Friday, June 25, 2010

Movies that I recall as having influenced me

I was skimming another internet article listing the author's take on the best movies of all time and it got me thinking.  So far, during my lifetime, I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of movies.  Most are a short repast from reality, a light diversion that is soon over.  A few have been great movies that captured my imagination and left me with a feeling of having seen something better than most everything else.  A Lion in Winter, Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back, Start Treck: The Wrath of Khan, Gladiator, Grand Torino are a few, a sampling.  Each was great and I have enjoyed watching them repeatedly.

But I have a fondness, a recollection of an even smaller group of movies that, while not necessarily great, left me with a sense of having learned something I can, or have, put to use in life.  I think the impact of each movie can be be attributed to when I first saw it and what was going on in my life at the time.

So here is that list:

Scaramouche (1952 w/ Stewart Granger)
Cyrano De Bergerac (1950 w/ Jose Ferrer)
From the Hip (1987 w/ Judd Nelson)
The Ninth Configuration (1980 w/ Stacy Keach)
American Beauty (1999 w/ Kevin Spacey)
Elmer Gantry (1960 w/ Burt Lancaster)
A Patch of Blue (1965 w/ Sidney Poitier)
HouseSitter (1992 w/ Goldie Hawn)
Hustle and Flow (2005 w/ Terrence Howard)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1991 w/ Gary Oldman)

I have the urge to ramble on about these movies but I don't think I have the words to succinctly communicate what it is I learned from each.  The lesson from each is more abstract, at least upon reflection it seems more abstract.  So I will just leave the list to stand on its own.