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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The cool perspective tricks were a gateway drug into basically every other aspect of film analysis. I remember being upset because some other classes in my high school got to analyse the movie for a class but I didn't (and the school concensus was that it was terrible 'gay' poo poo). I think seeing Carrey play a serious role and nail it in the process just blew my teenage mind, and I'd come out of a dumb teenage relationship, so, really, total perfect storm. Now I'm a CD tragic so, thanks, Kaufman, Gondry, Carrey and Winslet.
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Sep 23, 2018 10:40
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Coaaab posted:Tarkovsky's Mirror (on DVD at college) was the one that really showed me that a film didn't even have to adhere to a chronological narrative, following instead a sort of emotional logic. It befuddled me the first time around, but a subsequent viewing for a class a couple years later made me appreciate it more. Over ten years on, I really want to watch it again (preferably in a theater) to see how it stacks up to my favorite films. I first saw Mirror in an arthouse theater a decade ago and loved it. I haven't seen it since, but tomorrow I'm going to go see it again in that very same theater. I highly recommended the experience.
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Sep 23, 2018 13:24
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Abel Gance's Napoleon. First silent film I ever saw - mainly out of curiosity when I was 13 years old. I had already enjoyed longer movies - the '56 Around the World in 80 Days and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World were childhood favorites. But it was amazing to see what could be done. And even on a tiny TV, seeing a widescreen image in a silent film was neat. It also got me interested in seeing films in proper aspect ratios and formats. I remember being disappointed when my parents got me the Star Wars Trilogy in pan & scan because I knew about letterboxing. 8 1/2 was also important because it was the first foreign language film I had ever seen. Saw it in high school and never looked back to the days of only watching current English-language films.
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Sep 23, 2018 15:30
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Lawrence of Arabia was an incredible, immersive experience for me. Watched it in high school on a recommendation from a teacher who thought I could use a lesson or two on identity and misguided/dishonest altruism. I'm glad he did. He also recommended The Crying Game which I watched around the same time. The surprise twist is mostly what many people take away from that film, and it definitely made me pay more attention to the nuances in relationships in film, but it was also an incredibly poignant examination of how love can be found and expressed through an individuals actions, regardless of social or mental boundaries, which this film taught me are often self-imposed. Until then, love felt pretty straightforward. After that, anything goes, really.
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Sep 25, 2018 08:39
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The cool perspective tricks were a gateway drug into basically every other aspect of film analysis. I remember being upset because some other classes in my high school got to analyse the movie for a class but I didn't (and the school concensus was that it was terrible 'gay' poo poo). I think seeing Carrey play a serious role and nail it in the process just blew my teenage mind, and I'd come out of a dumb teenage relationship, so, really, total perfect storm. not exactly on topic but similar to your post: one of my college film courses watched blow-up and every single person hated it except me. the class screening was a "pop the dvd in" thing where the professor wasn't around so everybody started talking poo poo and i felt like a space alien for loving it.
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Sep 25, 2018 10:25
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I can't remember where I transitioned to understanding movies can be art, but I do remember what caused me to realize there were films I could hate. loving Mr. Holland's Opus. I was six or seven when my family saw it in theaters and I loving HATED it. Looking back at it now I can understand why, there was absolutely nothing for a 7 year old to relate to. I didn't know what it meant to be a jr high or high school student let along a teacher. I didn't have a wife, a son, didn't have or know anyone with disabilities. I didn't understand how much stress financial issues can cause. I certainly didn't understand what it meant to age. A pretty god drat bad movie to take a young kid to. Now, eh, it's okay. A bit bland and sappy, but not upsettingly so. And it was before Richard Dreyfus became the crypt keeper, so that's nice.
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Sep 25, 2018 14:05
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We watched "Citizen Kane" in my high school English class once, mostly because I think our teacher wanted to teach film school instead. It was the first time cinematography and composition was pointed out to me. I knew all about special effects thanks to hours of watching "The Making of Star Wars," but I had never thought about how much it mattered where the camera was or how things were arranged in front of it. On the other hand, my mom deciding she'd had enough of "Ernest Goes To Camp" 5 minutes in was the first time I realized you didn't have to like every movie you saw.
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Sep 25, 2018 14:22
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i think watching Godzilla vs the Smog Monster when I was a kid really primed me for the kind of surreal, non-traditional films with distinctive visuals that I still prefer today. Going from watching american kids cartoons to that poo poo was wild there were also some movies like Brazil, Solaris, and Head that I watched in high school that really made me realize movies could be different from the poo poo I would rent from blockbuster
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Sep 25, 2018 14:55
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pokemon: the first movie
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Sep 25, 2018 15:24
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This is a cool question. I'm also on the David Fincher train, but for me it was Se7en. I remember "liking movies" from an early age, but mostly 80's genre classics like Star Wars, Aliens, Indiana Jones, etc. I had no clue why I thought they were good and had no articulated awareness of what they were doing at a formal level. Se7en was the first movie I watched where I was struck by the form and style of it, where I had any clarity of how it was using those things to tell a story. I think I was about 14 when this happened, a few years after it came out. I remember seeing movies like Psycho and Casablanca when I was little, too, but clearly they flowed right over me.
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Sep 26, 2018 01:41
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I've always really been into horror since I was a wee lad, but I saw A Clockwork Orange in my early teens and it changed the whole movie game for me. It was my first exposure to non-horror "weird" unconventional cinema. It seems quaint now, but yeah, the style, the language, the music, everything really had a big effect on where my tastes would go after that.
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Sep 27, 2018 06:50
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For me it was American Beauty. I was 14. I remember feeling weird about watching a -gasp- drama and actually being invested in it and enjoying it. Until then I mostly did the typical child/teenager thing and stuck with watching mostly children's films, dumb comedies, and the cliche blockbuster action films of the time. The movie hit me at exactly the right time in my life, right as my parents' marriage was falling apart and me realizing both mom and dad had now clearly been unhappy with their lives for a good portion of my childhood. Everything just clicked so well. Nowadays I recognize that the film doesn't do anything particularly groundbreaking, but I still think it's a solid film and a good segue into seeing film as an art form, or at least that films that are about nothing more than examining characters and the human experience can be entertaining.
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Oct 31, 2018 22:40
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David Lynch movies in general. I find it hard to explain but a single Lynch scene scared me more than any horror flick ever could. It's on an entire different level really eventhough I can't really put my finger on it as good as I feel I should. I used to have a lot of bad nightmares as a little kid. These dreams were oftenly pretty abstract and not too graphical. Lynch' movies remind me of them.
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Nov 1, 2018 22:19
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Any time my mother was watching a movie of her choosing it was either new and dramatic or old and mysterious. I got to see lots of Hitchcock movies as a kid. While my favorite by the end wound up being North by Northwest (intrigue! paranoia!) the one that popped something in my brain was actually The Trouble With Harry. I remember feeling really weird watching my mom laugh at death and it stuck in my head that movies could be strange things that pulled out different parts of the audience's personalities.
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Nov 1, 2018 23:50
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I think I was about 14-15 when I watched Tetsuo: The Iron Man and I realised that movies didn't need to be enjoyable in any way in order to be good.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:21
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For me, after growing up on american movies, starting with stuff like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, my mom turned out to be a cinephile. When we could rent movies, she started bringing home anything Siskel and Ebert recommended. She brought home The Gods Must Be Crazy and it was radically different from anything I'd seen to date, but really, really enjoyable. Basically an english language foreign film. Never mind that the story is told from the perspective of a south African tribe that had never seen a Coke bottle before. Not a particularly radical or mind blowing film, but definitely different. After that when my mom would bring home a "foreign film" I was always eager to watch it, although she tended towards comedies so that made it easy.
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Nov 25, 2018 23:28
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 This played on Showtime nonstop at 2 AM in the early '90s and I was a young insomniac. I credit it with loving me up for life. The pull quote, which seems like hyperbole is fairly accurate - the film has more conviction in its vision than a million blockbusters. It also has Bill Paxton having large women licking dog food stir fried in castor oil topped with minced clams in a sugary cream sauce with pimentos and chives off his nipples. Wayne Newton loved the script so much he offered to do the film for free. Featuring James Caan as Doctor Scurvy.
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Nov 25, 2018 23:44
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In college some friends had a movie night where they screened things I had never seen before. Donnie Darko, Ghost World, Eternal Sunshine, I Heart Huckabees, Last Temptation of the Christ, etc. I had grown up in the church and my parents were opposed to certain content in their house, so being exposed to better movies helped me develop a love for them and really broaden my tastes.
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Nov 26, 2018 02:45
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Lemon posted:I think I was about 14-15 when I watched Tetsuo: The Iron Man and I realised that movies didn't need to be enjoyable in any way in order to be good.  Tetsuo is loving awesome what are you talking aboutLike it is a complete and utter nightmare but in the best way possible
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Nov 26, 2018 02:57
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:
That's what I mean, but I may have chosen my words poorly. What about a complete and utter nightmare is enjoyable, in the sense of the word when you might normally use it to describe a movie? It's a horrible, disturbing experience. It's still a great film though. And that was the first time I realised that was something that was actually possible. Lemon fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Nov 26, 2018 |
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Nov 26, 2018 14:34
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caligulamprey posted:
I have never even heard of this movie.
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Nov 26, 2018 16:01
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Tetsuo is pretty loving metal both literally and figuratively, and that makes it pretty drat enjoyable.
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Nov 26, 2018 17:02
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I have never even heard of this movie.
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Nov 26, 2018 18:14
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Beetlejuice made me realize that there are directors who can create an identity through their films. It was a big moment realize "Oh, this is Tim Burton's thing" with regards to his humor, aesthetic, cinematography, set designs, etc. I was probably 11 years old. Dead Alive made me realize that there are rules and there are rules worth breaking, and that film-making could be fun. That was the movie that made me want to work in film. Around this time was when I also took notice of the Coen Bros. and how everything about them just worked: dark sense of humor with serious stories that the audiences get to participate in. Then I saw Eraserhead at around 15 years old and that pretty much redefined everything for me.
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Nov 26, 2018 20:48
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caligulamprey posted:It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime in the states. Come for the third arm growing out of Judd Nelson's back, stay for Bill Paxton screaming every line of dialogue he has! Sold. I was glued to the movie channels as a kid too, I don’t know how I never saw this if it was as common as you say. Sounds wild
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Nov 26, 2018 22:07
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Lemon posted:I think I was about 14-15 when I watched Tetsuo: The Iron Man and I realised that movies didn't need to be enjoyable in any way in order to be good. That movie sure was a wild ride.
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Nov 26, 2018 22:37
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whatevz fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Nov 27, 2018 23:42
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My school had a film club, which meant I could see movies with a higher certificate than I'd be able to watch in a cinema. So at the age of 13 or so I got to see stuff like Escape From New York (an AA, the equivalent of a 15), but the one that had a "whoa, what the hell am I watching?" effect was Tommy, which was so unlike anything I'd ever seen before, certain images burned themselves into my brain like an acid trip. I rewatched parts of it on Youtube recently, and those moments were pretty much exactly as I remembered over 30 years on.
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Nov 28, 2018 11:38
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This feels like a silly answer, but Attack of the Clones. I was 8 when Phantom Menace came out, and my dad introduced me to the original Star Wars trilogy to prepare for it. I was 100% on board, and loving loved Phantom when it came out (not even going to pretend that I didn't). I remember being mystified by the story for the most part, but it had podracing and lightsabers and Jar-Jar Binks, and that was enough for me. By the time Attack of the Clones rolled around, I was 11 and starting to head towards puberty. I was starting to have a couple more informed decisions, I was staying up later and stealth viewing the first hour of Adult Swim. Despite it all, I was still extremely enthused for AoTC. I was there opening day with my dad, ready for watch a new chapter in the story of Anakin and Obi-Wan. And then it started. It must have been about an hour, hour and a half in where the thought crossed my mind: "This is bad." It was the first time, that I recall, that after looking forward to something it was a letdown. Before that, if I was excited for something, and I saw it, it was good. No questions asked. Basically, Attack of the Clones made me realize that not everything is good. EDIT: A couple years after this I caught the ending of Pulp Fiction on Vh1 (lol). I had heard of the film before, was aware of the cultural references, but this was the first time I had seen a second of it. I was transfixed, and that was the first film I sought out to watch. I remember watching a suuuuuper grainy version of it on the internet, broken up into four parts, on some lovely illegal movie hosting site. I think it had subtitles and was missing like 5 minutes of the Bruce Willis segment too. But I was caught up in it, and of course, at 13 Tarantino became my first "favorite" director. Conrad_Birdie fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Nov 28, 2018 |
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Nov 28, 2018 17:10
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When I was in high school a teacher took a group of us to see a German film called The Nasty Girl, about a teenaged girl who starts investigating her town’s role in WW2 and discovers the truth isn’t quite what she’s been led to believe. There was a scene where it was something like her house was on the back of a truck - slightly surreal - and it was pretty mind-opening. Very good film from what I can recall. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100557/
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Jan 12, 2019 12:19
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therattle posted:When I was in high school a teacher took a group of us to see a German film called The Nasty Girl, about a teenaged girl who starts investigating her town’s role in WW2 and discovers the truth isn’t quite what she’s been led to believe. There was a scene where it was something like her house was on the back of a truck - slightly surreal - and it was pretty mind-opening. Very good film from what I can recall. I took French throughout middle school and high school and over the course of six years we probably watched Jean de Flourette and Manon des Sources every single year, with different teachers. It's the exact kind of movie that a teenager should find boring and elusive, but the story is so well constructed it always sucked me in and was actually one of my first real experiences with foreign film. We watched some other films multiple times through those classes: The Dinner Game/Le diner de cons (the source material for Dinner for Schmucks), Apres Vous, The Chorus, but those two always stood out. There's a scene in Manon where Daniel Auteil sews a piece of Manon's clothing into his skin that always stuck out as particularly gruesome. Also the first time I'd ever seen anything with Gerard Depardieu and watching that guy physically transform into Sexually Abusive Shrek has been a little alarming. edit: In 7th grade we watched French dubs of The Mosquito Coast and Fly Away Home, so for years I thought Anna Paquin was French. TrixRabbi fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Jan 12, 2019 |
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Jan 12, 2019 13:22
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I was 7 when my dad took me to see Ghost in the Shell and I was absolutely blown away. By that point I had only seen Fun Stuff. GitS was the first time I sat there, utterly enthralled, on an entertainment, thematic, and artistic level. It also inspired me to start reading seriously because I wanted to understand it better, so now I read anywhere between 30 and 50 books a year and I have Mamoru Oshii to thank for that. 
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Jan 14, 2019 04:26
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Klaaz posted:David Lynch movies in general. I find it hard to explain but a single Lynch scene scared me more than any horror flick ever could. It's on an entire different level really eventhough I can't really put my finger on it as good as I feel I should. I used to have a lot of bad nightmares as a little kid. These dreams were oftenly pretty abstract and not too graphical. Lynch' movies remind me of them. Lost Highway was my first Lynch movie and it blew my mind. I pretty much only watched it because I was a Nine Inch Nails fan, but ended up loving it. Also ended up getting into David Bowie and Barry Adamson because of the soundtrack.
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Jan 15, 2019 18:48
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The Black Stallion. It's a gorgeous movie and most of it takes place with no dialog.
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Jan 16, 2019 00:34
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The Quest For Fire which had no intelligible language just humans communicating in their most primitive form and just living on their base instincts was pretty cool
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Jan 16, 2019 10:28
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The Fountain in that it was so bizarre and abstract it made the idea of film being a way to communicate ideals something that broke my tiny teenage mind and ruined my ability to appreciate blockbusters as "turn your brain off" schlock forever and ever.
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Jan 16, 2019 10:36
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frankee posted:The Quest For Fire which had no intelligible language just humans communicating in their most primitive form and just living on their base instincts was pretty cool Also star wars
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Jan 16, 2019 11:55
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I grew up reading Uncle Scrooge comics, and they actually had some pretty great locales and adventures, so when I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark it blew my mind to basically see these things brought to life in a crazy awesome pulp tale.
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Jan 17, 2019 03:59
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Fart City posted:The Thing. It was the first movie ever saw (at perhaps too young an age) that ever made me wonder how did they do that? But beyond the stellar effects work, the movie is also filled with fantastic performances, an incredible score, beautiful cinematography, and a somber and contemplative mood that separates it from other similar genre films. It’s a movie I’ve been able o appreciate different aspects to upon multiple rewatches over a course of years. Truly a gift that keeps on giving. I wish I saw this as a kid, I watched so many great horror movies but this one eluded me. It's perfect.
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Jan 17, 2019 04:06
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punch-drunk love I was mid teens when I saw it. it was so weird and unique and different. so too was Adam sandler. He was... a broken, angry, immature person... but... unlike his other movies, it was poignant. I related.
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Jan 17, 2019 04:17
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