in the day...and the damn good ones they were making when we were little. I was raised with Mighty Ducks, Heavyweights, and the Sandlot. Tron, the Goonies, Ninja Turtles. And life was good.
I went through one phase...it lasted about 2 or 3 years...where I would only rent the old Universal monster movies. Wolf Man, the Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, and, the king of them all, Frankenstein. It was by accident that I picked up Young Frankenstein, and my life-long love of all things Mel Brooks was born.
The first R-rated film I saw was Basic Instinct. I was 8. My best friend was in love with Witches, and his parents had taped Basic Instinct on the same tape as it. We weren't supposed to watch past the end of Witches, but we finally did. And from the first scene...we were like crack addicts....only for boobs. I thought it was the greatest film ever made. Luckily, as I got older, I realized that it is not at all good. Having to see Michael Douglas's ass completely erases whatever good will it gets from the boobage.
Despite my love of film, I always felt removed from it. My love was with aliens and monsters. With cartoon turtles and the antics of kids that real kids could never get away with. I was watching X-Wings flying through space, and, while I wanted it to be true, I was smart enough to know it wasn't. Film was an abstract...something that was made far far away about stuff that wasn't real.
Until I saw Dawn of the Dead. I was 10. My friend had it on VHS. The moment that we first see the mall...that was when film became real. I had been going to that mall...that exact mall...at least twice a year since I was born. That is the Monroeville Mall in Monroeville, PA. I was born in a hospital in Monroeville, PA. I had walked through the doors that zombies were pounding on. I had been in those stores. It was relevatory. Films were made in Hollywood...not Monroeville, PA. With that one scene...I was offically addicted. Film had become real. It became local. It was no longer just space ships and mad scientists and wookies and mutant rats. It was the Monroeville mall...and it was within reach.
It may not seem like much to anyone else...but that realization made my love of film so much stronged than it had ever been. I may never make a film...or even be involved in the process....but thanks to Dawn of the Dead...I realized that I could. From there...my love has only grown. My exposure to films, both great and truly awful, hasn't just shaped my tastes....it's shaped who I am. I wouldn't be the same person if I had never seen The Godfather or the Indiana Jones trilogy. Hell, I wouldn't be the same person if I had never seen a Uwe Boll movie. And how many things can we say that about?
Yeah, Chachi. It's kind of embarrassing to admit to now, but Sidekicks, Best of the Best (1 and 2) and Three Ninjas were in heavy rotation at my house too. Ditto Heavyweights. And it's amazing to think how many times a movie like The Sandlot was played - one of the few I still stand by.
But I caught a couple minutes of Rookie of the Year on TV the other day as well, and was horrified at how terrible it was. I guess it figures though. You're easier to please when you're younger and you have less film experience to compare it to... so when Henry Rowengartner spends ten minutes taunting a professional pitcher about how big his ass is - somehow it worked for me as a kid.
And pengin, loved the story about how you came to really get attached to film. Very interesting stuff. Until Signs in 2002, I had never seen a place I'd routinely been to be captured on film. Then my family caught it in a theater in SC and when "Bucks County" flashes on the screen we roared. There's no other movie experience like it. Combining the story's fiction with your own reality of the place. Great stuff.
My only real brush with a Hollywood picture was the Big Green. I was a big soccer player, especially when I was younger,..and um thinner. My friend and I tried out for the movie. All we did was show off our skills. We didn't read any lines of dialog. My friend was asked back to audition again for the pivotal role of the really good Hispanic kid in the flick. Obviously he didn't get the role. He was told he couldn't juggle the ball enough with his head as was later evident in the picture. When I look back on it, I really had no shot of getting a role when in competition with "the fat kid", Patrick Renna.
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