If you can pin it down to one, what movie changed your life?

I know it's lame to say this on a Chuck fan site, but Fight Club was probably the first transgressive or even dark movie I ever saw. Which caused me to see more of them. Which shaped who I was as a teen. Which shaped who I am today.

And

There is no such thing as pinning it down.

But I can post with major influences.

(starting with) One of the many passers through and transients that my mom took in as I was growing up left an old VHS recording of Wizards at our place when I was eight going on nine. I watched it over and over and over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_(film)

Necron99/Peace has haunted me forever. Probably one of my few hero's that isn't in anyway real at all.

(Necron99 has destroyed himself)

I love Wizards. Such a good movie.

Labyrinth.

That one is really good.

Yep. I love it. It's got fantasy, music, humour, David Bowie...

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Mostly because, before then, I somehow didn't realize that writers could write whatever they wanted - even if it was crazy or incriminating or not "normal". This caused me to search out more books and authors, and to start writing way more.

Sergio Leone's Giu la Testa, aka Fistful of Dynamite, aka Duck You Sucker

I saw it at 13 during a new release. Still a very cool film.

Lol Trainspotting

I'm not saying that it's not a good movie, but for it to be her most life defining is curious.

That movie is ok, but it really is a total buzzkill.

I am going to say I know where Mike is coming from. Fight Club helped shape who I am through reaing, movies, books and not being a bitch.
Sorry I had drinks with breakfast/lunch.

I don't know why I mean it hasn't scared me straight or anything like that. I dunno.

I'd say Gummo

Tuffy wrote:

Seriously. I seem to have, intentionally and otherwise, modelled my life on Joe Gideon. I didn't exactly set out to. But it happened.

I don't think any movie changed my life, music did.

Repo Man? Great movie!
Requiem for a Dream, another great one.
I guess for me as a child, this cartoon they showed one night changed my life forever. And I had a crush on the bad guy.
That is what happens when you put a tv in a child's room unattended.
Rock&Rule
w/ Lou Reed, Debbie Harry, Cheap Trick


Now I'm in the mood for some Takashi Miike.

Enjoyed the Necron99 clip, and soundtrack. Been missing out, I'm going to have to look up 'Wizards'.
'Duck you sucker' is something I'd like to watch in it's entirety with a friend, and some take out chinese food.

Pretty sure that is just a fan made video, the movie itself is about much larger things than just that character.

I watched that movies so many times in that one year, ad then the tape was lost and I didn't remember what it was called but wanted to watched it again with a grownup understanding of what was so strange and still in my little kid head.

I googled something like "animated film with nuclear apocalypse, fairy's, mutants and robot assassin that becomes sentient and changes own destiny with help of love." and google didn't fail me.

I love Duck! You Sucker! May I ask how it changed your life?

Well, I'd say the first "serious" films or books that you see or read have a special meaning.
In my case, this film starts with a light tone similar to The Good the Bad, The Ugly (as you can see in the above extract), but slowly takes a darker, more tragic and political turn.
The themes of friendship and treason, idealism and disillusionment (especially towards ideologies) have touched me a lot.

The art of Sergio Leone, which makes him in my opinion one of the top storytellers in cinema, was to blend in the same aesthetics the comedy with the tragedy, the individual (his famous closeups of the characters' eyes) with the big historical scale. He was also a master of manipulating time, stretching scenes and shots to incredible lengths leading to sudden bursts of violence, and telling a straight story while revealing the characters' backstories through flashbacks (a deviced he started using in For a few Dollars more and always reused after that)

This video is more representative of the atmosphere of the second part :

I have seen many movies that hit me kind of hard. I somehow remember when I was young (around 10) I saw "My life as a dog" on HBO one late night and it hit me hard. Because I identified with a lot of the things that kid went through and went through a lot of them myself by that time. So I though of myself as a little less of a freak.

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" made me realize 2 things. 1. My whole idea of writing and what writing should and could be as defined between these 2 tight little lines was totally wrong. 2. I wasn't hardcore about drugs and LSD as I had thought I was beforehand.

"Fight Club" (First movie then book) Made me think a lot about writing again and got me back into reading and writing. Also make me identify with the narrator a lot because I always had this image in my head of the Perfect Man I wanted to become one day, and made me realize that I had taken no steps to achieve this. Also that its ok to me a bit crazy as long as you can keep control.

"The Matrix" - because its the f**king matrix man. Made me realize that all those drug fueled talks about space and time and reality I had with my friends back in the day should have been written down or taped. And that a bad actor can achieve a great amount of success with a good story, writing and SFX.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was my first taste of Hunter and like you said, Zack (I'm assuming, if not I'm sorry), my entire idea of what writing could be was changed. I LOVE Hunter S. Thompson and yeah Fear and Loathing definitely changed a lot of viewpoints for me, especially concerning writing. Hunter makes me want to be a writer.

Girl, Interrupted. Didn't change my life, it rather made me understand a few things and then reach the proper conclusions.

For me it's probably a combination of a few different movies. Although every really good film I see leaves some kind of imprint on me, there have been some that have left more than others.

I would definitely say I am most changed by having seen the movie Watchmen, then reading the graphic novel. The complexity of the story, the arc of the characters, and the multiple meanings that can be derived from the story highly appeals to me. At it's core its a very applicable film, packing punches that are almost always relevant.

I would also say Jurassic Park, for similar reasons. I had seen it when I was younger but really watched it for the first time about a year ago. The concept that "life finds a way" is extremely powerful, and from a filmmaking standpoint the movie is beautiful.

Also, I just really love comic books and dinosaurs.

Fight Club and The Matrix. Quite impressionable at nine years old, let me tell ya.

Dirty Dancing

Cannery Row
First movie I ever saw that wasn't just an action or fantasy or cartoon type film. I didn't realize til after it, that just a plain, regular story could be interesting enough to watch.

Ahhh Wizard of OZ...It took me forever to think of which movie changed my life, or whatever this thread is asking,because I love a lot of the movies I grew up with. I don't get to watch movies that much but I try to watch classic and foreign films but sometimes I watch plain horrible movies. I'm quite the visual person so movies are one of my favorite forms of "art". I like many different movies for a plethora of reasons and the ones I own have each been watched over hundreds of times. A few of my VHS tapes busted because of this. 1 of my DVDs which was my first DVD ever has recently got to the point where I can't play the movie. Anyway, Wizard of Oz was my first movie ever that I would watch on repeat. It was the 25th Anniversary edition with extra footage and stuff. I remember singing along, doing the dances, repeating lines, at a very young age to the movie. It's a great story based on a great classic book, starts out in classic black and white, and is the first movie in Technicolor!,is also a musical, and had some pretty amazing special effects for it's time. It's not my favorite movie of all time but it's a magical movie that paved the way for many of the movies I love today.

Nick Nolte was young once? Whoa.

I keep ,meaning to get to the book,sitting on m shelf, I had no idea there was movie.

This may ruin my plans o getting to the book.

Wizard of Oz is a good one.

This is what happens when I type in the pitch dark.

You'd think I would have noticed before hitting post, however.

I used to think that the big deal about Wizard of Oz was that it invented color. Not just color movies, but that before it came out the entire world was literally black and white everywhere you looked.

Yeah, like in Pleasantville.

audreythirteen wrote:

Ahhh Wizard of OZ...It took me forever to think of which movie changed my life, or whatever this thread is asking,because I love a lot of the movies I grew up with. I don't get to watch movies that much but I try to watch classic and foreign films but sometimes I watch plain horrible movies. I'm quite the visual person so movies are one of my favorite forms of "art". I like many different movies for a plethora of reasons and the ones I own have each been watched over hundreds of times. A few of my VHS tapes busted because of this. 1 of my DVDs which was my first DVD ever has recently got to the point where I can't play the movie. Anyway, Wizard of Oz was my first movie ever that I would watch on repeat. It was the 25th Anniversary edition with extra footage and stuff. I remember singing along, doing the dances, repeating lines, at a very young age to the movie. It's a great story based on a great classic book, starts out in classic black and white, and is the first movie in Technicolor!,is also a musical, and had some pretty amazing special effects for it's time. It's not my favorite movie of all time but it's a magical movie that paved the way for many of the movies I love today.

How would you like it if I picked something off of you?

My Sister's Keeper changed my life... Big time...

Are you for real?

I havn't seen the movie, but I've read the book.

From what I've heard the ending of the movie is totally different to the book.