My Most Important Movies From…

From my sister’s blog (http://feedmeacat.blogspot.com/2013/11/my-most-important-movies-from.html) a neat concept: The most important film every fifth year of your life. As the rules are a little unclear, I’m going to go ahead and do the most important movie in my life that was released that year.

Age 5 (1991): Hook. This was my first serious Disney movie. There was death and sadness and it wasn’t animated! It must’ve been one of the first movies I saw in theaters, at that. Rufio was the antithesis of everything I thought was good at that age – the fact he could be tragic was new to me.

Special guest star: Glenn Close! As a pirate. Also gets my vote as scariest scene.

Age 10 (1996): James and the Giant Peach. …And the first Disney movie I felt too old for. I was very conflicted about wanting to like it, and liking certain parts of the film, but overall thinking it was lame. Also the spider was disturbing since she wasn’t disturbing.

Special guest star: Pete Postlethwaite! Forget the voice actors.

Age 15 (2001): Moulin Rouge! What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On. I didn’t know a movie could do that. And the songs! Why the hell is Nirvana playing in the 1800s? This was one of the first films I saw that I started to think was in a different class – something more.

Special guest star: John Leguizamo! As Toulouse Lautrec, who I already was interested in at a young age.

Age 20 (2006): V for Vendetta. Didn’t you just want to take to the streets? I had hated the Bush administration since day one. It was such a relief to see my concern mirrored in the media, beyond reading Boondocks in the papers. I didn’t feel like a lonely voice railing helplessly.

Special guest star: Ben Miles! From my favorite British sitcom, Coupling.

Age 25 (2011): Midnight in Paris. The experience of seeing this film is what so struck me. I went with a friend whom I was visiting in Portland to a small private theater, where you could buy drinks and dinner while watching the movie from a small patio table set up in the preserved historic theater. The whole thing was so ‘hip’ and 2011 – and the movie was a perfect fit.

Special guest star: Adrien Brody! As Salvador Dali, one of my favorite artists as a kid (along with Lautrec.) 

Maybe I'll update this in three years. Until then...