The movies of YOUR life

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MikeBSG
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The movies of YOUR life

Post by MikeBSG »

I was thinking about choosing 25 movies for the "Best Movies" topic, when I realized that a lot of the movies were movies that I had seen because they had been "pre-sold" to me as classics or else I had seen them alone on video or DVD and not in an audience experience. This doesn't take anything away from "City Lights" or "Duck Soup," but somehow there doesn't seem to be the emotional connection that happens when you just go to a movie and then it turns out to be something that you track down and see again in second run or have arguments with your friends about.

So I suggest a list of 25 movies that are from your lifetime. Films that you saw in a theater, maybe not when they first came out, but movies that you feel you have a personal bond with, movies you found before they became certified classics (or not).
melwalton
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movies seen in theaters

Post by melwalton »

Interesting, Mike. It would be easy for me to compile such a list because of the 25 films I listed, I first saw 22 in a theater. Of the other three, I'm not sure of two.
For me it doesn't make any difference except in rare cases. I first saw 'My Fair Lady' in a theater with surround sound and later on tv and that was quite a difference. I saw 'Oh, What a Lovely War' ( or a title like that ) at a theater, first and thought it was great. Saw it later on tv and was very disappointed.
My wife and I watch together, It''s all tv now, we haven't been to a theater in maybe 25 years. She notices things that I would not have , we get a laugh from the hats that were fashionable in the 30s. for instance. something I wouldn't have noticed, if she hadn;t pointed it out.
I recall a long while back when we had to watch movies on tv that were interrupted every 15 minutes by commercials which spoiled the mood and, therefore, the films which depended on mood such as 'Till We Meet, Again' or 'Four Daughters'. ..... mel
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Jezebel38
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Post by Jezebel38 »

Hmm...this may be a generational thing. I am a baby boomer, and similar to melwalton's experience, most of the films on my list were first seen by me in pre-vcr days in the 1970's during the heyday of the retro-house experience. There were lot's of these theaters in the SF bay area, and the ones in the San Jose area that I frequented were The Vitaphone in Saratoga, and the Festival and Bijou in Palo Alto. I also took a film history course in college where we were shown 16mm films. As to being "pre-sold" what is a "classic" - I think films were being circulated at that time by word of mouth and we saw just as many cult films along with the gems. Another observation I had on my own list, and this is personal of course, is that all but one title were released before I was born, and I have no films on my list of favorites that were contemporary films I saw circa 1965 to present. I just prefer films of another time prior to my own lifetime.
MikeBSG
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Post by MikeBSG »

Here is my list of 25 films made during my lifetime that I enjoy.

1) Dr. Strangelove
2) The Producers
3) The Wild Bunch
4) The Last Picture Show
5) A Clockwork Orange
6) Young Frankenstein
7) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
8) Love and Death
9) Annie Hall
10) Jaws
11) Taxi Driver
12) Pennies from Heaven'
13) Blade Runner
14) Road Warrior
15) The Right Stuff
16) The Terminator
17) Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai
18) Prizzi's Honor
19) Re-Animator
20) Radio Days
21) Beetlejuice
22) The Fabulous Baker Boys
23) Edward Scissorhands
24) Goodfellas
25) Wag the Dog
MikeBSG
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Post by MikeBSG »

I don't know how the smilies got into my post.
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Post by SSO Admins »

MikeBSG wrote:I don't know how the smilies got into my post.
The number 8 followed by right parentheses gives you a smiley face wearing sunglasses. You can edit the post and click the "Disable Smilies in this post" at the bottom to turn it off.

:D
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inglis
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Post by inglis »

TrueGrit- The Dirty Dozen
ParentTrap-Let It Be
MyFair Lady- Help
GWTW-Big Jake
Mary Poppins-The Railway Children
The Sound Of Music-LawrenceOf Arabia
Victor Victoria-Mrs Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter
All The President's Men- The Sting
Three Days Of The Condor- Jimmy Hendrix
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
Jaws-E.T.
StarWars -Carwash
Young Frankenstein-Sometimes A Great Notion/I have seen lots more but these ones come to mind
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traceyk
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Post by traceyk »

I'm a child of the 70's (lord help me) so the movies I remember seeing in the theatre that stand out are from that time and later. My lifetime movies (wait isn't that a cable channel?) would have to be, in no particular order--

The original Star Wars trilogy, Saturday Night Fever, Sleeping Beauty (1970 re-release--my first theater movie), Buckeroo Banzai, Flash Gordon (silly but great Queen soundtrack), Alien, The Jazz Singer (my first date) Hannah and Her Sisters, ET, Jaws, Herbie Rides Again, Ghostbusters, those John Hughes movies with Molly Ringwald, Broken Rainbow , Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Blues Brothers, Gone With the Wind (a re-release that started my love affair with Clark Gable) The Last Temptation of Christ (first time I actively defied my mother to her face and I still feel a little guilty about it to this day lol), On Golden Pond (first time I'd ever seen Katharine Hepburn in a movie), The Last Starfighter, Victor/Victoria, War of the Roses (seen just days after my husband proposed--what a dash of cold water that was), The Lion King (my son's first movie--had to distract him with M&M's during the scary parts) Anastasia (my daughter's first movie), Bull Durham, Flashdance

Pretty sad. Most of the really great movies I've only seen on a 30 inch TV screen. Oh well.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. "~~Wilde
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Moraldo Rubini
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Post by Moraldo Rubini »

Contemporary movies that were important to me as a kid:

Gigi (My first movie.)
The Wizard of Oz
Hand in Hand
Summer Magic
The Moonspinners
Mary Poppins
The Three Lives of Thomasina
A Boy Ten Feet Tall
The Sound of Music
Oliver!


I honestly think the movies that were most important to me as a teenager were classics. I was haunting repertory houses and catching as many as possible on the televisions stations that showed them. I was in agony because I'd never seen Garbo, and they never showed her pictures on television. So I watched lots of Bogart, Colbert, Busby Berkeley, Errol Flynn. I wrote a movie column in the high school newspaper. I remember reviewing Jesus Christ Superstar, among others. And some contemporary movies caught my eye:

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (my first "M" rated movie)
Wait Until Dark
The Godfather
(my first "R" rated movie)
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Cabaret
Chinatown
Hearts of the West
Bang the Drum Slowly


During college I was seeing many classics each week at the campus theatres. I knew the schedules of every film class. But I also got into seeing more contemporary films:

Alice in the Cities
Im Lauf der Zeit
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Manhattan
Young Frankenstein
Sleeper
New York New York
Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen
Fellini's Amarcord
Saturday Night Fever


As a young adult, I was seeing as many classics as contemporary.
Raging Bull
Diva
Sophie's Choice
Tracks in the Snow
Cinema Paradiso
Room with a View
My Life as a Dog
Kagemusha
In the Year of Living Dangerously
The Last Metro
Indiana Jones
The French Lieutenant's Woman
Purple Rain


For the last 10 years, see here.
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Post by SSO Admins »

IIRC, The Godfather was rated "M" when it came out.
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Bogie
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Post by Bogie »

I loved Short Circuit 2 so much when it came out. The last 2 or 3 scenes of that movie are up there with the classics in my warped little world.

ROFL
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CoffeeDan
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Post by CoffeeDan »

jondaris wrote:IIRC, The Godfather was rated "M" when it came out.
Actually, THE GODFATHER was one of the first movies to get an "R" rating. It was even part of the 10-second TV spots:

(Big voice booming) "The Godfather is now a movie. Rated R."
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vallo
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Post by vallo »

It's so hard to make a list. I'll watch a film I love now and then rewatch it and hate it. So I don't do lists (not that there's anything wrong with that)

My first R rated film was "JOE" with Peter Boyle and Susan Sarandon. I brought it resently and the impact of a film ,that I though was better than "Sliced Bread" was kind of lost. Tastes Change.


Bill (vallo)
"We're all forgotten sooner or later. But not films. That's all the memorial we should need or hope for."
-Burt Lancaster
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