Formative Film

There are a great many topics on my mind today that I could write about at great length.  So many that I am having a hard time choosing.  So I will do the valiant thing and beg off!  I will write instead about movies that I feel have had a profound effect on my life. Joe, Micah and I came up with a ridiculously long list of such, but for your sakes I will try to refine it down to the most important ones. Hold on to your cushioned folding cinema seat!

#1  JOE VS. THE VOLCANO

This film is the pinnacle of pinnacles for our family.  I don't know what not to love! 

"I've been working here for four and a half years, work I could have done in six months."
"Far from the things of man."
"I still have my trunks!"

Our family has the entire movie memorized, and we live by it's tenets.

#2 Brazil

A Terry Gilliam 'must see' film.  Primary theme, government sponsored terrorism.  Add in overarching bureaucracy, unrequited love, and cosmetic surgery.

"We're all in it together!"

#3  Dogma

If you take it face value you will miss the messages within.  Faith, angels, demons, abortion clinics, and redemption.  We watch it again and again.

"No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater, than central air."

#4  Jesus Christ Superstar

The film that actually started Joe and I on our spiritual path.  Need I say more?

"I look for truth, and find that I get damned!"

#5  Koyaanisqatsi

A testament to the world around us.  Life and death, nature and the man made environment, beauty and well . . .

#6  The Godfather Trilogy

It's the I Ching, the sum of all wisdom, what can I say?  (Other than the third one should really only be taken as a completion, it is nowhere near as good as the first two.)

"That's my family, that's not me."
"I want to ask you a favor."
"I'm with you now, Papa."

#7  Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Only the Gene Wilder original will do here.

"There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination."
"So shines a good deed in a weary world."

#8  The Matrix

The first time I watched this film I was taken by the absolute faith trip of Neo in the early scenes.  I have had similar times in my life. 

"Tumbling down the rabbit hole?"
"How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?"

#9 Land of the Blind

A dystopic revolution.

"A dry crust of bread is better than a big juicy steak."
"I did not come to violence casually, you know."
"This prison used to be a hospital."

#10  V for Vendetta

Last but certainly not least!  A recounting of the tale of Guy Fawkes, and a call to revolution. 

"Remember, remember the fifth of November."


So, if you thought you knew me before, did you really?