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How / Why did you develop your love for the cinema?

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How / Why did you develop your love for the cinema?

Old 05-30-08, 02:25 PM
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How / Why did you develop your love for the cinema?

I always like it when there's a thread by a younger person who has just discovered an older /or/ obscure /or/ foreign movie for the the first time and gets excited. It makes me wonder why some people gravitate towards liking the full breadth of the history of cinema, and some people really only like movies from within their own lifetime. Not to be a snob but many here hate it when people won't watch something because it's in B&W or subtitled.

So this got me thinking about my own experiences with film, and why I developed into a full fledged obsessesive cinephile. I'll start by stating I am 40, and both my parents loved film, and would take me to old noir or foreign flicks when I was really young. There really wasn't cable or VCRs yet, so this was one of the only ways to see these movies. Although the TV did show a lot more movies back in the 70's. Then I discovered the Uptown Theater here in Minneapolis. It showed different double features every two days, and I practically lived there. I watched everything from Godzilla to Hitchcock, Truffaut, Kurosawa, Scorsese, Murnau, Lang, Hawks, Lester, Ashby, everything.

A few years later we got cable, and Bravo started showing these type of movies. I remember one night staying up late anbd watching hours and hours of Bertolucci's 1900, just mesmerized.

So that's what cemented my love for film, I'd love to hear others thoughts, memories, experiences, theories.

Last edited by Bobby Shalom; 05-30-08 at 02:28 PM.
Old 05-30-08, 02:41 PM
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I've been exposed to "classic" cinema since a very young age. My father was an advocate for silent film as well as anything from the 20s or 30s. I grew up as a huge Three Stooges nut, so that started my interest from the very young age of 1 or 2.. been into older films since then.

and I'm 21.
Old 05-30-08, 03:29 PM
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1977...STAR WARS...'nuff said.

As for "classic" cinema...that came with cable TV and catching old movies late at night.

Last edited by Shannon Nutt; 05-30-08 at 03:31 PM.
Old 05-30-08, 03:35 PM
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I'm 23 and unlike the posters above my parents weren't film buffs. They enjoyed the occasional movie here or there and my father does love some of the classics but I have gone far beyond them, cinephile-wise.

I guess I always liked watching movies and I also always loved technology. So when I got my first DVD player, I started collecting movies. Soon enough I started going beyond my comfort level and watching movies I typically wouldn't see.
Old 05-30-08, 03:39 PM
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Old 05-30-08, 04:13 PM
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I'd have to say I owe my parents..especially my dad. He would always take me to the drive in theater to watch double features. And on weekends we would go to our favorite grindhouse theaters and watch kung fu/action movies.

When we moved in with our grandparents because my folks were out of work in the mid 80's I would walk down the street by myself to a 1 screen theater called "Venus" and they charged $1 to watch double feature movies. The place was a hole in the wall but I loved it. It was there that I watched hand me down movie trash like The Exterminator 2, Rocky 4, American Ninja, A Nightmare on Elm Street 1-2, To Live and Die in LA.

I sometimes pee on the floor of my home to help emulate the grindhouse theater experience
Old 05-30-08, 04:27 PM
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I've always liked movies but my obsession began with my 11th grade English teacher. He liked movies, I liked him, etc.
Old 05-30-08, 10:01 PM
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When it comes to older films, i started watching them at a very early age. I remember saturdays when i was stuck at home and watching early tarzan films and the old universal monster flick and things like that. I remember watching "The Elephant Man" when i was in the 5th grade thinking it was 30 years old just because it was in b&w, and i was shocked years later when i found out it was barely over 5 yrs old at the time that i watched it. Then when i was fifteen i fell in love with James Dean and "Rebel without a Cause". And after years of films like Leathal Weapon, Die Hard, and Beverly Hills Cop, Rebel taught me you didn't need tits and explosions to have a good film, not that i still didn't like tits and explosions. It also made me think i was bisexual since i had such a crush on James Dean,(another thread for that topic though).
Then it just progressed a little at a time from there, i know the last ten years my taste have changed quite a bit, in 96 one of my favorite films was ID4 and I really didn't like Fargo, now i can't sit through ID4 and Fargo is one of my favorite and most watched movies.
And because of boards like this within the last decade i've discovered Hammer Films, the Silent German films, foriegn horror(mainly italian and asian), other Coen brothers films, and just other independent and arthouse flicks
Old 05-30-08, 11:52 PM
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I developed my love for cinema when DVDs were invented, it's not terribly romantic. I watched all the typical movies a child of the 80s would watch while growing up but nothing much else. The only foreign films I had seen were dubbed martial arts movies. The early scenes in The Wizard of Oz were about all I could tolerate of black & white cinema.

DVDs came along and changed all that. Growing up I wasn't allowed to watch rated R movies when I first got a DVD player I was like a kid in a candy shop...Pulp Fiction...Terminator 2....Seven...oh so many films!

Then that feeling wore off so I wanted more. Next up I was tackling classics. I think Psycho was the first black & white movie I watched in full. After that it was foreign films, classic foreign films and then finally I graduated to silent films.

But I have DVDs to thank. I don't have a theatre that played old movies. In fact, I still have never seen one and starting to think they don't exist. The oldest movie I had ever seen was The Wizard of Oz and yeah that's pretty old but it's basically a movie kids with ADD can even watch. Other than that the next oldest was probably Star Wars.

It's all about DVDs -- and James Dean is the fucking man. When his films came out a few years ago I watched Giant, East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause back to back to back.
Old 05-31-08, 08:07 AM
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When I was very young, my dad and I would watch a couple local Los Angeles sci-fi/horror shows. I believe one was "Strange Tales of Science Fiction" and the other was "Chiller". Good times....
Old 05-31-08, 09:47 AM
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I have been around movies all of my life. Early on in the 70's my father would take me to the cinema to watch movies like, The Pink Panther series, Star Wars, Dracula, etc. Plus back in those days movies were on EVERY tv channel. There was no reality shows or infomercials. When you see those infomercials late at night now, that's where they used to show all of those Late night movies. Espescially the Fright Night movies on the weekends that are non-existant today. Then when VHS came out, I would buy those blank tapes and record the movies and shows from the television to develop my own library. Now that DVD is here I have been replacing those taped VHS movies with DVD's which has been a wonderful hobby for me. I buy these DVD'S like they're candy. I get atleast one every week. It's a great hobby that keeps me out of trouble, except for my wallet that is. I've bought everything that I like from the 1930's- on up to today's feature films. It's been great, and i'm not about to stop anytime soon.
Old 05-31-08, 08:17 PM
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The Legend of Hillbilly John

My mom and dad took us as kids to see this. I was seven at the time. Some pterodactly type thing and a witch in it scared me so much that I ran up the aisle screaming. My mom came out into the lobby and explained that it was all just make believe and that its okay to be scared. Don't know why but I reentered the theatre with entirely new eyes. Stopped being just entertainment and something much more magical. Can't even remember if the movie was any good. But that's the day movies became a passion instead of a way to pass the time.
Old 05-31-08, 10:22 PM
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Yep Star Wars was the first movie I remember seeing in the theater. Many times too, and even remember seeing it at the drive-in. Damn I miss the old drive-in days; saw some cool stuff there.

Otherwise it was sneaking out to the tv late at night to catch movies. Phantom of the Opera w/Lon Chaney was the first "horror" movie I remember watching, and I couldn't get enough of the scary movies after. And Wizard of Oz of course, which is actually pretty scary when you're a kid.
Old 05-31-08, 11:01 PM
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KTLA Channel 5's "Movie for a Sunday Evening." I think that started it.

Nine years working for the County of Los Angeles Public Library, with unlimited access to their VHS collection cemented my love for cinema.
Old 05-31-08, 11:12 PM
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watching Citizen Kane for a first time (thanks to the forum) that and watching movies like Memento and City of God.
Old 05-31-08, 11:44 PM
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I read David Michael Petrou's THE MAKING OF SUPERMAN THE MOVIE before it came out and really appreciated the creative efforts and politics behind making a motion picture.

I also read Pauline Kael's essays on the first two GODFATHER films, and her writing and analysis really opened my eyes.

I started reading VIDEO REVIEW, a now defunct magazine which actually had excellent critical analyses of the latest home video releases, like STAR TREK II on Beta Hi-Fi, and INHERIT THE WIND on CED.

Finally, in my teens, I worked at a local movie theatre. We only occasionally got first run movies (COCCOON and TERMMINATOR come to mind), but I was fascinated by the promotion, the distribution and actual exhibition of the films themselves.
Old 06-01-08, 12:08 AM
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Die Hard movies.

Watchin' movies with my Dad.
Old 06-01-08, 12:34 AM
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I think the first film I fell in love with was "Dumbo." I'd watch it over and over, before I went to afternoon kindergarten.

my grandma had a bunch of movies on VHS, and I watched those a lot. I was a child of the 80s, and we had cable, so I watched a lot Nickelodeon, MTV, and movies. It was films like The Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Star Wars trilogy, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, The Goonies, etc. that I'd watch over and over. I couldn't get enough of the stuff.

I would be taken to the theatre a couple of times a year when I was very young, but it wasn't until around '91 (I was around 9) where I'd be taken all of the time, and of course it was for the summer movies. Before that my mom would get $.50 - $1 rentals at the video store, and she'd rent around a couple or more a week. Then my mom bought me the Video Movie Guide one year, and that was probably the tipping point.

I enjoy lots of other things in this life (I read a lot, that's a close second), but I get a certain feeling when I'm watching a movie that I don't get doing anything else. I really can't explain it.

Last edited by Brack; 06-01-08 at 12:41 AM.
Old 06-01-08, 12:45 AM
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I was a young kid in the 80's. My mom always loved going to the movies so she'd take my brother and I maybe every-other weekend. We'd see movies like Empire Strikes Back, Jedi, Karate Kid, Goonies, E.T., Gremilns, Indiana Jones, Bachelor Party, Revenge of the Nerds....etc. Those were great times.
Old 06-02-08, 11:49 AM
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My parents weren't big film buffs, nor did I have an older brother/friend to show me the ropes of film, so I sought out titles that looked appealing to me. I became a rabid Gozilla fan at around age 5, which began my lifelong love of Japanese cinema of the 50's-70's. Most other films I'd see in a theater if my parents were into it, or I'd just rent whatever looked the coolest at the video store. It took age, and some ecclectic friends, to get me into some foreign and classic cinema I'd never seen before.
Old 06-02-08, 01:41 PM
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When I was about 7 or 8, the first type of movies that I was in love with were the old Universal Horror classics.

Originally Posted by Ron G
KTLA Channel 5's "Movie for a Sunday Evening." I think that started it.
That's where I first saw them at. There was even one time in either '84 or '85 when the channel showed Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3-D. You had to get 3-D glasses at your local "Circle K" (I still remember that pair of glasses had a scratch & sniff bannana in the middle)

Looking back, for those of us who grew up in or around Southern Cali in the 80's, The local TV stations really had it going on when it came to movies for youngsters.

As mentioned, KTLA not only had the Universal classics, but they had the Godzilla and Planet of the Apes marathons.

Channel 9 (Before it became KCAL) had Elvira (That's where I first saw stuff like Willard and Mark of the Devil) along with Kung Fu afternoons (They showed every Bruce Lee movie---As well as every Bruce Li movie. Which had me believing that the real Bruce Lee had made as much movies as John Carradine did)

Channel 13 (Formerly KCOP) had the gritty action/war/crime/western movies like The Warriors,Billy Jack,The Naked & The Dead,The Wild Angels,etc.

I got into classic foreign cinema in '99 when every magazine publication like Time,Entertainment Weekly, and Newsweek were doing their own "100 greatest movies of the century". A bunch of old foriegn stuff that I never heard of was being metioned so I figured if these movies are so great, why not give them a look and decide for myself? Thanks to Turner Classic Movies and Netflix, I've been able to track down nearly all those movies. Some I thought were overrated. Some I thought were okay. And some that I just loved and had to add them to my collection. Oh, forgot to mention that the DVD format has been a tremendous helping hand in improving my love for cinema.

Last edited by Mondo Kane; 06-02-08 at 01:44 PM.
Old 06-02-08, 01:48 PM
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As ayoung kid I grew up watching HBO in the early 80's and I loved watching late night movies on the TV. My uncle would take me to the movie theater all the time since we had one right around the corner and he loved watching westerns, war movies and scifi flicks. I realize now how much of a movie buff he was since his den was adorned with framed movie posters( original King Kong, Casablanca, Good Bad and Ugly among others i cant remember).
Old 06-02-08, 02:02 PM
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Close Encounters of the Third Kind - seen at the age of 7 - simply euphoric, my love of film began with THIS movie, granted Star Wars came out that same year and I saw that movie at least seven times in it's intial release, CE3K was much more impressionable for me.

and going to the movies to me was more fun than 'reading' a book

I was the kid in Jr High that brought in the latest issue of Fangoria - and occasionally got in trouble because of it.

my love for Horror films began with a library screening of the silent film Nosferatu - my sister and I were traumatized, more her than me, it jump started my favourite genre.

I remember watching the original 'King Kong' at my Uncle's house one Thanksgiving and I was transfixed to the 13 inch screen.

It's sad, that I remember so many of my film going experiences and the specific DC area theatres that with every theatre closing in and around the DC area, it's bittersweat (and tragic)

Last edited by Giles; 06-02-08 at 02:28 PM.
Old 06-02-08, 02:09 PM
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Originally Posted by Giles
I was the kid in Jr High that brough in the Fangoria - and occasionally got in trouble because of it.
Ditto!
Old 06-02-08, 02:20 PM
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Originally Posted by Mondo Kane
Ditto!
funny story about that - once one of the issues made it to the front of my history class and the teacher saw it, grabbed it from the student who was looking at and tore it in half - imagine the scene if played on an episode of say 'Malcolm in the Middle' - close up of magazine being ripped - close up of my jaw dropping - camera swing to the front of the classroom with all eyes pointed in my direction - my very audible response: "Nooooooo... !!!"

Last edited by Giles; 06-02-08 at 02:22 PM.

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