Movies that mark a lifetime

[Graphista]

Over 30 years ago someone persuaded me to watch a film that I thought would be boring because it was 'about boxing' by telling me 'no no no - it's about a boxer'

I've just watched the 7th instalment in the franchise. One which ended up not even 'just' being 'about a boxer' but about not giving up, finding your inner fight, about family not always being those you're related to but family you meet along the way, about loss, grief, facing our own mortality, about legacy, about pride.

And I thought it was just gonna be a boring macho film about boxing.

Lots of us enjoy films, we can watch them so easily now. I can remember waiting months even years post release to be able to see much anticipated productions.

For me they've been more than just entertainment.

They've been a shared experience, that still connects me to my family that I met along the way as well as my actual family.

From musicals watched with mum as youngsters

Sound of music
The King and I
West side story
Grease
Mary poppins
Wizard of oz
Calamity Jane
Meet me in St. Louis

To adventures watched with both parents

WWII and westerns which I protested at the time but several were excellent films.

James Bond movies - trying to work out how he'd evade the baddie, destroy his plans to rule the world and win the girl

To video watching days/eve with friends as a pre-teen and then teenager

Goonies
Indiana Jones
Star Wars
Back to the future
Ghostbusters
Top gun

To snuggling up with boyfriends watching romances that they claimed to not really want to watch

Say anything
Dirty dancing
Cocktail
Pretty woman
Four weddings

To enduring my now ex husbands tastes and making him endure mine (but actually finding their films quite good)

Basic instinct
Terminator
Con air
Speed
Point break
Scream

To actually enduring your very young child's latest obsession (ok some were alright)

High school musical
Princess diaries
Spy kids
Nim's island
Toy story
Monsters inc

To learning their developing personality, humour, morals through their film choices

Pitch perfect
Fault in our stars
Hunger games
Divergent series

Finding unexpected common ground (OK MAYBE I indoctrinated - a bit)

Thrillers like
Panic room
Red eye
Identity
Taken
Sixth sense

Or outright horrors

Scream
IT
Poltergeist
Nightmare on elm street

And sometimes just bonding, for us it's tearjerkers

Titanic
Up
ET
Steel magnolias
Marley and me
Love actually

As I watch my daughter become a young woman, creating her own "family along the way", dealing with heartbreak by watching a film guaranteed to make her cry (partly so she has an excuse, but mostly catharsis), learning of how the world she lives in came to be the way it is partly from watching biopics and documentaries about those who fought injustice and inequality, or even those who created it being brought down.

To having to watch films I didn't think I'd enjoy, or get anything out of for my degree, and discovering instead films that I wouldn't have watched and ended up loving, plus movies recommended by fellow students in discussions either informal or in seminars

In the cut
The piano
Betty blue
Ma vie en rose
Fargo
All about Eve
Gone with the wind
Breakfast at tiffanys
Gladiator
I, robot

[BestIsWest]

Lovely post. We love films here and DS is studying it at uni.
Here are some of mine.

First films in the cinema as a small child

The Aristocats
101Dalmations

With Dad on rainy bank hols

Bridge over the River Kwai
Zulu (and we would go and see the medals and spears in the museum in Brecon)
Bringing Up Baby
12Angry Men
What’s Up Doc?

As a teenager with my bestie

Star Wars
Grease
Jaws
Saturday Night Fever (under age) (not worth it)

With DH when we were first going out

Raiders of the Lost Ark
Amadeus
Field of Dreams
Jagged Edge
Shirley Valentine

With Young DCs

Toy Story
Harry Potter


With Grown up DCs at the cinema:

We all love the Avengers films so never miss one.
3 Billboards
Seeing Deadpool 2 in a cinema in Vancouver next to the street it was filmed in.

Christmas:
It’s a Wonderful Life
Love Actually
Jingle all the way.
Die Hard.

[Graphista]

Thank you so much! Thought it was gonna end up a ghost thread!

Field of dreams - yes! Another I thought "ugh about baseball" ex persuaded me to watch it and its now a favourite of both mine and dds. The irony/sadness being dd will be unlikely to ever watch with her dad as he's all but vanished out of her life.

Dd was arguing on FB about the "die hard isn't a Christmas film" stuff 😂 Its a regular feature at Xmas here (if not a full marathon we'll certainly watch the first 2).

Funny you mention "it's a wonderful life" - that's a film I had to watch at uni...and HATED. It was one I'd meant to, even looked forward to watching...and just found incredibly irritating. But each to their own. Maybe I was too old and jaded at time of first watching (early 30's and in the midst of a divorce).

Zulu is a far more emotive film than I think many expect.

Jealous re deadpool 2. Dd and I went to see first one together (I'm the comic book fan her not so much) and we LOVED it! Unfortunately my agoraphobia back badly and we didn't make it to 2, so I'll have to wait for it to be available on streaming somewhere.

One I should have included in my original post is

Adventures in babysitting

Which dd ADORED as a littl'un! And has since introduced to several friends. (Thankfully inappropriate parts went over her head, same as me with grease).

Elf is one she's introduced me to, that I didn't think I'd like but I love it.

Gremlins another Xmas one - instigating a shared love of horror.

The family stone - I introduced just last Christmas, as I was going through a phase of finding good weepies for her.

Would love to know what your DS is doing at uni. Is he studying from a filmmaking perspective or more theoretically?

[BestIsWest]

He’s doing both - he wishes there was more of a practical element though.

Deadpool 2 was ace. We also visited Victoria where the X-men mansion was.

See, I love It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s got everything. We always put it on Christmas Eve and peel the veg while watching it.

[Graphista]

I'd find the veg peeling more interesting!

I hope he's enjoying it. My degree in English but at a uni with a big emphasis on modern media studies so we had several modules with "film as a text" so looking at the semiotics, influence of the scriptwriters & directors background etc it's interesting I now regularly without prior knowledge can usually tell which films are made by people coming more from a film makers background, and those coming more from a literary background or where the films adapted from a book.

I was sceptical and honestly a little resistant at first, 'media studies' at the time being seen as 'Mickey mouse' but it was really interesting and made a lot of sense.

Several fellow students have since gone on to work at BBC, or in film making or in social media management.

I hope he's really enjoying it. The theory can be quite intense, I found myself disappearing down psychology and philosophy rabbit holes!

[Vitalogy]

Bought a tear to my eye this thread, thinking about my dad. He was a big film fan and passed that love to me, then me to my son. We all share the love of Ben Hur, Spartacus, Ice Cold in Alex, Imitation of Life, Papillon, It's a Wonderful Life, The Medusa Touch, Terminator, Bonds. That's all I can think of atm but there's loads more. My dad and son never met each other so I feel it's a connection some how.

[BestIsWest]

Aw Vitalogy

[Graphista]

aww my gran introduced me to lana turner weepies...

Imitation of life
Madam X