HF's Intro to Film
 

A 100 level course. Rather than clog up the rate the last movie thread with re watches I'd figured why not start a thread documenting the movies me and my GF's son are watching.

A little about him. He is not a cinephile, at all. His favorite movies for the longest time were Malibu's Most Wanted, Joe Dirt and Undercover Brother. I believe his fav movie right now is Spiderman 2, he's big time into the MCU and did not like Pulp Fiction at all. Having grown up with me he never trusted my taste in films. He hated horror films and "Everything you watch is awful. Terrible acting, looks like crap and it's all from like the 70's or 80's." No comment. My goal is to just get him to expand his horizons a bit. He never watches foreign films, hates musicals, movies longer than 120 minutes and old b&w films, so my work is cut out for me, but he is enthusiastic about expanding his cinematic universe. I know this will take time and will be starting him out on what I consider genre classics that are, for the most part, easily consumed and well reviewed, just to get a feel for his tastes. We will not be watching The Seventh Seal, 2001 or Solaris anytime soon. Have to build up to them. Once I build up his trust, that I actually do watch some good movies, I may throw an occasional curve at him and drop in some exploitation crap just to keep things fresh and entertaining for myself. He gets to choose any movie I own (300+ library and they're all F'n good!) and I get to choose any movie I want even if it's bad (The Room?) with one catch... people have to actually talk (no silent films). He's adamant about that one. Thems the rules.

So far we have watched these, along with his rating:



Some of the movies we are considering

Re: HF's Intro to Film
 

I like your movie watching endeavor with your GF's son. How old is he and does your GF watch these films too? Those ratings you posted are they yours or his? BTW I'm betting he really likes Robocop.

I would have given up on him after that response, but I admire your tenacity. :D

Based on his favs and highest ratings so far I suggest the following 'trust building' films:

The Thing
Soldier
Starship Troopers
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Spider-Man: Far from Home

The Gentlemen
Snatch
Sherlock Holmes
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

He's seen everything Spiderman. That's been his fav superhero since I can remember. He's seen The Thing and liked it. Snatch was one he really wanted to see and will probably be one of the first ones we watch but I recommended he watch LSaTSB first. Something about Snatch being a little shinier/cleaner looking that I thought may affect his enjoyment of Lock, Stock. His enjoyment of LSaTSB makes me think he's really going to like Snatch

He's twentysomething and never watched movies unless his friends were going to a theater to see the latest blockbuster. He was more content to hang out at the park and do whatever they do there (They didn't drink milkshakes I can assure you of that!) I think the last year and a half kind of forced him to find other things to do so he started getting into movies. Those are what I think he would rate them and his mom will not be watching many of them with us. She's a bit talky. I threw up Robocop again last night - "Hey, how about Robocop?" Him - "No."

Start things off with one I can watch endlessly and was glad he picked it. If it weren't for the internet I would just assume that everybody who saw this loved it and of course, it's Goodfellas. He was into this from the start and was visibly on edge during Henry's chaotic last day before his arrest. "He's gonna have a heart attack if he keeps going like this!" Scorcese got him!

Favorite scene: Simple little shot of Jimmy, who was also his favorite character, just thinking after the Lufthansa party. "What is he thinking about? My God...He's going to kill everybody! Is he going to kill everybody?" Me: "I don't remember."

Re: HF's Intro to Film
 

Sorry if you mentioned it somewhere, but how old is he?

Re: HF's Intro to Film
 

If you wanna ease him into musicals, my go-to recommendation for that is usually Once. He also dug When Harry Met Sally, so try something like (500) Days of Summer.

As far as other more regular recommendations, what about...

Heat
RoboCop
Source Code
The Silence of the Lambs
Seven
Prisoners

Was talking with him a couple days ago, mentioned (500) Days of Summer and he's seen that. He's also seen La La Land. Not too surprising, I guess, as Zooey and Emma are two of his fav actresses. If he hasn't seen it yet, I'm thinking Birdman might be an option. Those are all good rec's and a couple for sure we're going to get to but Robocop...he does not want to watch that one. Tried again last night. I think he thinks it's one of my dumb exploitation flicks and he's starting to get a little annoyed that I keep bringing it up.

"Barbed wire? Jesus, Joey" Another big winner from a couple nights ago. We didn't have much time so we hit up a shorter film that packs a lot into it's runtime. I'm talking about A History of Violence. He was into this right from the get go. Viggo Mortenson plays family with Maria Bello and two kids but is he who he says he is? An unfortunate event in small town Ohio brings unwanted attention to the family and some shady characters to town. One of my favorite movies.

Favorite scene - A lot to choose from, he loved the entire ending with William Hurt and everything with Ed Harris but he did remark "That bully beat down was very satisfying" so that's where I'm putting my money.

Verdict -

He really liked this a lot. Not quite as much as Goodfellas but it's up there. I think it was the family drama aspects, how they were dealing with everything, that grabbed him more than anything else. He was a little surprised at the level of violence, not that there's a lot but what there is is Cronenberg levels.


Last night he rejected Rear Window, Man Bites Dog (his mom recommended this - don't know why but she felt like messing with him), The Virgin Spring and Robocop (again), but he settled on a good one. This next one he enjoyed but had some issues with it, mostly the fx which he felt were a little cheesy/outdated. They are but it's still an outstanding film and I'm talking about:

As a huge fan of A History of Violence and The Terminator, I give this an enthusiastic thumbs up.

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After a small hiatus we got back on the horse last night. Actually, this first one we watched a couple weeks ago but I haven't been in the mood to log it. The first one is a classsic, no. 8 on the AFI Sci-Fi Top Ten, from the 90's and is a sequel to the last movie we watched and that is:
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Re: HF's Intro to Film
 

It's a pity he didn't want to watch The Ox Bow Incident, I can't image anyone seeing that not being stirred to some real deep emotions. I seen Bone Tomahawk it's probably best as a b budget fun flick for those who like that type of thing, I didn't care for it. Unforgiven, that's a good choice hopefully that one gets him interested in older films and westerns. I love westerns myself.

Terminator and T2 solid choices you made there! Glad to hear he liked them.

I was hoping to get him to watch Ox Bow because I think he would really like it but I also realize, one month in, he isn't going to be over his b/w, old film phobias quite yet. Now throw in a genre he's never seen and I get why he's cautious about Ox Bow. Part of what makes this tricky is he remembers all the garbage I used to watch (eh, I still watch) so I have to also build up his trust as it pertains to what a good movie is. It's gonna take time and I have patience.

Re: HF's Intro to Film
 

He's doing way better than me, I was almost 40 before I stop refusing to watch old black and white movies. Now I can't image not watching them but I use to consider old movies like old bread...moldy.

The one thing I did not expect was a flurry of Sci- Fi right off the bat but I'm letting him choose and that's what he's going for. The first one hits one of his phobias - released before the 90's. It's another sequel about a rescue mission. You see, "there's some juicy colonists' daughters we have to rescue from their virginity." Of course this could only be :


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Aliens. Surprisingly, when this was over, he actually said he liked it more than T2. Wow, because I had to do a little work to get him to want to see this. I just kept repeating - "It's not like Alien, it's a bit more actiony". He likes Alien but thinks is a little slow. Right off the bat, as we are introduced to the Marines, he says "so these are all the people who are gonna die?" My response, as it has been forever when someone asks me about something in a movie "I don't remember." He had a good time trying to figure out who to trust in this and he didn't trust Bishop until he got himself ripped in half - "I guess Bishop is okay."


Our second flick is something that doesn't tick any of his phobias and I was actually kind of surprised he hadn't already seen it. It's about a computer programmer/ hacker following Alice's rabbit down the hole and being red pilled.

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He didn't think this was the best of the recent sci-fi bunch we have seen but he thought it was the most fun and is the one he is most looking forward to watching again. It's The Matrix. I'm not a huge fan of the Matrix world, this is the only Matrix movie I have seen, but I can see why it's so beloved and if I had a list of movies everyone should see at least once, this would be on it. I think he will be getting on with the sequels, something I have zero interest in.

"I'd like to see some more 80's movies," he says to me. This is one that wasn't even on my radar until I saw it was on Tubi. So I mentioned it and got a rather lukewarm response. "Sounds like a bad B-Movie" he says. Me: "Yeah, it is, if you watch the 50's version. This version of The Fly is a little different and it's directed by the guy who directed A History of Violence, which you loved and it's a lot like Spiderman." I don't feel bad lying to him about stuff like this because I got used to lying to him years ago ("That wasn't me, that was the cat. He's not supposed to eat wet food"). Can't wait seeing what line of BS I feed him to get Cannibal Holocaust playing.

We ended up watching it and, well, everything about this surprised him. He was not expecting much of a story and getting a little attached to both main characters was probably not something he was expecting either but he really liked both Ronnie and Seth. When it was all over he said "I liked Brundle at first, then I didn't like him and wanted him to just die, then I felt bad for him." He really enjoyed how even as Brundle is turning into the fly and things are falling off of him, that he's still Brundle underneath all the goo and makeup, bad jokes and all. I always felt like Cronenberg gets the most out of his 90 minute run time with this one and still do. It never slows down, in fact one of the first things the Kid said is "They jump right in don't they?" uh, yeah, they get moving pretty quick. I get the feeling that this might be his second fav movie we've watched so far (Goodfellas is still no.1) but my guess is The Fly is a solid

This makes me hopeful for his generation and I think he's ready for Predator now. :p

Still sticking with the 80's movies we managed to squeeze in two more as the outside temps hover around zero degrees. The first is a neo-noir by a famous directing duo - Blood Simple. This is a top 3 Coen Bros. movie for me but I wasn't sure if he'd like the slower pace. Fortunatley, he loved it. He's a talker, so when he started telling/questioning people in the movie on what they should be doing I knew the Brothers had hooked him. Really glad he liked this as I think it opens up some longer, twisty, slow burns.

And we wrapped up with a buddy cop movie. This is one I had to do a bit of talking him into as he thought it was going to be a corny, comedy thing. And it stars Mel, who he is not really a fan of.

Lethal Weapon. This surprised him and I was a little worried that the first forty minutes or so of character building/set up would be a put off after telling him that this is one of the better action movies of the decade. He did say after that it was a slow beginning but picked up after the pool guy shooting. This isn't going to top his fav 80's action flick, First Blood, not by any stretch, but I think we ticked off another classic 80's flick and it wasn't a complete waste of time for him.

Re: HF's Intro to Film
 

Wow, I admire your patience. Interesting peaceful educational methods!

Good thing I don't have a kid because I'd just tie the bugger and force him to watch Satantango over and over again until he loves it, Clockwork Orange style!

Patience is a funny thing. I don't know if I have more of it now or I just don't care anymore. Probably a bit of both. Since I'm okaying everything we watch it isn't that bad, yet, but I was hoping he'd be a little more open to some older films, at least stuff from the 70's, by now. I don't know what it is about that rearrangement of numbers that is so weird for him. 1980 is okay but 1979 is ugh...Two things that would make this easier is if the date and runtime weren't on the preview window of my media player. He found their location pretty quick. Don't have kids of my own but if I had some that's how I would have dealt with them (probably why not having any was a good thing). Seeing as he's someone else's child I have to ease up a little on my methods.

Yesterday it boiled down to 3 movies: Caligula, to which I said NOPE! (he thought I was only joking when I explained to him that it was produced by Penthouse and they altered the final product a little and it would be quite uncomfortable viewing for us) Deliverance and Dear God No. He went outside the box and surprised me by picking a documentary. One I had kind of given up on. A thoughtful meditation of the plight of poverty stricken octogenarians in major European cities.




or it's about a film crew following around a vicious serial killer. I get my doc.'s confused sometime. Anyway, he watched the first scene of Man Bites Dog about a week ago and was kind of a big NO on watching it so I was quite surprised when he said lets give it a go. After all, b&w, foreign films, I thought, were kryptonite to him. Reading?!? Eff that!

Surprisingly he enjoyed it. However, for about the first 15 minutes he didn't look happy, at all, and I think I know why. After awhile he asked "Should I be laughing at any of this?" I said "why would you be laughing at a serial killer murdering people?" to which he said "because it's kind of funny." To be fair, he wasn't laughing while there were onscreen murders but Ben, the films star, has a way about him that can be funny. The pic above kind of captures a little bit of the comedy. A serial killer lamenting violence in poor communities. So the fact that it is a very dark comedy threw him at first. Don't think this is high on his must see again list but we managed to watch a film that has two of his big no-no's, opening more doors perhaps. I'm guessing he'd give this a He said he liked it better than 3 Men and a Baby, which he thought was enjoyable fluff.

A couple quick ones we knocked off lately:

My reaction when he told me he didn't like the next one very much:




That's right. He was not a fan of Die Hard. It was OK he says. WTF was wrong with it I ask but before he can answer I'm already all puffed up and like, just GTFOH! COME BACK AFTER YOU THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST SAW AND COMPARE IT TO WHAT YOU JUST SAID! I'm beginning to think action/adventure just isn't his bag. He didn't like Raiders of the Lost Ark either. I know he didn't like the fact that they made the CoP a complete moron but I thought the rest of the movie covers for that. Guess not. On a positive note he did like Alan Rickman and thinks it is a Christmas movie but not as Christmassy as Lethal Weapon.

The next one is one he's wanted to see for awhile and I figured he'd like it a lot and he did. He's always asking for to see more Nicholson movies BUT not those...they're old. But this one:

Finally got around to watching a movie made before 1980. Before 1960 actually. "Is it in color?" he asks. "Not only is it in color but it's better than color" I tell him. "It's Technicolor." Then we got into a discussion about Technicolor and when that got dull we decided to watch the movie, my favorite from this director.

Re: HF's Intro to Film
 

I wouldn't have thought of a better film than Rear Window for a first dip into "classic cinema", to be honest. Maybe a rewatch later down the road will help him appreciate it more.

Anyway, him loving L.A. Confidential is a great cleanser. I love that film.

I thought Rear Window was a solid choice but ya never know. Picking older films that work for him is going to be tricky but I should have seen that he was in a Savage Streets mood and not a Rear Window mood. At least he's willing to give it another shot someday.

Gonna tick off a few really quick:

The Bank Job - Based on a true story, Jason Statham and friends rob a banks vault (the safe deposit boxes), pissing off everybody in London from porn producers to MI5 to political revolutionaries. Kind of an underrated movie, imo, and he enjoyed it's twists. Took him awhile to get what was going on. I think he was expecting a break in and a big long chase and that's not this movie.

Ringu - Oh No! A foreign film. Here's the thing that bugs me about his phobia about subtitles - he uses subtitles when watching stuff in English. It's weird. Anyway, it was a little slow for him and he didn't think it was scary at all but he didn't hate it either.

The Untouchables - He liked this. He's starting to see a pattern: if the movie has won an Oscar he's probably going to like it. He really liked the look of the movie, the music and he thought Sean Connery and Andy Garcia were pretty awesome.

The Departed - This was fun. He wants to see more Jack but this also has Leo and Matt and Mark who he isn't really a fan of. He was liking this quite a bit until the elevator scene near the end when he says "ya know, I really don't like this anymore." I laughed it off knowing he'd come around when it was ALL over and he did. This will get a rewatch from him

Three Kings - I knew he didn't like Leo or Matt before we watched The Departed but I didn't know about the Mark thing so of course I picked this as the next movie. To add insult to injury, he doesn't like war movies. I figured he'd like the appearance of Malibu's Most Wanted in a small role and one of the creators of Jackass, so it's a push, right? And it's not REALLY a war film. It's a robbery set in the middle of the desert. Surprisingly, he enjoyed this more than I expected.

The Iron Giant - He absolutely loved this story about a gigantic, alien, iron, war machine that is set out to destroy all humans. Or maybe it's about friendship. He wanted something light after watching Man Bites Dog and when it comes to lighter fare I have this and Disney Classics but the Disney flicks are a no go for him. The Iron Giant cracks his top 5 animated movies of all time.

I kinda read Se7en as you suggesting it as a musical.
o.O


Btw, love this thread.

Oh, I would definitely be up for a Se7en: The Musical adaptation :D

"I hate every man I see, from Number 1 to Number Seeee-ven!"

Se7en Boxes For Se7en Brothers?

I think it's time to abort this mission. It was a valiant effort on your part but I'm afraid it's hopeless.
🙂

Right! I should but I enjoy telling him how awful his opinions are.

Re: HF's Intro to Film
 

Twist: He's reading this thread and feigning strong negative reactions to older films to make you mad.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-st...3447151-31.gif

🎵 What's in the booooooox, you son of a biiiiiiiiiiiiiitch.....?🎵

Thought I'd introduce him to the world of Wes Anderson, see how that would go over. We didn't watch my favorite film from Wes, that would be Moonrise Kingdom, but instead went with one where the sheer number of recognizable cast members would keep him interested if the story didn't.

We also hit up a couple throw aways. One he's been wanting to see and one he never heard of.

The first was The Green Inferno. No clue as to why he wanted to see this but he's been wanting to see it for a long time so we gave it a spin. I don't think he's ever seen a cannibal movie before so I guess it's best to start small and work your way up although I would have preferred The Mountain of the Cannibal God for his intro. He thought Inferno was gross a couple of times but other than that he wasn't terribly impressed. The weed scene, that's when he really lost it "C'mon? Really?" We got it out of the way.

As noted earlier he didn't like Pulp Fiction at all. I told him I didn't care for it at first either but the older I got the more I liked it. So, maybe you should give it another try now that your older. When did you watch it? "Last year." Never mind. I don't think he likes QT very much which is why it surprised me when he said he wanted to watch this one about a jewel heist gone awry.

Knocked off a few more. Nothing special but some big name movies he hasn't seen.

Mission:Impossible - I remember when this was first released one of the knocks was that it was too confusing for the average moviegoer. That still holds true. While he enjoyed most of it he did get lost with the story. He asked me if this was Tom Cruise's best movie and I said I don't think so. I like M:I but it's not a classic/classic like All The Right Moves. Anyway, I told him that this is the most confusing of all the M:I movies so he is open to watching the sequels.
---
Now he saw the remake/reboot to this but never saw the original and he wanted to see what kicked it all off. He actually remembered a little bit of this from when he was a kid. I guess I was watching it and he was sneaking a peak while he was supposed to be asleep. He caught the very ending and it scared the shit out of him. Good! Did it give you nightmares? "For like a night or two. Me: "Good." He asked if this was my favorite of the series and I said no. Part 2 or 4 are my fav but part one is neat because it's a bit of a mystery as well as a slasher. Of course the series could only be Friday the 13th. He liked this enough and thought Kevin Bacon got it the best.
--
This next one...what can you say. He was interested in The Green Inferno and I asked if he wanted to see one of the films that inspired it. He said "Yessss?" Okie Dokie. You probably will not like this but here we go. Now relax...I did not show him the grandaddy of all cannibal films. I'm not that big of a sadist. Sheesh! We started watching Mountain of the Cannibal God but he was losing interest (I told him Ursula gets Naked later - he said "Who?") so I switched it up and I showed him the grandmama of cannibal films - Cannibal Ferox and he did not enjoy it. At all. He conceded that Inferno pulled quite a bit from this but didn't like the extreme nature of this one. The one thing that did surprise him was that the film wasn't just nasty scene after nasty scene, like Men Behind the Sun which he also apparently sneaked a peak at as a kid, but that it did make an attempt at telling a story. He just didn't like it.

Gonna try some foreign films for awhile. I know he liked The Raid, Porco Rosso, [rec] and Them, Apocalypto he's been wanting to see and based off what we have watched so far I think Timecrimes and Oldboy might work as well. That black and white phobia is stronger in him than I had previously thought. As far as English speaking movies, the only two must sees right now are Apocalypse Now and Schindler's List.

Knocked off a few movies this weekend, a Korean film, a Japanese film and a BIGGIE made before 1980. That's three movies out of his comfort zone and I'm not even going to include the Jim Wynorski b-movie classic, The Lost Empire and it's Russ Meyer inspired casting, which I busted out for a little change of pace. So the first film:

You should livestream his reaction to that one. Should be entertaining. :)

He probably wouldn't mind doing that but I wouldn't like it nor would I know how to even go about setting that up. Doing something like that for 2001 and there's a good possibility that you'd get 2+ hours of sleeping. Seeing how far off he was about Jaws makes me think that he thinks 2001 is some sci-fi, action thing. Fatal Attraction would have been a fun one to livestream or even Cannibal Ferox.

Yeah, I wasn't serious about the livestream, it's just always fun to see a newcomer's reaction to 2001. My brother has a friend who famously turned it off after 15 minutes exclaiming "I thought this was about space!?!?"

I could see the exact same thing happening - "What's with this monkey business?" I'd also be answering questions for two plus hours. Who is...? Why are they....? What is....? Where are...? Is this a musical? Sometimes I don't know if he's really looking for answers or just talking to himself.

Please, tell me this is when he turned it off and asked that...

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Re: HF's Intro to Film
 

I thought everyone knew that it's roughly 2,001 minutes before the Space Odyssey begins - hence the title :shrug:

Right?
I wasn't there, but it's probably for the best that he bailed. He wouldn't have handled the last 15 minutes very well, I'm sure. :)

Hey, if he wanted "space", what's more "space" than a spaced out astronaut traveling through a multi-colored vortex of neon and plaid at great speeds? :eek:

So far the 80's seem to be his thing. Almost everything we've watched from the 80's he's liked so why not introduce him to one of the longer lasting characters from the decade. Seeing as to how he's never seen any of these I think it's time he does so we hit up parts 1 and 2 of:
A couple more we hit up in the last week:
Easy Money - The Rodney Dangerfield classic about a guy who needs to clean up his act in one year to gain a ten million dollar inheritance from his dead MiL. He liked it in parts but thought it dragged a bit towards the end.

Porky's 2: The Next Day - He liked this more than Easy Money. He says to me "Could you really get away with stuff like that when you were a kid?" WTF? That's my Mom's generation! But yeah, even we got away with a lot more than you guys can. He loved the KKK rally at the end, the Graveyard Gloria scene and Wendy's date with Bobby.

We did watch one pretty popular 80's flick that is generally well received. A little vampire action in Santa Carla.


When it comes to Vampire flicks I always say start in the 80's and work your way back. He loved this so maybe Fright Night is on the horizon. A couple funny things he mentioned: Mtv was out when this was made? Uh yeah. Did you really wear clothes like that (Corey Haims wardrobe)? If Chess King had it it was wearable. One thing that has come up repeatedly while watching 80's movies: Did girls ever wear bras back then? In movies? Nah. In real life? Sure, but they weren't bulletproof like today. As far as the movie, this was the one he said he is most likely to rewatch as it was the most fun of what we've seen lately. He loved the "Wait til mom finds out!" line.

Okay. Our final movie. He called this the best movie we've seen in couple weeks and has no desire to watch it again. Why not? *SPOILERS* AHEAD "I don't like watching a basket case, who was abused as a child, being wrongfully murdered by his childhood friend. It's depressing."


Mystic River, yeah it's not a feel good but it's good-good. He was really into this, trying to guess who did what - first Dave did it, then maybe Jimmy, then the BF, then Dave again, but the ending was just too much. Too heavy. This actually created a bit of a stir in the house as I think Dave's wife sold him out to Jimmy, but I'm in the minority. That led to who would turn in who at our place if somebody committed a crime. I'd last the longest in the Mafia but I'd be ****ed in my own house. The addition of Lawrence Fishburne was a surprise to him. He knew about the three mains but Fishburne is one of his fav actors so seeing him again was a nice. He thought it was a very good movie but not interested in going through it again

While reading through this thread, I often thought to myself that the kid should be dumped in the desert so that he can reflect on his horrible taste in movies before eventually succumbing to dehydration, lamenting to the buzzards as they pluck at his flesh, "If only I'd seen the brilliance in Pulp Fiction and Rear Window! Forgive me, Fredrick, for I knew not what I watched!" But then he'd surprise me with a five-star reaction to I Saw the Devil or The Fly or Reservoir Dogs and I'd realize that maybe there's still hope for the kid. Hopefully you didn't wait too long to try to cultivate his tastes. If I ever manage to go nine months without shoving a rusty coat-hanger into the womb of every woman I knock up, I plan to expose my kid to all the cinematic greats at an early age. If he/she isn't already reciting Ezekiel 25:17 on the playground or chainsaw massacring his/her playmates by kindergarten, I will have failed as a parent.

As you can see it also stars MM who is the title character, Det. Joe Cooper, murderer for hire. The basics are Emile Hirsch owes some bad guys some coin so he devises a plot where they kill his mom so his sister can collect the mom's life insurance policy which they (Bro, dad, sis and step mom) will divvy up. It's all so simple. What could possibly go wrong? Short answer - quite a bit and it does.

So did the kid like it? Yes he did. He was impressed with all the performances but was especially impressed with Juno and Gina. He thought they gave "brave" performances and with what they are asked to do I'd agree. It's not going on his Wall of Fame but he thought it was uncomfortably funny and overall pretty entertaining. THC as the dimwit dad was the primary source of laughter but the final dinner scene had him both reeling in horror and laughing at MM's Oh Face - "I'll never look at him the same way again."

The movie did make him uncomfortable with more than just it's insanely dark humor. Everything revolving around Dottie and her relationship with her bro and Joe was creepy in his opinion. "How old is she?" Don't know what do you think? "I don't know but I hope she's older than she acts." "What is with her brother?" What do you mean? "I mean wtf? Is he...." Possibly. Ugh!

Usually he doesn't like endings like this, the cut to black what happened endings. I think Friedkin gives enough of a clue as to what happens with the final few frames and he seemed to accept my thoughts on it which are basically it was a happy ending. Overall I think he'd give this a solid after one watch.

It's really weird seeing someone in their 20s referred to as "the kid," whose first name isn't, Billy.


Also, what was listed as their taste in movies made me think they were going to be in the 10-14 age range.


My only suggestions -
Instead of Robocop, do Total Recall first and then say, "same director."


Obvious subtitled crime-thrillers, also from South Korea: Parasite and The Hand Maiden. I don't have a good feel on if you should work him back through the Vengeance trilogy.


If he hasn't seen Mad Max:Fury Road...


Likewise, No Country (obviously doing Blood Simple first was a good call).
I kind of wonder if seeing the Coens' stuff before seeing their influenced will appeal to him.


His taste is a species of film consumption that I don't really interact with much, so it's hard for me to think of what are good gateway movies backwards.


Some of things he's liking or hating just seems really random to me.


He's in his 20s, would he like Chunking Express? No idea. Just no feel so far. I wouldn't have guessed he'd like TCM at all.


I can't imagine showing anyone Cannibal Apocalypse though. Granted, that's because that'd mean I'd have to watch it again...

Apart from the FCC and Friedkin 70s suggestions a normal person would encourage, maybe some less obvious ones to try would be:
Assault on Precinct 13
Suspiria
The Brood, or hell, Shivers
(And then dipping into the 80s, Phantasm and A Nightmare on Elm Street).


The whole, "I don't watch movies before x-date," was something I never did growing up. My best explanation was watching black and white Hitchcock movies on TV with my dad, and for some reason being really into horror, so in grade school, black and white horror was often more age-appropriate. (and then throw in any spooky children's TV series always has to show love for Nosferatu, so even silent films weren't off the table).

ETA: I forgot an obvious 70s one that it sounds like he'd like: the remake of Bodysnatchers. Which, then give it some time, and go back and watch the 50s one... That might work.

Giallo is a no go. I don't like them. Shivers is on our watchlist and I think he'd go for it because he's really liked the two Cronenbergs he's seen. In fact, the Croneneberg films he's seen are both in his top 5 so far.


I've called him worse.

He's already watched Total Recall and liked it. I'm working towards Starship Troopers but he's hesitant about that one. Seems a little too B-Movieish for him. He did end up watching Robocop and it was better than he expected but he didn't love it.

I mentioned the Vengeance films but he's not too keen on them...yet. It's looking like his next trip into Asian film is going to be a Takashi Miike film. We watched the trailer to Ichii and I think I may be able to swing that one. Memories of Murder is on my radar also. I tried getting him to watch Tetsuo but that lasted about 5 minutes. He does want to see The Wailing but the runtime is a little bit of a concern.

He loved it.

He wanted to watch Raising Arizona last night but I talked him out of it. He gave up on Fargo about halfway through and did not like True Grit at all. I'm not a fan of the Coens' later stuff including No Country so I think their films are on a long hold.

YES! There are movies I thought he would love and ended up hating and vice versa. Some of the movies he really ended up liking he did not want to watch at all (The Fly, Savage Streets)

He might like Chungking Express but he's gonna have to watch it on his own. I'm not sitting through it again. Fallen Angels might be worth a try.

I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy of Cannibal Apocalypse but I'm always looking out for it. If you mean Cannibal Holocaust, yeah it's nasty. He's not into that kind of stuff. I throw those in just to mess with him.

Er, yeah, I was thinking Cannibal Holocaust.


IDK why I said, "Apocalypse.". Brain fart.

Taking some time off probably wasn't such a good idea. I had been able to get him to watch a few movies that were out of his comfort zone and felt like I was making progress and now all that progress seems to have evaporated. I think I'm going to switch up methods a bit, concentrate more on actors and actresses whose careers go back a ways. Get him interested in people may help getting him to watch some older movies starring them. Worth a try.

I'll start with one of my favorite actors. Ran across this during one of my perusing titles marathons and much like The Fly figured why not? He likes going out and playing pool so why not try a movie about some pool hustlers.



That guy up there isn't one of my fav actors but the other guy in The Color of Money, Paul Newman, is. If you haven't seen this it's about a retired pool hustler finding the next big thing and trying to teach him the art of the hustle. It's a bit of a road trip film with the destination being a gigantic nine ball tourney in Atlantic City, back when that was a place people visited.

I enjoyed watching this with him because every time they did a tricky shot in the movie I'd ask him if he can do that? Do you go all samurai after a big shot like that? After a few no's I eventually got the "will you SHUT UP!" I'm usually the quiet one but I couldn't resist. Well, I guess he's into it, that's good. Turns out he was really into it. The fact that Scorcese makes watching pool 100X more interesting than it has any right to be was probably the biggest selling point. I don't think Newman impressed him much but the movie worked so it's a win in my book.

Still haven't seen that one. Only The Hustler. With Paul Newman.

Re: HF's Intro to Film
 

I thought the Hustler was boring. Color of Money is decent. Newman got an Oscar for it but it's more of a lifetime achievement Oscar. He's not bad but he's given much better performances that didn't win.

All right. Next up is a certified classic according to me. Sticking with the older actors theme I saw this streaming and immediately thought it's something we should watch. Uh I don't know if he's ever even heard of Charles Bronson but he has now thanks to wonderful little film called 10 to Midnight.

I kind of consider this an American giallo. The plot: a very creepy serial killer is doing his thing. His thing is getting naked and running around town stabbing any women he feels has slighted him. The women are usually naked as well during these confrontations because this is an 80's movie and that's what put asses in the seats. We were a simple people. After a quick couple scenes of investigating a few murders this guy pops up on Charles' radar. Charles knows this guy is guilty but this guy is good at covering his tracks. There's nothing that connects him to any crime scene except for the fact that he's a creepy ****ing weirdo who is obviously a killer if not THE killer. So Chuck does what he has to do - plant some evidence. Bad idea but his heart is in the right place and that leads to the second half and the films eventual climax.

Despite being extremely wary at the start the young un came around and liked this very much. He knows it's not a great movie but it's enjoyable in the same way Savage Streets was. One scene got a huge laugh from him and that's when Charles confronts the killer about some recreational tools they found in his apartment.

For whatever reason he thinks all movies from the 80's are cheesy. He thought First Blood was going to be cheesy. He thought the Terminator movies were going to be cheesy and he absolutely thought the Fly was going to be cheesy. At some point you have to accept the fact that your wrong and you're going to continue to be wrong if you continue to think that way. The next one we watched was on tv yesterday. He walks in to the main entertainment area of the house, carrying a plate full of perfectly charred, dead animal meat (fathers day cookout) and became quite interested in what was showing on the boob tube. "Whatcha watching?" It was kind of funny because I've recommended this before but always got the "I've seen it already" and I always thought "No you haven't." It was early enough in the movie so I switched over to my copy on Kodi to avoid commercials. Before we started the film but right after he took a giant bite of what was once the leg of some earth creature, I told him this may be the most manly movie ever made and tomorrow you may finally be able to grow some whiskers on your cheeks just for watching it. Seriously, dude. I don't know if this one makes any all time great lists but I'll tell ya right now he liked it more than any other action film we've watched so far. That includes both T1 and T2, Aliens and First Blood. Ooooh baybay, having me some fun tonight! Yeah, OWWWWW!

After building up his watchlist by watching the documentary In Search of Darkness Part 1 & 2, which is 9 hours of what made 80's horror films excellent, he went outside the box and surprised the hell out of me by going with a previously labeled nah film. A movie from the 60's? Nah. A slow burn, 2 hour + no action film with a female protagonist? Nah. So it begged the question - why this one? "I've seen it on a lot of best of lists." Oh really, you don't say? Ever see Citizen Kane or Sunset Boulevard on one of them lists? Anyway, I was happy to pop on a classic 60's thriller.

Gaslighting, isolating a woman socially from her friends. Little things you pick up on as you get older.

Comedies are always sketchy because what kids today find funny usually isn't funny and what I think is funny and is actually funny, kids don't get it. So he likes Nic Cage and he likes John Goodman. He's gotta like a movie starring both of them right? Sort of. He liked Raising Arizona but didn't think it's as funny as it is. That's a him problem, I guess. Admittedly, this is a movie that works much better on a big screen which isn't usually the case with comedies. The Bros'. Coen fill up every square inch of screen in the making of this and it should be watched in a theater. Things like the doberman, Glen and the tree, heck just the wonderful shots of landscapes work better on a big screen. I will never forget watching the movies epic chase at the old moving picture house and how crazy the audience was during that entire segment but on a small screen it loses a little of the impact.

I told him, before the movie ever started, look at this as a cartoon. Don't think to much and just go with it. I think he tried and he did enjoy it. Will he watch it again? I sure hope so as I think the more time you spend with these characters the better it gets. What he liked were a lot of the little one liners. Hit the deck boy got a huge laugh from him as did the "No, unless round is funny." Those were the kinds of things that tickled him more than anything. Overall this wasn't a waste of time so I think he has it around

. He liked the story well enough and loved the ending which isn't surprising as downer endings are a pet peeve of his.

Got him to watch a couple of classic, classics. One from the 70's and one from the 60's. Both war films. The day after the 4th, while we were both nursing headaches of grand proportion (why? It's a mystery), he asks "wanna watch a movie?" I must have signaled ok because the next thing you know he was flipping through the library looking for a film. "How about this?" he asks. I look up, squinting through the sunlight I see he's on Redux. I manage an "ugh, not that one. The other one." And just like that were watching Apocalypse Now - Theatrical Version.

I had warned him that this is NOT a traditional war film it's a little surreal, so don't expect a lot Black Hawk Down type of firefights. Alright. 2.5 hours later, a fifteen minute snooze on my part and I get a "That was not what I was expecting." What were you expecting?" "Not that." We get deep sometimes and this is one of them times. It's hard to say if he liked the movie, there were aspects he was really into. He couldn't wait to meet Kurtz - Him: "Are we ever going to see Kurtz?" Me: "I don't remember." So the build up of the Col. worked very well for him. I think he was a little let down when the Col. turned out to be a fat guying laying in bed, talking about snails but it's his first time seeing the movie. I'm cutting him some slack.



Something about Apocalypse Now he sure as hell liked and that's how it all looked. He kept mentioning how films today don't look like this, that this looks "real". He's brought this up a few times now about movies from the 70's/80's. I guess he likes the on location filming. Well, they were really in the jungle filming this on a real river with real helicopters and real explosions so....Something else he said: "When people would talk about movies being art I never really understood what they meant." What about the Lighthouse? "That was black and white."

If he needs to see it again to get more into Willards journey, I get it. It's not an easy film to grasp especially if you've grown up in the MCU. I think he'll watch this again, just on visuals alone, but he may skip the cow scene. He did not like that. I have no clue what he'd give this so I'm gonna middle ground it and say

Next we started District 9 but as soon as he heard the guy talking with an accent he said "Is it gonna be like this the entire movie?" "It sure is." "Lets watch something else." He'll watch a movie in a foreign language with subs before he'll watch a movie in English with a heavy accent. Worked for me as the next movie in my library, alphabetically, is one of my all time favorites and that's what he chose. "How about Dr. Strangelove?"


YES! YES! YES! How about it? One of my all time fav's. A movie I absolutely HATED the first time I saw it so if you hate it just watch it again.

He didn't hate it, at least that's what he told me (I think he was trying not to offend me), but I'm not sure satire is his thing. At least Cold War satire. Is the threat of nuclear war and total destruction even a thing anymore? I didn't get the impression that he thought this entire scenario was plausible, whereas I think it's entirely plausible. If you don't buy the premise are you gonna get the humor?

He thought Gen. Turgidsen was funny and so was the Good Dr. but I'm not entirely sure he followed everything as I did have to explain a few things like "You know, OPE, POE was on the bathroom wall in Raising Arizona..." and once I did there was a big, interesting "Ohhh!"

The scene he remembers from his yute is Major Kong riding the bomb which he always thought looked ridiculous. He has come around on that scene after watching how it was set up but did it save the movie for him? I think it was a case of too little too late. My guess is it's a but that's me giving it a curve. I sure hope he watches it again.

Knocked out a couple not real big classics but decent movies. The first was The Fugitive and he really liked it. He's a little hesitant about Harrison Ford because of Han Solo and Indy, two characters he has no use for, but he liked him in this. He loves Tommy Lee Jones and knowing how he has so far liked anything that has won an Academy Award, I told him TLJ was that years winner. That's kinda how I got him to watch it. I think he's giving this one a as he had no complaints at all. He even commented about how fast the first hour went. "Jeez, it's already an hour in?"



Next was an 80's classic teen comedy/drama starring a munchkin that would go on to become one of the biggest stars of all time - Curtis Armstrong. Whoops! Tom Cruise and that movie was - bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum - Risky Business. This went over very well. "This is where that comes from?" as Tom starts his underwear dance. He thought it was pretty funny at times, especially liked the "Looks like it the University of Illinois!" line and goofy face. He seems to enjoy the teen comedy/drama from the 80's more than just straight teen comedy, Porky's 2 being the exception so far. Again, there were no complaints from this one at all in fact when it was over he asked for more movies like this.

Hit up a couple of biggies the last few nights. The first is a movie I think everybody should see at least once and he's been wanting to see it for awhile it just took some time to find it streaming somewhere.

I must respectfully disagree.
The Color Of Money is still probably my second-favorite Scorsese film but it's also one of my favorite Paul Newman performances and I sure have seen a lot of his film. It's very subtle and nuanced and I think that's why it was such an easy one for the Academy. They wanted to give it to him and he just made it easy for them.
It's funny, I was only 13 when I saw this and even then it was obvious to me I wanted to be Paul Newman. And definitely not Tom Cruise.

I like 10 To Midnight but I really wanna hear about his response to Savage Streets.

Looking over the nominees for that year, he may have deserved it. I saw Woods in Salvador but other than that, nada from that year. I don't think it's a bad performance at all, it's very good, it's just not my favorite from an actor that has at least a dozen great performances to choose from. If somebody thinks this is his best performance I'm fine with that.

As for Savage Streets he almost got up and walked out when I put it on because he thought it was one of my crappy b-movies, which it kind of is. I told him to give it a chance so he sat there being all frumpy but I could tell he was getting into it. I think it was how over the top everything was but not over the top in A Toxic Avenger way. That's something that's kind of new to him. A lot of the dialogue cracked him up. I know Linda Blair just walking down the street grabbed his attention early and that's probably what kept him around - "Who's that?" "The little girl from the Exorcist." "Really?!?" The fact that she was a "tough little bitch" didn't hurt either. This, 10 to Midnight and a couple others, these are not movies he would watch if I didn't nudge him a little.

It's been awhile. The Lad started a new job which made him re-prioritize his available fun time. Watching movies with the Old Man is a bit down the list compared to just about everything else. Personally, I think he saw Caligula climbing up the watch list and jetted. Anyway, after binging Barry, we managed to watch a couple real flickers this week. The first one I picked because it stars his second favorite actor (Willem Dafoe), the second one he chose because he's fascinated with history.


Now I'll admit the first one was a bit of a reach. I wanted Streets of Fire but couldn't find it streaming anywhere so I went with the next most fun movie with Willem. No, not the one where he portrays Jesus, the one where his grieving wife beats the hell out of him and ..."chaos reigns"



He had never heard of Antichrist and had said previously that he would never watch a movie that was on the Criterion Channel ("they're all old"). So, I squeaked this past one of his phobia's. Might have helped when I mentioned how it's a good date movie knowing how he does love his rom-com's. Lying is a good motivator and a useful tool for successful parenting. As you may know, Antichrist is a story of a husband and wife who go off to their cabin, Eden, to grieve the loss of their young child who died due to their neglect. Once there, the husband tries to help (diagnose) his wife, a real ball breaker who is off her meds and is becoming slightly unpredictable. His methods are not really working, animals start talking and things go kind of downhill from there.

This was one of the more "arty" films I think he has ever watched and he was into it but I think if the lead was anybody other than Dafoe he might have tuned out. It's not an easy watch, that's for sure. I asked him after Part 2 through what he thought and he says "I have no idea where this is going." After Part 3, a part that induced a "No...NO!...NOOOO!! AHHHHH!" he had an idea where it was going. When it was over I asked him where it went and he had it pretty close to my interpretation. Not quite there but close. I asked, "Should we watch it again, see if you pick up on a few more details?" Him: "I think I'm good for now." Overall, I think he would give Antichrist a

as he was still thinking about it the next day and said the more he thinks about it, the better he thinks it was.