Any life-changing movies?

Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I had never seen a James Bond movie before, and I went to the movies where they showed a coming attraction for “Diamonds Are Forever”. That preview got a standing ovation from the audience. I was stunned. I had never seen that before.

The Pianist may not have changed my life, but it’s one movie that has made a big impact on me. It’s disturbing enough as it is, but I learned that the director lived and survived the Holocaust. In the movie, he wanted to make it as real as his experience was, at least so far as they’re allowed to show in movies. Made me think a lot, as the Holocaust was probably WAAAY worse than what is showed there, yet the content is a true reflection of what went down. I like drawing and always have. I’m not very good, but it’s a personal hobby. Never left me, but it did switch from drawing butterflies to warriors with swords. Zombies, too, but I always did love those.

One movie that did change my life at the age of 11 was Conan the Barbarian. Before I ever saw that movie, I was into nature, animals and insects, they were my passion. Then I saw that movie, and for the rest of my life after that, all my passions and interests switched to fantasy, video games, violence and Vikings. Good or bad, it is what it is.

I’ve been touched, moved and educated by many, many movies over the years, but one that immediately comes to mind is Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ.” It gave me, a Jew, a new way to think about him.

Yes, that movie From Hell totally changed the kind of writer I want to be.
It’s quite disturbing, but at the same time it’s a fantastic detective movie. It’s kind of a role-model for how a gripping detective story (and a gripping story in general) can be written.
When I was young I was only interested in (and good at) simple story telling (such as those superhero movies). My concept of a good story was very simple: a bad guy wants something evil (my most regular motive was to conquer the world), a hero appears (sometimes with a ton of supporting sidekicks) and fights the bad guy, the bad guy loses and the hero walks away in a triumphal background, happy ending. That movie taught me a new concept: the hero doesn’t necessarily have to win, and the viallin doesn’t necessarily have to lose, and the motive for the viallin doesn’t always have to be something big like conquering the world, it can be a seemingly harmless motive but the way the villian executes it can be disatrous.
After watching the movie I started practicing writing detective short stories :)

@Symbeline Strange, I’ve never heard of The Pianist, but my biggest project has the same working title. It’s a novel about a detective hunting a serial killer who uses his victims to form a symphony that is closely connected to the detective’s dark past.

Fast and Furious 5.

No, I’m not kidding. It sounds ridiculous but that film really changed the way I watch movies. I mean, I wasn’t particularly high brow in my movie tastes before, I enjoy pulp like.. say, The Mummy and… Tomb Raider, for example (just thinking of ones I’ve re-watched recently for nostalgia’s sake) but I was pretty cynical for “real world” movies, and only suspended my disbelief for some fantasy, sci fi, or at least movies with those elements (ie the Mummy’s magic and Tomb Raider’s time bending etc). For other rmovies, I was one of those annoying “ziffers”, the people who sit behind you at the cinema and anytime something happened that I wouldn’t believe real people would do or if the laws of physics were slightly bent for cinematic effect I’d go “oh as IF”.

So, cut to 2011, I am heading to Fast 5 with friends just for the sake of it, having not seen any of the other Fast and Furious movies except for the first one way back when it came out and could hardly remember it anyway. The movie starts, there’s cars and a train and a bridge and I’ve started with my ziffing. However, the movie was so much fun that by the end of it, even though I’m an engineer and science/physics minded, when two cars are pulling a 20 tonne safe/vault down the road and my friend opens her mouth to say AS IF, I shushed her, and told her it didn’t matter just watch. I really enjoyed that movie.

Afterwards, I wanted to watch the others in the series. I didn’t get around to it for a while. Some of the people I go to uni with are mechanical and automotive engineers so love these movies to bits. When we watched the first one, the sound cut out for some of it but my friends knew the movie off by heart and filled in all the sounds of the cars themselves. It was fun. We watched the others (except they wouldn’t let me watch the 4th one) in time for the 6th movie last year and that one was almost but not quite as fun as 5, and one car’s weight pulling an army tank up was a little harder to accept than the safe scene for some reason, as well as the runway as long as Europe, but I still love it.

So, after that long winded story, my point is that Fast 5 won me over, and I’ve definitely seen a lot more fun, pulpy, action-y, or “real world” movies since then than I would have otherwise, and I’ve just become really into movies in general, rather than just the fantasy/sci-fi I loved before, which has enabled me to have more experiences and memories with friends and share their movie tastes and just branch out, which in turn I think has helped me to branch out in other areas of my life too and try new things rather than just sticking to what I know.

2001 A Space Odyssey

@shrubbery It doesn’t sound rediculous to me at all. I picked ‘Dirty Dancing,’ remember? For the rest of my life I will hunt for a man like Johnny Castle…
Life-changing doesen’t have to be monumental. I’m loving the surprising answers all around… Conan, Monty Python.

I’m going to add ‘IT’ to my list, as well. And I have no problem saying Beetlejuice, but there is NO WAY you’d ever get me to say ‘Candyman’ three times in a row, or even 3 times in one day. I’d call that life-changing.

My Left Foot with Daniel Day Lewis

The World According to Garp.

Star Wars started my love of SciFi.

@Mimishu1995 From Hell was a far more disturbing graphic novel than it was a movie.

Annie Hall. When Harry Met Sally. Splash. I fell in love with NYC even before I saw it for the first time.

Wow wha…I fucked up my answer. The bit about the drawings and zombies was supposed to be the last paragraph, wasn’t supposed to follow up on The Pianist movie. I suck ass lol.

@symbeline I don’t think anyone thought you switched from drawing butterflies to swords because of the Pianist. All good. I was still Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze in my mind anyway.
I’ve always sought out a good zombie fluke, probably seen them all. Half are disappointing, but I have high hopes.

The Breakfast Club. I first watched it when I was in high school, so I could relate to it so much. The letter, the opening up, the coming-of-age…Just thinking about it makes me feel nostalgic. I swear it’s the truth. And I owe it all to you!

@dxs and the adult version, The Big Chill

@rojo Don’t you [synthesizer] forget about that one, either.

@GloPro I love zombie movies, even the really bad ones. Always looking for more, if you got suggestions for me, name them. :)

The Kids 1995, definitely