What was the movie that made you love movies?
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.
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I grew up in a small, one-stoplight town that didn't have much but a gas station, a small grocery/hardware store, one restaurant, and--- thank heavens--- a video store. Every Saturday morning my mom and I would go to the video store and I would rent a Super Nintendo or a Sega Genesis game to play over the weekend, along with four movies (if you rented three, you got the fourth one free). Luckily my parents were never sticklers about the rating system, so I was able to watch R-rated movies at a young age. Whereas most kids my age were watching The Lion King and idolizing the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, I was obsessed with Jean-Claude Van Damme. I'd rent Hard Target, Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Lionheart, and several more of his movies over and over, then run out to my trampoline and try to emulate his roundhouse kicks.
(Trust me, it's not as easy as it looks.)
My family never went on vacation or had game nights or anything like that. Everyone was fairly solitary, doing their own thing, but we'd always come together every Saturday night to watch movies as a family. That's a tradition that we still try to maintain whenever we can. During the holidays and family gatherings, somebody always makes sure to bring along a movie so everyone can pile up on the couch, pop some popcorn, and share the experience. When we sit down to dinner or talk on the phone, one question that always gets asked is, "So, seen any good movies lately?"
(Disclaimer: Not my actual family.)
I can't single out one particular film that made me fall in love with movies. That love has been there since my youth. But I think we all have one film that comes along and transforms our love of movies into an obsession--- a desire to devour as many great films as possible. A casual or serious relationship with cinema turns into a Fatal Attraction-style stalkerdom. For me, that hymen-busting, eye-opening, life-altering experience was Pulp Fiction.
Simply put, I'd never seen anything like it. If Toy Story made me believe that my action figures came alive when I left the room, Pulp Fiction made me believe that the characters in movies continued with their lives even after the credits rolled. Every scene and every line of dialogue in a movie should serve to advance the plot, or so I'd been told, but Pulp Fiction didn't give a damn about following normal conventions. If ninety-nine percent of movies exist inside the square that Mia draws with her fingers, with all its restrictions and rules and guidelines, Pulp Fiction exists outside the square, where anything and everything is possible.
(Although, to be accurate, that's totally a rectangle, not a square.)
Tarantino's love of cinema oozes from every frame of Pulp Fiction. He's basically one of us--- a movie geek and cinephile--- who just so happened to achieve his dream, turning his obsessive passion for movies into his profession. Had he been less fortunate, I like to think that QT would be a member of this forum, doling out daily film recommendations and arguing over which is better: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly or Once Upon a Time in the West. (He'd choose the former, I'd choose the latter.)
For movie lovers like myself, QT, and the members of this forum, watching a movie becomes so much more than just a way to pass the time for a couple of hours. We admire our favorite films with the same amount of reverence that an art lover feels for Rembrandt, or a music lover for Beethoven. Film is an art form, and I believe that the masterpieces of our favorite medium can stand toe-to-toe with the masterpieces of other mediums. (Michelangelo, meet Stanley Kubrick. Mr. Shakespeare, allow me to introduce you to Orson Welles.) Unlike general audiences, we pay specific attention to the script, the dialogue, the cinematography, the way a director frames a shot, the symbolism, the subtext. We dissect and analyze every scene, often to an exhaustive degree, because we're movie lovers.
But watching our favorite films is also like going on vacation. I've come to love Vincent Vega, Jules Winnfield, Mia Wallace, Butch Coolidge and all the rest of the characters in Pulp Fiction as if they were family or life-long friends. After a certain amount of time passes, I feel the urge to go Jack Rabbit Slim's and have a five-dollar milkshake. I want to discuss blueberry pancakes and the sanctity of foot-massages. And that's the brilliance of Pulp Fiction. It's never realistic--- not with Tarantino's trademark dialogue and stylistic flourishes--- yet everything in the movie feels so alive.
With Pulp Fiction, Tarantino emphasized the inessential. Every scene feels like it's taking place inside a much larger, more conventional movie, but instead of showing us what a normal director would show us, Tarantino shows us the scenes that take place in between the scenes we're used to seeing. The characters that populate Pulp Fiction would be relegated to the side of the screen in a normal movie. Many of them wouldn't receive but a line or two, if that, and the scenes that make up Pulp Fiction would be relegated to our imagination. Leave it to Tarantino, who wears his heart and inspirations on his sleeve, who grew up watching and re-watching movies with the same level of reverence and adulation as many of us, to ask the questions, "Well, what about these other characters? Where do the hitmen eat breakfast after they carry out the hit? What do they talk about?" to then grow up and make a movie that only a movie lover could've made--- a movie that would transform myself and countless others into obsessive, hardcore movie lovers, opening our eyes to the greatest medium known to man.
For that reason, Pulp Fiction will always be my favorite movie. Without it, I wouldn't be a member of this forum. I wouldn't have gone back to discover the classics. I wouldn't watch foreign movies or black-and-white movies or silent movies. I'd probably be content to just watch Van Damme roundhouse kick a villain in the face, over and over and over, then try to emulate it when nobody is around to watch me fall on my ass. Pulp Fiction opened my eyes to the wider world of cinema. It showed me what was possible. And for that I am forever grateful.
(Trust me, it's not as easy as it looks.)
My family never went on vacation or had game nights or anything like that. Everyone was fairly solitary, doing their own thing, but we'd always come together every Saturday night to watch movies as a family. That's a tradition that we still try to maintain whenever we can. During the holidays and family gatherings, somebody always makes sure to bring along a movie so everyone can pile up on the couch, pop some popcorn, and share the experience. When we sit down to dinner or talk on the phone, one question that always gets asked is, "So, seen any good movies lately?"
(Disclaimer: Not my actual family.)
I can't single out one particular film that made me fall in love with movies. That love has been there since my youth. But I think we all have one film that comes along and transforms our love of movies into an obsession--- a desire to devour as many great films as possible. A casual or serious relationship with cinema turns into a Fatal Attraction-style stalkerdom. For me, that hymen-busting, eye-opening, life-altering experience was Pulp Fiction.
Simply put, I'd never seen anything like it. If Toy Story made me believe that my action figures came alive when I left the room, Pulp Fiction made me believe that the characters in movies continued with their lives even after the credits rolled. Every scene and every line of dialogue in a movie should serve to advance the plot, or so I'd been told, but Pulp Fiction didn't give a damn about following normal conventions. If ninety-nine percent of movies exist inside the square that Mia draws with her fingers, with all its restrictions and rules and guidelines, Pulp Fiction exists outside the square, where anything and everything is possible.
(Although, to be accurate, that's totally a rectangle, not a square.)
Tarantino's love of cinema oozes from every frame of Pulp Fiction. He's basically one of us--- a movie geek and cinephile--- who just so happened to achieve his dream, turning his obsessive passion for movies into his profession. Had he been less fortunate, I like to think that QT would be a member of this forum, doling out daily film recommendations and arguing over which is better: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly or Once Upon a Time in the West. (He'd choose the former, I'd choose the latter.)
For movie lovers like myself, QT, and the members of this forum, watching a movie becomes so much more than just a way to pass the time for a couple of hours. We admire our favorite films with the same amount of reverence that an art lover feels for Rembrandt, or a music lover for Beethoven. Film is an art form, and I believe that the masterpieces of our favorite medium can stand toe-to-toe with the masterpieces of other mediums. (Michelangelo, meet Stanley Kubrick. Mr. Shakespeare, allow me to introduce you to Orson Welles.) Unlike general audiences, we pay specific attention to the script, the dialogue, the cinematography, the way a director frames a shot, the symbolism, the subtext. We dissect and analyze every scene, often to an exhaustive degree, because we're movie lovers.
But watching our favorite films is also like going on vacation. I've come to love Vincent Vega, Jules Winnfield, Mia Wallace, Butch Coolidge and all the rest of the characters in Pulp Fiction as if they were family or life-long friends. After a certain amount of time passes, I feel the urge to go Jack Rabbit Slim's and have a five-dollar milkshake. I want to discuss blueberry pancakes and the sanctity of foot-massages. And that's the brilliance of Pulp Fiction. It's never realistic--- not with Tarantino's trademark dialogue and stylistic flourishes--- yet everything in the movie feels so alive.
With Pulp Fiction, Tarantino emphasized the inessential. Every scene feels like it's taking place inside a much larger, more conventional movie, but instead of showing us what a normal director would show us, Tarantino shows us the scenes that take place in between the scenes we're used to seeing. The characters that populate Pulp Fiction would be relegated to the side of the screen in a normal movie. Many of them wouldn't receive but a line or two, if that, and the scenes that make up Pulp Fiction would be relegated to our imagination. Leave it to Tarantino, who wears his heart and inspirations on his sleeve, who grew up watching and re-watching movies with the same level of reverence and adulation as many of us, to ask the questions, "Well, what about these other characters? Where do the hitmen eat breakfast after they carry out the hit? What do they talk about?" to then grow up and make a movie that only a movie lover could've made--- a movie that would transform myself and countless others into obsessive, hardcore movie lovers, opening our eyes to the greatest medium known to man.
For that reason, Pulp Fiction will always be my favorite movie. Without it, I wouldn't be a member of this forum. I wouldn't have gone back to discover the classics. I wouldn't watch foreign movies or black-and-white movies or silent movies. I'd probably be content to just watch Van Damme roundhouse kick a villain in the face, over and over and over, then try to emulate it when nobody is around to watch me fall on my ass. Pulp Fiction opened my eyes to the wider world of cinema. It showed me what was possible. And for that I am forever grateful.
Last edited by Captain Spaulding; 05-06-14 at 05:11 PM.
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(Although, to be accurate, that's totally a rectangle, not a square.)
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Usually if you right-click and open the image itself the filename will give the source up. In this case, Werckmeister Harmonies. A handful of MoFos seem to really love that one.
But yeah, I'd definitely encourage people to list the title, especially seeing as how a lot of these images might not be around later, for posterity.
But yeah, I'd definitely encourage people to list the title, especially seeing as how a lot of these images might not be around later, for posterity.
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Oh good gracious, this is asking for the impossible! So many led me from one stage of the love of film to another. Let's see if I can recall this correctly:
-Jurassic Park (first film I saw in theatres): Probably began my love to watch movies.
-Star Wars Episode IV: Began my interest in science fiction movies.
-The LOTR trilogy: The "bud" of my dream to become a filmmaker.
*somewhere between these and the next one, I openly admitted this dream to myself*
-The Dark Knight: Inspired me to start writing screenplays (though I never completed one that I liked for about 4 years after).
-The Artist: Made me consider a lot of genres.
And soon, once I finish it...my first film (won't say the title just yet): The beginning of a new era of my love for film.
-Jurassic Park (first film I saw in theatres): Probably began my love to watch movies.
-Star Wars Episode IV: Began my interest in science fiction movies.
-The LOTR trilogy: The "bud" of my dream to become a filmmaker.
*somewhere between these and the next one, I openly admitted this dream to myself*
-The Dark Knight: Inspired me to start writing screenplays (though I never completed one that I liked for about 4 years after).
-The Artist: Made me consider a lot of genres.
And soon, once I finish it...my first film (won't say the title just yet): The beginning of a new era of my love for film.
Altered States
I've been hooked ever since, almost as much as music holds me. Another good movie that many aren't too interested in, that refreshed my appreciation of film is Revolver. On its surface the movie is just ***** and giggles, but after a couple of viewings it's become one of my favorites.
Eddie Jessup: What dignifies the Yogic practices is that the belief system itself is not truly religious. There is no Buddhist God per se. It is the Self, the individual Mind, that contains immortality and ultimate truth.
Emily Jessup: What the hell is not religious about that? You've simply replaced God with the Original Self.
Eddie Jessup: Yes, but we've localized it. Now I know where the Self is. It's in our own minds. It's a form of human energy. Our atoms are six billion years old. We've got six billion years of memory in our minds.
Eddie Jessup: Memory is energy! It doesn't disappear - it's still in there. There's a physiological pathway to our earlier consciousnesses. There has to be; and I'm telling you it's in the ********* limbic system.
Mason Parrish: You're a whacko!
Eddie Jessup: What's whacko about it, Mason? I'm a man in search of his true self. How archetypically American can you get? We're all trying to fulfill ourselves, understand ourselves, get in touch with ourselves, face the reality of ourselves, explore ourselves, expand ourselves. Ever since we dispensed with God we've got nothing but ourselves to explain this meaningless horror of life.
Emily Jessup: What the hell is not religious about that? You've simply replaced God with the Original Self.
Eddie Jessup: Yes, but we've localized it. Now I know where the Self is. It's in our own minds. It's a form of human energy. Our atoms are six billion years old. We've got six billion years of memory in our minds.
Eddie Jessup: Memory is energy! It doesn't disappear - it's still in there. There's a physiological pathway to our earlier consciousnesses. There has to be; and I'm telling you it's in the ********* limbic system.
Mason Parrish: You're a whacko!
Eddie Jessup: What's whacko about it, Mason? I'm a man in search of his true self. How archetypically American can you get? We're all trying to fulfill ourselves, understand ourselves, get in touch with ourselves, face the reality of ourselves, explore ourselves, expand ourselves. Ever since we dispensed with God we've got nothing but ourselves to explain this meaningless horror of life.
Enjoyed reading that Spaulding and not just because I love Pulp Fiction. To me nothing is better then when someone gets personal when explaining why they love or hate a movie. I think someone would have a pretty interesting review thread.
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Dude Im so not picking on you, but are you BS'ing? Just surprised its the second one. Though that was art compared to Crystal Skull 
You're way behind the power curve. 
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Dude Im so not picking on you, but are you BS'ing? Just surprised its the second one. Though that was art compared to Crystal Skull
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The Little Mermaid is probably the first movie that I absolutely loved and watched obsessively. I've also loved musicals since I was a little girl.
I discovered movies like Eraserhead, Repo Man and Suburbia around the age of 15 and they opened me up to a whole different world of movies besides the traditional Hollywood movies, musicals or the B science fiction and John Carpenter films that my dad loves so much. When I found those movies is when I really started to dig a little deeper and became "into" movies.
I still love all those movies except for Eraserhead.
I discovered movies like Eraserhead, Repo Man and Suburbia around the age of 15 and they opened me up to a whole different world of movies besides the traditional Hollywood movies, musicals or the B science fiction and John Carpenter films that my dad loves so much. When I found those movies is when I really started to dig a little deeper and became "into" movies.
I still love all those movies except for Eraserhead.
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Temple of Doom is a great movie!
I know I've said it a thousand times already, but it has always been my favorite Indy movie and was one of the first movies I truly loved. I don't consider it "the movie that made me love movies," though, because although I loved it, it didn't really inspire me to watch a bunch of other movies. Just that one over and over again.
I know I've said it a thousand times already, but it has always been my favorite Indy movie and was one of the first movies I truly loved. I don't consider it "the movie that made me love movies," though, because although I loved it, it didn't really inspire me to watch a bunch of other movies. Just that one over and over again.
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It was an 80's movie for sure. It might have been Back to the Future, The Karate Kid, or one of the Rocky sequels ( Part III or IV). I can't remember the specific movie.
The movie that changed my perspective of the whole movie-going experience in general, and revolutionized the movie industry as a whole, was Pulp Fiction in 1994. That's the year Forrest Gump and Shawshank Redemption were released also. I was 17 years old then and that's when I became picky with the types of movies I would watch.
The movie that changed my perspective of the whole movie-going experience in general, and revolutionized the movie industry as a whole, was Pulp Fiction in 1994. That's the year Forrest Gump and Shawshank Redemption were released also. I was 17 years old then and that's when I became picky with the types of movies I would watch.
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Nice to see some love for The World According to Garp...the book seemed unfilmable but I think George Roy Hill did a hell of a job. Robin Williams has rarely been better and Glenn Close was brilliant.
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Thought Id give this old thread a bump again so we can get the "Movie Love" origins of alot of new folks here.
