I mean, really. Only 10?
As a true cineast, I only watch entertainment news; movies have been my life for so long, they seem to outlive my love of Disney in many, many respects. There's is nothing like the conundrum that I suffer from when I ahve to choose between a new release and a day at the Parks. There's really something in there. However, there's nothing nicer than having two wonderful choices before me. I can't lose.
Movies have always been there for me. I've gone alone, gone with friends, gone with people I appreciated and people that I've detested. But the movies, even the truly bad ones, they were always there. And I cannot stop thier impact on me.
10. sex, lies, and videotape I'd already known I was a cineast. Years of managing a videotape store had shown me I could always find something. I looked them like I would a decent library. Sometimes you'd ahve something under your ability, that one book or movie that provided comfort; the other titles, both movies and books, that really challenged you.
I had already seen several art movies. There was one of my employees/coworkers and he was a swimmer and an artist. Fine as a statue. And he loved the art movies. He'd return htem with his shift, knowing full well they'd not be rented. He'd mention why this art film or that foreign title was worth it. So? I'd wait until the end of my shift and watch it on the store's big screen television with the lights out.
By the time I saw sex, lies, and videotape, I had a decent understanding of the difference between an arthouse independent movie and a full blown blockbuster.
Big C was the female lead across from me in the play Present Tense, the first play I ever had to do shirtless in. It was weird, she played my girlfriend.
Yeah, I know, I was that good of actor.
I felt I needed to act like I liked this girl and told her that I read about this art movie in Film Comment magazine and, strangely, that it had opened, of all freegin places, in Fargo (!) North Dakota. I knew if we didn't go see it, it'd close and they'd never bring an art movie back into the town again. This was the spring of 1989, so the independent movie craze was about to get underway. So? A date was born and we went.
The subject matter was massive mature, but strangely, the presentation was so digestable, there was zero discomfort from either of us. We even had coffee at the Ember's, the only place still open on that hour and, for the first time in my college career, in my fucking life, heck, I had a mature conversation about symbolism, nuance, purpose, and message.
How did it influence me? Like that first toke of a decent drug, I was hooked, my head swimming with thoughts and feelings that were complete and very, very enjoyable. For the first time, my addiction was shared with intelligence and I knew, from there, that I loved independent movies.
I probably could link it to the moment when someone starts a drug habit and gets that first hit.
9. The Crying Game. By the time I rolled around to this movie, my movie addict was going full bore. I'd not earned enough money to support that habit, so I started to moonlight managing a movie theater. It came with specific perks, in his case, free movie tickets.
I did my best to attend any movie with a GBLT theme, so make sure that my dollars communicated that those movies were worth merit and that Hollywood should look inot making more and more of those titles.
Believe it or not, I did not realize this was a GBLT movie, but, that wasn't real reason it influenced me. It influenced me in the area of writing. See, this was the first time, ever, that I noticed that the gay guy didn't die. He wasn't swishy. He even had a straight guy fall for him (if you've not seen the movie, that's kinda a spoiler). It's an amazing piece of motion picture. 'Whoa,' I remember thinging as I picked my jaw up off the floor, 'the gay guy was the good guy and survived everything.'
I could write stories like that. I don't have to have the guy die because he had the kind of love I have.
8. Brokeback Mountain. Of course, this movie did have a death onscreen, and it devasted so many of my gay male friends. You have to remember my colleagues and my peers, we had grown up in a time of AIDS where those came out of the closet to find themselves quickly interred from a deadly disease. Now? Here was a mainstream movie and for many of my friends, the sobs didn't stop after the credits rolled.
But how did it influence me? Well, watching my adult friends turning into blubbering messes, well, that was something. We'd never seen our love and our aches personified on the big screen before, as heroes, as protagonists. I'd watched Casablanca so many times and wept in the right spaces, but, well, they were straight. I could only relate to them on some love, but I don't think I could totally understand.
Then I saw this movie.
And I cried too. For there, before me, was why everyone cried in Romeo and Juliet and every other heterosexual tragic love story. It wasn't in my skull. I didn't have to figure out why people in the audience were crying when I watched this Brokeback. Instead? My heart cried for me. For the first time, I got it.
8. Clerks. This was it. Up until this point, art movies were unreachable. Beautiful people speaking poetry and making us Think Deeply.
But this movie changed the game. An arthouse movie. Jokes that were about penises and farts and Star Wars.
And it was an art movie.
It had no Deep Thoughts. The message was direct and not hidden behind symbolism and vague analogy.
Fart jokes. In glorious black and white.
Here's the thing? I'm not into comedies. At all. I'd spent so much time with the art stuff, I think I closed that part out of me, I was becoming a hipster before becoming a hipster was annoying. How did that work? The movie was such a unique experience, I realized that, true art is, at it's core, just expression.
And sometimes, taht's with fart jokes.
It influenced me on that, well, just do it. Write what you want to write. Create your art. Let the chips fall where they may.
7. Hunchback of Notre Dame. Too deep and too obscure to really find a niche on the Disney canon, I rarely mention this title, but it did, basically, have an influence on me on a way that, literally, has nothing to do with the movie itself and EVERYTHING to do with the timing of this Disney flick. See? I had left my boyfriend/husband/douchebag of 3 and a half years. Three and half years of an abuse laden daily existence. I hated myself, gorged myself and rarely found the good. He did so many drugs, so many horrid things, I would steal away to the movies, all I had left. He hated the movies because he couldn't bring alcohol in and, then, he'd tell me how fake everything was.
He'd have his affairs, usually under the guise of working late at his bank, and I would, as usual, be left alone to keep his house clean and feed our dog, my only friend. He discouraged me visiting with friends, mentioning the drug use and his possible incarceration.
I had such low self-esteem, so brow beaten to a pulp, that it took me forever to leave the schmuck. I didn't even unpack when I left him. I just dropped off everything at the studio apartment, all I could afford. I had no money left by that point. I left him my television. I left him my furniture.
And, with that remaining dollars in my pocket, I put a salve on my wounds. I went to see a Disney movie. A Disney movie about a man who thought he was misshapen, but it was the world around him that was so wrong.
Thanks, Quasi!
7. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen-My imagination is okay. Here was one of those movies where my daydreams were finally summed up.
I can be weird and, well, someone might make a movie out of my stories. Or make a movie about me making up stories.
Never had a film shown me that the creative impact has on the world around me. Remember, you're looking at one of the two people in the universe that happens to adore Journey into Your Imagination. It's the world I live in, I believe in the power of creativity and it's impact.
And here's a movie about it. The influence? Be crazy-wonderful. Tell your tale, I'm going to tell mine.
I started my first book, about a young man coming out of the closet. Not because he was merely gay, but, because, well, there were literal monsters in it and it was too crowded. And a certain Baron said, "this is the story."
6. Singles-I hated dating when I first came out of the closet. This was before the interwebs, so I was unable to meet people when I was interested. We tended to hang out in special bars. That was about it. Oh, and classified ads.
I hated it. Detested it.
And then I saw this movie.
Seems like the straight folk were having the same problem.
I wasn't alone. I was alone, physically, thinking I was going to die, slowly, alone. But, with this movie influencing me, I guess I wasn't. They were going to die alone too. We were all rallying against the dying of the light.
5. Link. I was trying to get into his pants. He was the center lineman of the Overland Blazers winning football team. He was built like a brick shithouse.
We had math together. He was in a military family and they didn't have much towards cash. He weightlifted so frequently, his saw-offed jeans slowly became daisy dukes and he was a bit too dim to notice. I'd invite him over and we'd work on his car together and he'd always take off his shirt.
And I'd buy him lunch. Feed him dinner. Anything to keep his attention on me.
It was sad, really, because I didn't realize what I was doing. And he didn't realize I was doing it either.
Link had a beautiful blonde lead. He wanted to see her. So? Sure. Whatever. Let's go see a movie.
And I watched him get happy and enjoy the movie, I realized...I'm queer. Of all movies! This isn't what I thought it was. He wasn't becoming my best friend. I wanted more from him-and so, that movie ended my attention to him.
After I convinced him we should jump in my parents' hot tub.
4. Fun With Dick and Jane. A shitty little movie about poverty and how it encourages crime. But, well, it had a powerful influence over me as well. See, when those houselights dimmed, I was hooked.
It was the first movie my memory tells me I had seen. I was really, really impressed. It was like a television show where they didn't have commercials. There were jokes. People rolling up the lawn.
It made me love these galloping tintypes called the movies.
3. My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I know I've talked about his picture before, at length, elsewhere here, but the fact remains, this movie was a huge influence on my life. It showed me that the horrible stereotypes my family were in reality weren't so bad in some respects, and the traditions they had lauded over me for so long were with deep purpose and love. I was, again, as mentioned in this very column, not alone.
And that marriage is very much about love. But it's also about a family and their very definition. And, gay or straight, every wedding redefines that marriage as it should be. Powerful stuff.
2. Farenheit 911-Okay, yeah, it was a piece of propoganda, and I admit, the bias was so profound, I could not avoid it. I thought, going in, that it was going to be a comedic piece of X-Files conspiracy about the 9/11 attacks, but, and here's the thing-
it wasn't. It did not reinforce what I already believed, nor did it knock down any ivory towers my heart and mind had built. Instead? It gave me a different perspective that changed the way I've voted since. Before, I used to really tow the middle line and look to both sides (luckily, one side was totally yahoo, so that helped) to decide where to voite. But not after this. Privativation of everything. The war machine built to benefit the few. Sending other people's children off to war.
It creeped me out. It was further elaborated on with Capitalism: A Love Story. I got it. And I didn't want to.
No more commercialism from this point onwards.
1. The Insider-This movie? This one hit me on a level that I could not believe would hit me. I had contemplated smoking, but, hey, I didn't drink any more and had way too little vices left in my world. I am sure there was a great amount of fiction here. However, if even the premise is true, about a man who blew the lid off of the smoking industry and was threatened for it, I thought-this is not someone I want to give my business to.
As I reread this list, this is probably the most personal list I've ever posted here. As such, I'm not going to mention it over on FB. But I'm seeing a lot about my suffering here, and how movies cured it. Amazing stuff and, well, I guess with news as of late, I'm a bit vunderable right now and that's saying something. Whoa. Read at your peril. I'm one messed up dude.
