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phobosdeimos1

Films that changed your life

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Ever seen a film that had such a deep emotional impact on you that it instantly reached your top 10?

Ever seen a film that seemed to penetrate so far into your 'soul' that you've broken into tears?

Maybe it's mirrored your life situation or maybe what you wished your life was.

Maybe it's just such a profound potrayal of everything you've ever believed about the world and that you simply cannot ignore the fact that somewhere out there, the Director/Writer thought the same things as you.

Post what film(s) have done this to you, and why?

Also, on a similiar note, is there any films of the horror genre that have genuinely scared you?

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WildWeasel said:

Ferris Bueller's Day Off.


I'm assuming you're joking, but no insult intended if you aren't as I haven't actually seen it.. if you aren't, why does it affect you?

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Conan the Barbarian, 1982. Directed by John Milius. Soundtrack by Basil Poledouris. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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DeathevokatioN said:

Total Recall. Does anyone here own a dvd version this, that doesn't have that midget girl cut out?


Of course. A fine film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Mine has the midget girl fully intact. I also have the uncut version of Robocop, another masterpiece by Verhoeven.

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Vordakk said:

Of course. A fine film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Mine has the midget girl fully intact. I also have the uncut version of Robocop, another masterpiece by Verhoeven.

Cool, so it's still out there? Total Recall recently aired on TV but was butchered and so many memorable scenes were taken out.

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oh those flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz left an impression. Now I hate monkeys but I do not fear them. ;/

The Last Man on Earth (1964) stands out when I was a kid. Saw it while spending the night with Grandma when I was about 10. Been a Vincent Price and horror fan ever since.

Can't recommend enough Nosferatu (1922). First saw it as an adult and still find it creepy and magnificent. This is the movie that had me stop and take a second look at silent films in general.

Sling Blade made me cry. I've worked with the mentally handicapped and some can be so simple and logical. Not sure it changed my life, though.

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So many I could list...

Come and See: changed my perception of what a war movie should be, as well as my understanding about WWII in general.

Hara Kiri and Seven Samurai: I pair these together because they're really two sides of the same coin. One has a more revisionist feel than the other (from a western POV, anyways) in that it doesn't glorify the Samurai.

Robocop: I liked it as a kid, but it's satirical nature didn't really click with me until later. Taught me to look deeper into a film's message. 28 Days Later also had this sort of re-affirmation effect on me.

M: Changed my perception of films before 1960, honestly. Coupled with some of Hitchcock's films and Buster Keaton's The General, I've grown to really respect older films for their forward-thinking and innovation.

Ikiru: Inspired me to follow through on everything I start, no matter what.

Those are the ones that impacted me from either a film standpoint or just in general. My list of films I love for other reasons is a bit more expansive, but I won't dive into why each of them are a favorite.

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I'm tempted to add American Psycho to my list. I think the job that Mary Harron did of adapting that film from the novel by Bret Easton Ellis was fantastic. I've read that book about 5 times now, and I always envision Patrick Bateman as Christian Bale portrayed him on screen, because I think he nailed it.

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Probably The Terminator or Judgment Day. I was so young however that I barely had a life beforehand though. But I really liked them for portraying ultra-resistant human-like robots. Also the atomic bomb in 2 really gave me a scary idea what atomic bombs can do. Still, Terminator 2 felt quite child-friendly, what with the shapeshifting evil robot, the friendly Schwarzenegger one, the child protagonist with mother and so on.

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Weirdly enough, "Holy Man". Was some film with eddy murphy in it, actually made me become alot nicer after watching that film to people I met.

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If I were to respond truthfully, this hastily cobbled and disastrously incomplete list would be even smaller than it is. And it would also probably include The Land Before Time and Baby's Day Out. Powerful and influential films, though? Certainly. And I never hold back the tears, where applicable:

Touching the Void: Really convinced me that a documentary could hit just as hard as any standard narrative while focusing likewise on one story/line of progression/setting etc. It's also hugely inspirational.
The "Boney M" scene is up there among my favourites.

Home (2008, Ursula Meier):
Surreal yet believable, the film really helps highlight the extent to which some will go to maintain certain values. It's a simple message told from a wild and sometimes unbearable angle.

Duel:
Helped me personify objects in things that I might not otherwise have personified/made an antagonist out of. Trucks can be scary.

Glengarry Glen Ross (the stage play more so):
Dialogue king. Hugely influencial, and part of the reason I like corporate/office films.

The Last King of Scotland:
I was actually studying anthropology as a minor subject when I first saw this film, so I suppose it may have acted as a catalyst, but either way, this film presented a unique relationship, disillusionment and futility that meant so much to me in so many ways, it's hard to know where to begin. I had spent almost my entire childhood immitating and integrating into different cultures whenver we moved country - even the religion with which my boarding school was affiliated was something I would take part in out of integration and gaining favour with the locals as opposed to soemthing faith based. Though these are not the film's only points of focus, the relationship between the two leads really struck a chord somewhere in this department.
And after The Crying Game, it was great to see Forest Whitaker put on anything but an English accent.

Castaway:
Wilson.

The Conversation:
The emotional containment and otherwise nature of Hackman's character is something I can relate to very well. My father is a similar sort of man, and I like to think we share a sort of mutual understanding of emotion as a more subtle and unspoken phenomenon. Of course he'd say otherwise, but that's part of the point.
It's also just a really, really fine film and character study. Not at all a filler number between Coppola's bigger hits.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu:
Part horrifying, part revealing, but all a little bizarre, this film is best viewed not for any individual scene, but as a whole and in one sitting, the form in which it gains from me the most admiration.

Raging Bull:
Another fine character study and biopic/epic. Also spiked a lot of my interest for film soundtrack.

The English Patient:
You asked for a tear jerker, yeah? Yeah.

Brazil:
Imagination explosion. Furthered my interest in beurocratic films and the merging of ideas. It also functions beautifully as a platform for skits and dreamscapes, though you wouldn't expect anything less of Terry.

The Dish:
A light hearted but majestic film that makes a lot of very little (at least for a film - the real event on which it based is both understated and pivotal), and for me is something of an epitome for films of its kind.
Also Sam Neill.

The Deer Hunter:
This film is like taking one of the longest and fastest roller coasters in the park, except rather than throwing up bile you throw up tears instead. From your eyes of course.
It's stylistically mesmerizing and has some of the best scenery shots - both natural and industrial - around, to really help establish that sort of juxtaposition, as well as a sort of alienation through the observing of a neutral landscape. At least, that's how I see it.

Pan's Labyrinth:
Blends together tyranny, war ,and an adult air over one of the best imaginings of a fantasy world and walks away unscathed. Better for it, actually. Like The Devil's Backbone, Del Torro is masterful at creating the most emmersive, colourful, and peculiar circumstances that remind one of the true fairy tales of old. The ones that were meant to terrify you in delivering its message.
...And I suppose that's why i love it so much, and why I absolutely WEPT at the end of the film: It bridged flawlessly my childhood and my adult understandings, such that in the moment I almost felt ageless.

The Fly:
It's the transformation process really, in his character, appearance... the lot. I remain impressed by the monster design (The Thing is what probably got me into studying make-up techniques more so, however).
Don't watch the sequel, by the way.

The Castle (1997):
Good movie. An Australian classic! And nostalgia points as well.

Happy-Go-Lucky:
"Love it or hate it film," to the max.
This Mike Leigh film doesn't have a plot, really. Which is fine. Its goal is to dish out a heap of scenarios in the following of this one unique veiwpoint on life in order to allow the audience time to deliberate their own values and viewpoints; how those values compare etc. But on top of that, the lead's nature is infectious like you wouldn't believe, unless you're the sort of person who outright despises those who unrelentingly happy. But then if you are, then the film achieves its goal in showing the distinctions.
The Eddie Marsan scenes are king.

The Pianist:
It's a little more up front than it needs to be at times, but this films does things for me in a similar way to how The Last King of Scotland did, though this time by highlighting our similarities despite the most gross and dividing change. The opposite of futility.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada:
Tommy Lee Jone's directorial debut I think, and a remarkably simple, philosophical, and disquieting film.

The Mission (1986):
Okay, I might have to come back to this one as i only saw it a couple weeks ago (hardly life changing - lest I be writing this from somewhere that would attest to my life's having changed. I'm not). The soundtrack lured me in, "I knew I'd heard it somewhere!" Then lasting ties to my catholic education made me keen to unearth different ways in which one might hold a relationship with a religion or god. Or perhaps it's just my anti-theism that fascinates me.

Falling Down:
It's as the title says, but it's also because he's at times the most relatable character imaginable. I mean, he's clealy not the bad guy. He's just had had a really, really bad day, and would like to express himself on behalf of the greater American public.

Strictly Ballroom:
Australian cinema at its finest. A rip-roaring, passion infused dance film filled to the brim with absurdity, characature, and an incomperable charm. I love this film in particular for being able to, in my eyes at least, best its better known successors using a fraction of the budget.

Withnail & I:
Because I can relate to Grant, and because it's hilarious, quotable, and reassuring...!

phobosdeimos1 said:

Also, on a similiar note, is there any films of the horror genre that have genuinely scared you?

Plenty, I just can't recall any at the moment... suffice to say they are rarely slashers, and are often more the sort of film that allows the viewer to extrapolate the facts and character to create a more psychological nightmare, rather than events in time. And sometimes it's just a tying together of harmless facts such that they are given new meaning. There's that scene from El Orfanato where

Spoiler

Laura finally discovers that the sound she heard coming inexplicably from the neighbouring room was her son Simon falling to his death as he tries to escape the room that she had inavertedly locked him in.

It’s a real horror show!

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Fight Club's message of anti-materialism resonated with me. (posted from my iPhone while sitting on an ikea sofa)

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Mogul said:

Fight Club's message of anti-materialism resonated with me. (posted from my iPhone while sitting on an ikea sofa)

Because of Fight Club I can only watch movies with Brad Pitt in them. Though I hear he's doing a World War Z movie so that might change.

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Vordakk said:

Of course. A fine film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Mine has the midget girl fully intact. I also have the uncut version of Robocop, another masterpiece by Verhoeven.


Paul Verhoeven is probably the master of modern action flicks. I'm surprised you would like a film (Robocop) that is such an explicit and violent satire of right wing values / corporatism though.

I thought Starship Troopers was great satire of militarism too (cue Heinlein fan rage).

Pretty much any Kubrick film (Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, 2001) can be hugely touching if you look past their superficial themes. Also it's a documentary but Stepping Razor: Red X made me think a lot about life.

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I'll go with Come and See. I haven't seen a movie since that hit me on such a deeply depressing, almost apathetic level. It's horror, it's madness, and it's emotionally draining. By the end of it I just feel numb.

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There's lots and lots of movies which have had a profound impact on me in some way. But David Lynch's magnum opus, Mulholland Drive, takes the crown. It's entertaining, soothing, funny, thought provoking, tear jerking and downright terrifying all at once. Hard to think of many movies which manage to do this. Multiple viewings are required to 'get it', I think.

PS: Been hearing about a RoboCop remake for a while now. Prepare to have your childhoods ruined.

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Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and When Nature calls probably outline the guy I'd ideally want to be. I'll admit that's not exactly a good goal to have, but then it's also quite unacheivable anyway, so not to worry!

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I can't say that many, if any, films have had the profound level of effect upon me that the OP speaks of but, in terms of measurable effect, I'd have to go with the "Star Wars" movies. This is simply because so much of my time has been spent watching them, collecting the stuff relating to them, speaking about them, quoting them, role-playing in the universe etc etc. Hell, I even live in a house called Alderaan.

Other films that are significant to me:

"Blade Runner". IMO about as close to a perfect movie as you can get.

"American Graffiti". I simply love this movie and the faux "1962 Rock 'n' Roll America that never really quite existed but we would all like to pretend it did" feel of it. Nothing much really happens in the film but it is the perfect study of an idealised teenage night in America in a small town IMO.

Hmmm... three movies featuring Harrison Ford. Let's branch out...

The "Alien" movies (esp the original) is a great movie and I have watched it loads.

Hmmm... two by Ridley Scott. Time to look further afield:

The original "Psycho". An excellently crafted movie and very watchable. I also like "The Birds" but am undecided whether I prefer "Psycho" or "The Birds".

Others that stick out in the mind, mainly (for a lot of them) for the reason that I watched them when very young on Saturday Morning TV:

"A Matter of Life and Death" OK, so its basic reason for existing was propaganda but it turned out to be a really enjoyable movie IMO.

"Ensign Pulver" (the one starring Robert Walker not Henry Fonda). I used to watch this film over and over.

Saving Private Ryan. The first 20 minutes. 'Nuff said.

"Bedknobs and Broomsticks". The first and last time I got so excited at a movie that I was standing on the seats in the theatre cheering as the suits of armour came to life and started fighting the Nazis. Of course, I was very young. :P

"Arsenic and Old Lace" Carry Grant's facial expressions can still make me genuinely LOL yet the movie can be quite dark in places.

"Blithe Spirit" Just another good old movie. A very nicely dealt with supernatural story done in an old fashioned style. Well, it was new when it was done but it's old fashioned now. :P

Anything by Laurel and Hardy, (but mainly the 1930s stuff). I am almost as obsessed by them as I am by Star wars.

"The Abominable Dr. Phibes" and "The Fly" (original). Two Vincent Price movies that really lodged in my mind for no obvious reason.

I really like the original "Quatermass and the Pit" too. A pretty well assembled old-style scifi/horror movie with some interesting ideas.

"Ghost". I haven't seen it for years but I really liked it when it first came out. Casting my mind back to it though, it's probably cheesy as hell 80s garbage. :/

I really enjoyed "The Sixth Sense" and, to this day, I don't know why I didn't see the end coming. It's so obvious now. The bit in the traffic jam where the mother finally starts believing the boy is possibly a scene that almost evokes the kind of response that the OP talks about for me.

Any list of movies is incomplete without a mention of "The Princess Bride".






OK, ok, so this is just becoming a long list of movies that I have liked. On to the Horror question.


I can't remember the last time I was scared by a Horror movie. For the most part, I find them too cliched and obvious to be genuinely scary. I pretty much only watch them to see the techniques they use so that I can visit them upon players in my live action role playing. When I was much younger, one of the TV stations used to show two horror movies every Saturday night - one cheesy old black and white one (usually something to do with Frankenstein, Dracula or The Wolfman (and sometimes all three)) and one newer film afterwards. I kind of grew up on a diet of these and was a bit of an early horror move buff "back in the day".

For some reason, a movie called "The Reptile" terrified me. It's a fairly old, fairly cheesy movie from Hammer which, quite frankly, really isn't that scary at all. However, I watched it one Saturday night and it really, really scared me. I mean, the full thing, nightmares, the lot. A few years ago, I picked it up on DVD and dared myself to watch it again. Frankly, I have no idea why it bothered me. It's really not that good and not at all scary to me now.

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- 2001: A Space Odyssey (when I become a father this'll be the first movie my kids will watch)
- Threads (do we really deserve this?)
- Synecdoche, New York (second half had me constantly on the verge of tears)
- Requiem For a Dream
- Robocop (action movie #1)
- Terminator 2 (action movie #2)
- The Matrix (action movie #3)
- No Country For Old Men
- Fargo
- Hunger
- Life is Beautiful
- Inglourious Basterds (this is the kind of movie Tarantino was born to create)
- Jurassic Park (first movie I watched at a theater)
- Alien
- Taxi Driver
- The Dark Knight (excitingly different and mature comic book movie - was all "WTF have I just watched" at the end)
- Miami Spice 2 (first porn I've watched)

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spank said:

- 2001: A Space Odyssey (when I become a father this'll be the first movie my kids will watch)


Yeah, I think that's a candidate for best film ever made. It really is just something else.

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spank: That's very similiar to mine

No Country For Old Men
Happiness
Inglorious Basterds
Watchmen
Dead Man's Shoes

My #1 is Blue Velvet

Also for a very different kind of film;

Splash (the 80's Tom Hanks film)

Did anyone else watch this when they were young and get totally deluded that we'll ever achieve the pure tear-jerking love that's displayed in that film?
It makes me euphoric while watching it, witnessing the love potrayed between him and the Mermaid, but it makes me profoundly distraught afterwards as it's impossible to ever have that perfect true love with someone IRL.

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No films have really changed my life, but some have impressed me greatly, set certain standards, or otherwise inspired the way I tend to tell stories.

Those being, in no particular order:

Dark City, Independence Day, Phantoms, Torzók, The Shining, Daybreakers, Aliens (dir cut), Alien3 (ext cut), Star Wars (4-6), La Cité Des Enfants Perdus, Falling Down, Mitt Liv Som Hund, Savior, Event Horizon, Braveheart, Naked Lunch, Ran, Glory, Die Blechtrommel, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (dir cut), Star Trek: First Contact, Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring, Charlie Chan: Castle In The Desert, Timecrimes, Inception, TRON, Enemy Of The State, The Towering Inferno, District 9, Them!, Clue, Ink, Secret Of NIMH, The Fountain, Se7en, The Tommyknockers, and most of the mid-era Three Stooges and Laurel & Hardy TV episodes (I don't think either of them transitioned to full-length movies very well).

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It's hard to come up with a definite list. The first Star Wars film certainly changed my life and everything else kinda added to that in different ways..

Star Wars
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of The Jedi
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek: First Contact
The War of the Worlds (1953)
2001: A Space Odyssey
Alien
Aliens
Dragonheart
Conan The Barbarian
Terminator
Predator
Total Recall
The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Revenge of the Pink Panther
A Bridge Too Far (1977)
Midway (1976)
Enter The Dragon
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Raiders of the Lost Ark

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