The Movies That Define Us

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LazyDolphin

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Okay...here's yet another "favorite movie" thread, but this time with a twist. I want to know about the movies that are not only among your favorites, but define your personality in some way.

Here's what I mean...I think Pirates of the Carribean was an awesome adventure movie. I loved it loved it loved it. But so did almost everybody else on the planet, so telling you that I love Pirates of the Carribean doesn't really give you a taste of who I am. On the other hand, I love the 1970's action flick The Warriors, with its weird street gangs (The Baseball Furies look kind of like prototypes for The Gentlemen of Buffy's Hush) and hyper-compressed nightmare road trip plot (it's about a small gang called the Warriors trying to make it from Central Park to Coney Island alive, while every other gang in New York is trying to kill them). I think that tells you a bit more about me, since it's not a movie that is universally popular.

So here are LazyDolphin's favorite "defining" movies, in no particular order:

  • The Warriors
  • Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb
  • Dawn of the Dead - in Comic Book Guy voice: Best. Horror Movie. Ever.
  • Double Indemnity (I love all film noir, but this is probably my fav)
  • Return of the Living Dead (the movie that started my zombie/horror obsession when I was about twelve)
  • Amadeus (I've never wanted to be somebody in a movie more than when Mozart plays F. Murray Abraham's composition back from memory after one hearing, and improves the ending on the fly)
 
alright LD,
A movie that defines me, The opposite of Sex, movie was a bit off the cuff, but really funny and actually quite good.

my list of non-mainstream movies;

Tape w/ Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman
Magnolia
Being John Malchovich
Elizabeth
 
The Assasin...i would love to be an assasin...i love the story line of how they take a girl off the streets and train her to be an assasin, every young girls dream LoL 😀

Cruel intentions...i love the bitchiness of catherine and would love to be like her (im not though honest)

Also charlies angels the recent one, who wouldnt want to be in an elite crime fighting team...
 
They're all very alike if you look properly, but these are the movies that define me.

  • American Beauty... If you watch this movie once a year, I'm positive, you'll be able to keep your feet to the ground and realize what are the things in life that matter. I think that pretty much every question to life can be answered with this movie.
  • Citizen Kane... one word: Rosebud
  • the Rules of Attraction... an underappriciate true work of art, that Joss should be jealous of. About decay of moral values, life, death, love... there's a suicide scene, that is really really heart-breaking. A girl slitting her wrist in the tub, and all we hear is "I can't live, if living is without you"... not the Mariah version... try to not cry ladies!
  • Pulp Fiction... same like tRoA, but lesser version (I dare say)... a view other points are talked about here, only got in because it shows more crime and violence.
  • Donnie Darko... this one handles with the questions of life, lonelyness etc etc
  • Magnolia... Tells the story of 9 completly different people, that in the end are reduced to nothing more then human. Beautifuly done.
  • the Virgin Suicides... sort of like all the others, but this time, obviously done by a woman. A changed perspective, like we're aliens first visiting this planet trying to understand the way of humans.
  • Fight Club... about life, about what's normal, why go along, why not and it shows what happens if we lose our emotions.
  • Forrest Gump... one of the most insipiring movies ever. Tought me to believe in dreams, do what you want, not give up. Very positive message.
 
Originally posted by Akasha
The Assasin...i would love to be an assasin...i love the story line of how they take a girl off the streets and train her to be an assasin, every young girls dream LoL 😀
Click to expand...

Isn't that Leon?😕
 
Originally posted by No Angel
Isn't that Leon?😕
Click to expand...

Depends on where you live. In America, the Luc Besson movie with Natalie Portman was released as The Professional, in a lot of other markets it was called Leon. It came out at almost the exact same time as the movie The Assassin (with Sylvester Stallone), and I think the similar titles and the fact that they're both about assassins makes people inadvertantly interchange their titles a lot.
 
for me its "this is my life" because it was funny and i really understand the characters
 
Goodness gracious, LD! I have so many movies that have touched me in one way or another. This is so hard for me...

What defines me most as a person (in life) is family, so I have decided to post just a few that I feel encompass exactly that:

Lilo and Stitch-the message behind this movie was so wonderful. Ohana means family and family means no one gets left behind or forgotten. Ahhh....

The Secret Life of Girls-it tells the time in the life of a family and the hardships that they all encounter. While this movie does not have the happy go lucky ending that I am most fond of, it does have a great message about parents raising their children. Excellent and endearing film!

Swiss Family Robinson-Um...yeah-I just luv this one! 🙂 It made me want to get stranded on a tropical island and have my husband build a really cool hut with a retractable roof for star peeping and Great Danes to protect us all! It started my tropical island/pirate and Great Dane fascination! 😀
 
I'll just do the three major ones. Almost every movie I've seen(and I've seen quite a lot)has effected me in one way or another. I'll do the ones that have drastically changed my life.

The Matrix Trilogy-They have played a huge role in how I look at the world, if you only knew how much they've changed my life. It has gotten me to read a lot more philosophy books and really question life and what I'm experiencing is really real or not. They're movies that stick with me at every moment.
Star Wars Trilogy(4-6)-Pretty much defined my childhood. Made me really care about nature and the things around me. That everything is connected in some way or another(hence the whole Force part)
Rocky Horror Picture Show-When I was in a private christian school this was my saving grace. Everyone around me was extremely closed minded and homophobic, but when I first saw this in fifth grade it gave me hope that not everyone was like that. And I was coming to terms with my own sexuality so it made me feel ok for who I was.
 
Yet again, a brilliant LazyDolphin movie moment - Sponsored by Popcorn - the buttery, salty treat that gets stuck between your teeth 🙂

Defining films for me have got to include:-
2001:A Space Odyssey (wow, look at the colours man!🙂)- sci-fi becomes mainstream whilst being dead arty as well😉.

Star Wars: A New Hope (ep 4) - my little brother recently told me that the best birthday present he ever had was when I took him to see this film as it came out (at the time the cinema was Europe's biggest screen and had an amazing sound system). We sat in the middle of the balcony and By God we were flying X wing fighters and attacking that bloody Death Star!...happier times...when he told me this a couple of months ago I must've lost three stone and increased in height by about six inches. I haven't felt so good, so ...vindicated in a very long time. Bless you Col...

The Man Who Fell to Earth - When I realised that films could have many layers of meaning...when has a space alien been better cast? Plus totally gratuitous Nic Roeg trademark sex scene...🙂

Good calls on The Warriors (one of the first X-rated films I remember seeing at the cinema - "Come out to play..." - excellent rite of passage thingy) and Dr Strangelove, LD
 
In my teens it was Clockwork Orange, cause I was all like,

"Come get one in the yarbles if you have any yarbles, thou fat jelly eunuch, thou!"

Then it was more Forrest Gump, cause "life was like a box of chocolates. I never knew what I was gonna get."

Now it's Gone With the Wind, cause "as God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again".
 
Star Wars. It was the pop culture of my youth. I dont think there was anything else that came close. Every kid watched it in the theatre, read starwars comics, played with starwars toys, dressed up as starwars characters for halloween... It defined the childhoods of an entire generation.
 
  • Rules of Attraction - Oh yeah, this film basically summed up any kind of weird feeling I had about being a teen and moral dilemmas.
  • American Beauty - It was about life and it's way of showing you that everything makes up who you are, and that even in death there would be the times in life that showed our 'real' selves and that is what becomes of us when we die, ' lessons learnt'.
  • Moulin Rouge - I've felt like Christian. I have felt like Satine. but not in the sense of undying love for a person, but that of wanting to 'break free' - to dream is to believe.
  • Grease - It's a feel good movie that always gets me to sing and feel joyful in what surrounds me - my friends, my teachers, my parents, my -love- interests. All those things combined with jazzy tunes. awesome.
 
Originally posted by nerd4hire
In my teens it was Clockwork Orange, cause I was all like,

"Come get one in the yarbles if you have any yarbles, thou fat jelly eunuch, thou!"

Then it was more Forrest Gump, cause "life was like a box of chocolates. I never knew what I was gonna get."

Now it's Gone With the Wind, cause "as God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again".
Click to expand...

Forrest Gump, god, how could I forget that was definitly one of the most insipiring movies ever. Tought me to believe in dreams, do what you want, not give up. Very positive message.
 
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