Saturday, January 05, 2013

As I've gotten older, the likelihood of my watching a film more than once has significantly diminished.   It is a rare occasion for me to watch anything more than once.   If I do it, it really is to study a film.  I break it down find it's beats, turn off the audio to try to find how the visuals are working.  Gone are the days when I sat down, let the suspension of disbelief wash over me and really enjoy a film over and over.

A list of movies that I think define my childhood.  These are the movies that I can remember watching over and over again as a child.   I also think of these films as part of a primordial influence on a generation of children born from the late seventies through the 80's and into the early 90's.

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Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Jurassic Park
The Dark Crystal
Batman
Terminator 2
The Never Ending Story
Flight of Dragons
Star Wars
Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
Battle for Endor
Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn
Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock
Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home
Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier
Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country
Superman

The Adventures of Robin Hood
Rear Window
North By North West
The Man Who Knew Too Much


Disney: Sword in the Stone, Robin Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Oliver and Company, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin.

Back then blockbusters had story and the characters felt as if they had true emotion.  Maybe this is how it starts - once you start preferring movies of a certain time period, its a slippery slop to to being that "get off my lawn" kind of guy.

Luckily my parents instilled in me a love of movies and I had access to a huge collection of VHS tapes all of movies that we recorded off of television.  There were four different versions of A Christmas Carroll, entire collections of mini series that were long forgotten, a large collection of Hitchcock films (some of which I wasn't allowed to watch).  For the most part the entire collection was open.   

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