I tried recently to come up with a big list of "the movies that made me love movies" or something like that. I was thinking of making a movie-themed redwork quilt. (I'm probably not ever going to do that.)
The first movie I saw in a theater was Annie. My grandmother took me to see it, and I was pretty scandalized by all Carol Burnett's bad behavior. Confession: I still think of Tim Curry as Rooster before Frank-N-Furter, or Wadsworth or whatever else you think of him as. This guy probably:
Labyrinth. The first movie I bought myself on video. Followed closely by And Now For Something Completely Different. It is a very reassuring feeling, owning a movie, knowing that you can see it whenever you want to, and pause it, or start over when it's done. It seems so obvious now, but it was a revelation in 1990 or so.
It's a Wonderful Life and Harvey. I had a record of Jimmy Stewart reading Winnie the Pooh stories when I was a kid. He was the first movie star I felt a personal attachment to. Celebrity culture is one of the weirdest aspects of being a movie lover/watcher/fan. You come to feel as if you know these people, and it's rare (and sort of a relief) to see the occasional movie without familiar faces in it. On the other hand, sometimes you like a movie just because of who is in it...
Dead Poets Society. The first time I remember loving and hating a movie at the same time, which is a really important part of my experience of movies. I fought with people about what was left out (e.g. any women, any poet born after 1900), but I also toted around my mother's copy of The Viking Book of Poetry of the English Speaking World all that summer while I worked at my first job, selling dried flowers to tourists in an alley in Kennebunkport. Parts of Leaves of Grass still remind me of the aggressive scent of lemon verbena and rose potpourri.
Heathers. The first movie that I watched so many times I could recite most of it from memory. It is hard to watch now, because..well, because it's kind of bad. I don't remember why it was so great then. Speaking of things I no longer understand my adolescent fondness for (I'm talking about Winona Ryder), I saw Edward Scissorhands at The Movies on Exchange in Portland, and I was sad for days afterwards, thinking about...you know, mortality and stuff.
The Fisher King. Oh how I loved The Fisher King. I saw other Terry Gilliam movies earlier, and others are better, but The Fisher King is the one that got inside my head, made me incredibly sad, and made me keep thinking about it. I was fifteen when that movie came out. Amanda Plummer's mean, novel-reading character was named Lydia. That alone would probably have won me over.
There were a whole series of sort of smarty-pants movies that I rented and watched by myself, in the back room of the dance studio where my mother was working, or in my room on a tiny black and white TV. These are movies that made me think, made me feel smart and stupid in turn. The Seventh Seal, Mindwalk, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Jesus of Montreal. I am not sure I understood all of the issues raised in these movies. They made me realize that watching a movie can be hard work, and that it can be worth it.
Finally, I remember going to the Nickelodeon theater in Portland, where they showed second run movies for $2. It was a hot day, and I watched Scent of a Woman then immediately went back and watched Benny & Joon. That was the first time I went to see a movie alone, and I loved it so much I did it twice in the same day.
The funny thing about my list of movies that mattered to me is how many of them are not movies I ever need to see again. Even Harvey, which I would have named as my favorite movie for many years, seems a little trite these days, if I'm honest. Does everyone feel this way? The stuff that made you who you are, do you still love that stuff? Are you embarrassed by it? Do you cling defensively--or proudly--to nostalgia for terrible things you loved when you were thirteen?
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