We've done the "Top favorite films" before, but I thought it might also be interesting to see not necessarily what our favorite movies our, but the ones that have affected us the most (by 'affected' I mean the most influencial or the ones that have changed you in some way, whether it was how you thought about something or if it taught you something).

I'd say list anywhere between 5 and 10 movies, because I'm not actually sure how many I can come up with...

So here's my list for the moment:

Hotel Rwanda
Turtles can Fly
LOTR Trilogy (It's what got me interested in Films)
WALL-E


For some reason I'm drawing a blank, but I will definately be adding more later...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: techie1902,

The Lion King movie influenced me to make a 2D animated film one day. I actually have the plot, characters and font for the title with color typed out in Wordpad. No laughing.

Good topic. I would say the most influential films in my life are:

"E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial" directed by Steven Spielberg (I loved the part where E.T and Elliot watch his mother read a story to Gertie. So great)

"Godzilla" directed by Roland Emmerich (got me into films with the beginning scene as the monster tramples through NY)

"Taxi Driver" directed by Martin Scorsese (The scene where he talks to himself and says, "You talkin' to me.")

"Eyes Wide Shut" directed by Stanley Kubrick (the opening shot where we first see Nicole Kidman and she is peeing. Not exactly my favorite, but bold)

"Misery" directed by Rob Reiner (the scariest part about this film is that it is about people that really could actually hurt you.)

"The Exorcist" directed by William Friedkin (It's the idea that a little girl, not some man, or adult, is possesed and this little girl can hurt you as well.)

I would say those are some of the most influential. Great movies

For me personally:

'Natural Born Killers' - Oliver Stone | First saw it when I was around 11 or 12. Was amazed by its rawness and idiosyncratic narrative/editing/colouring techniques. Plus it's got a great soundtrack heavily featuring Leonard Cohen - every 12 year old boys' favourite Canadian pessimist poet.

'Lost Highway' - David Lynch | saw this when I was 13 or 14. Did not understand it whatsoever (still getting there) but it made me desperately want to be able to, and also to create images and narratives like it.

'Hiroshima Mon Amour (...My Love)' - Alain Renais/Marguerite Duras | Haphazardly saw this when I was studying the philosophy of Jacques Derrida. Everyone should youtube the first 20 minutes of this film. Extremely powerful. It practically invented the jump-cut in '59.

'Sans Soleil (Sunless) - Chris Marker | Is the first example of poetic documentary. Anyone who wants to be a documentary filmmaker should watch it. It's so far out yet so simple.

'Mysterious Skin' - Greg Araki | What a performance from the punk who plays the long-haired kid in 'Third Rock'. Being able to turn the pedophile and his victim into a story of unrequited love without sadism is amazing.

I would say the following films have been the most influential to me personally (in rough chronological order):

How it All Started:
Equillibrium
Pirates of The Carribean


Teenage Male:
Fight Club

Bizarre, Subconscious, Beautiful Experiences:
Eraserhead
Filling Bolster
Mulholland Drive
Gummo


Finding A Balance
A.I.
Edward Scissorhands
Being John Malkovich


Subtlety
The Apartment



Haha, kind of a strange list.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: braininabox,

The Big Lebowski
Fargo
Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs
No Country for Old Men
The Coens in general

how it all started
Jurassic Park - just playing with the toys in my front yard when my dad had cut down tree branches. or in the mud or whatever. Almost every time i watched it with my friend he'd get mad at me "WE dont have to play dinosaurs just because we watched that movie again!"

OLD Godzilla movies- These are still classic I could only watch them again with one of you while ranting about what real movies we could be making.

Teenage Male
Pulp Fiction- Eh heh, we all remember my Tarantino days. Woooooooooooo that was my mistake. Good for the moment but once you realize Tarantino STOLE all his concepts and pretty much could only write foul mouthed characters, you kinda lose hope for "independant hollywood cinema"

Bizarre, subconcious, beautiful experiences
John Cassavete's is a huge inspiration to me, but the most bizarre experience has come from his film "Husbands" which i was lucky enough to see on youtube (Sadly its no longer there) Before I had even seen the film tho I had read a tremendous amount of it from Ray cArney's "cassavetes on cassavetes" and turns out there were 6 different versions he made (From the 70 hours he shot) and the point of this is I had a dream with these 3 guys and I was in another version of the film, and again this was before I had seen any of the film...but it was them. In my head. And i was with them. This movie has tremdously affected my personality, most especially the scene where BEn Gazzara is getting attacked by his wife


studentfilms.com
Stephen Reedy is probably the reason i still want to make movies. only because I have never been so entertained by someone making such movies, and I know people who make movies trying to be like his, but they just dont do it the way Steve found he could do it. John's Chicken Supernova is probably one of my fav movies of all time and one of the funniest movies to ever be made by someone so young....he's like the good version of old Peter Jackson.

Clark Grieve aka Hill Dawson Kane for Unsilent Passings. one of the most influential pieces to me, for the simple reason that at the time I had no friends and his movie gave me two people Id never met before, and these people werent afraid to be themselves infront of me. Made me see reality. Id never been here like this before!

Platoon-
Bladerunner-thought it was amazing when it came out
Harold and Maude-Rebel!

How It All Started:
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

How I Gained Focus:
The Matrix
Fight Club

How I Gained Momentum:
Pan's Labyrinth

How I Remembered Why It All Started:
Wall-E
The Dark Knight

Started with pulp fiction and equilibrium

movies that influence how i think of shots/scnes/situations

the matrix movies
james bond movies
bourne movies
first 3 (techniquly last 3) star wars
a low budget action movie called DRIVE
Brick
pulp fiction
equilibrium
any john woo movie
a cancelled sci-fi show called LEXX
oh i almost forgot the naked gun movies and weekend at bearnies...

and sci-fi channel original movies....yea they are bad...but sci-fi never disapoints its target demographic....people who want to see bad movies...i have a certain respect for that..

The Wizard of Oz
(First film I remember watching on a projected screen)

The Elephant Man
(a very touching film that made me cry)

The Matrix
(because of its awesomeness in blending great action sequences and special effects with interesting philosophies)

Spider-Man
(I love Spider-Man and it's the first film in a long time that made me feel like a kid at the movies all over again)

Raging Bull
(the first (and best) Martin Scorsese film I saw and for it's amazing black and white photography, and for its awesome performances by the actors).

Road to Perdition
(because Sam Mendes is an amazing directing and cause it has amazing cinematography by Conrad Hall and incredible perfomances by Paul Newman and Tom Hanks)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kurt Wagner,

I moved this over to Film Discussion.

Here's my list.

I used to be absolutely OBSESSED with the original three Star Wars, before the new ones came out. I had so many Star Wars action figures, and could name just about every race from the Star Wars universe. They're what got me into visual story telling.

After that I just tried to watch a lot of different movies, whatever I could get my hands on and get past my parents without them not allowing me to watch it.

Here's the rest of the list.

12 Monkeys - I've always been interested in sci-fi, and this movie really stoked that for me. To me this is the best time travel movie.

Children of Men - When I went and saw this movie in theater I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, I couldn't sit still. Still the best at theater movie experience for me, so intense.

Trainspotting - Such a great movie, and such a rollercoaster. It's so amazing, this movie is neither positive or negetive, but it has such up and downs. Humor, followed by sadness. Fantasy, followed by reality.

Before Sunrise - Such an amazing movie. It's so simple, just two people falling in love for the night. They know it won't work, but they want to spend the one night they're given together. This is just any guy's thoughts of, "What would've happened if I would've talked to that girl more."

Collateral - Awesome style. I love how Michael Mann said I'm not going to try to make HD look like film, I'm gonna make it look like something that film could never look like.

Influences...

Child: The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit
Jungle Book
Wizard of Oz
Willie Wonka (original)
Oliver
The Ten Commandments

Pre-teen: Paper Moon
Freaky Friday (with Jodi Foster)
Bad News Bears (with Tatum O'Neil)
The Other Side of the Mountain

Teen: Star Wars
Dawn of the Dead
Debbie Does Dallas
Blues Brothers

Young Adult: Apocalypse Now
Cinderella
Brazil
Heaven Can Wait
The Gods Must Be Crazy
Dr. Strangelove

Mature(?)Adult: Apocalypto
The Diving Bell and Butterfly
Breaking the Waves
The Piano
Ran (Japanese)

Ooh, Ran. Excellent!

Hmm...

Rushmore
Pulp Fiction
Bedhead (Rodriguez's short film)
The Princess Bride
Casablanca
American History X
Elevator Girl (short film from who-knows-where)
Children of Men
The Royal Tenenbaums
Darjeeling Limited

I'm going to throw Raging Bull in there as well.


... And The Dark Knight. (shut up)

quote:

Originally posted by hoohaProductions:
... And The Dark Knight. (shut up)

Haha, you should've hid that in the middle of your list...less chance of anyone seeing it

I'm also curious how you feel about Wes Anderson's new project.

This is the animated Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl? Will this be his first animated picture? Anderson's other films are so eccentric and magical I can't wait to see how this will turn out!

I should add, on the subject of animation, that the trailer for George Lucas's Star Wars Clone Wars animated feature made me cry. Why on earth would he do this to Star Wars? Does he hate Star Wars now?

I'm really looking forward to it, actually. I'm curious to see if Wes' style can translate to animation. I'm guessing yes, because I have all the faith in the world in this guy

But we'll see, won't we?

And Karen, and I couldn't agree more!!! There are a few things in this world that you just don't do... You don't date your best friend's ex, you don't make fun of mentally challenged people, and you don't tamper with the classics. Tsk, tsk.