I was perhaps around 10-12 when I watched
Alien for the first time, alone, in my room. My mom had talked a bit about it and I quickly became interested, even though you could sense she perhaps wasn’t too sure if I should see it at that age.
But when I came into the living room and told my mom I had just seen
Alien and that I really liked it she seemed more happy that I liked it than concerned that I saw it.
I have watched it countless of times since - both of the first two films actually - and both were on my list too. Right next to each other actually, with the first one just edging out the second. It truly is one of the great pieces of groundbreaking, influential cinema that I’m still impressed by to this day.
Taxi Driver is also a pretty interesting story. I saw it when I was really getting into cinema, around 16-17 I guess it must have been... we were supposed to pick a movie from a table in class at school and then watch that movie and talk about it in a presentation. I was quick to pick out
Taxi Driver because I had heard so much about it already. I almost felt like I had seen it with the amount I had heard of it. It was mostly about its status though and not that much about the story itself.
When I watched it, I was a bit underwhelmed. I guess I expected something else. I don’t think I quite understood what I had watched. But scenes and moments kinda stuck with me and I watched it a few years later once again and it worked much better for me. I think I might have seen it 3-4 times now and it’s really grown on me. I really love it now. It’s not all the way top tier amazing, but it’s really really really good. I enjoy it for sure and own it in my collection.