It was recently my dad’s birthday, and in writing these columns over the last couple of months, I’ve realized that a lot of what I find endearing about movies was instilled in me at an early age by my dad. Whether eye-opening or terrifying, I was lucky enough to have been exposed to a wide variety of films while growing up, due almost entirely to my dad and his desire to share these movies with me. The following are the movies and the vivid memories that were shared with him.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) & The Godfather (1972) – Throughout my childhood, my dad repeatedly made me sit through both of these movies any time they were on TV. Looking back, it felt like it happened about 20 times, but realistically it may have only been once or twice each. At the time, it seemed like torture. All I remember was sitting through a boring epic that lasted 15 hours or more. I swore that I would never watch them again, and I couldn’t understand why he loved them so much. Years later, in my teens, I watched both again for the first time. It was the first time that I actually realized my dad was right and I had a lot to learn. I have now seen each one well over 20 times and would watch either at the drop of a hat. They are two of the most influential and greatest movies of all time, in my opinion. Be warned though: if you force them on little children, they may be predisposed to hating them and grow up to like trash like ‘Transformers‘ instead.
The Thing (1982) – I don’t remember exactly when we watched this, but due to the vivid memory of the location, I must have been between the ages of four and six. I was having trouble sleeping and my dad let me stay up WAY past my bedtime to watch it with him. This movie is NOT meant for small children. To this day, no movie scares me more than ‘The Thing.’ The special effects are nothing compared to today’s standards, but I instantly regress to my 5ish year old mind-state and get terrified by every second of it. This is actually a great thing, as I love getting scared by movies, but nobody of recent years has come close to achieving what John Carpenter was capable of. Nowadays, ever since ‘Saw,’ people just rely on gore and shock value. That got old by ‘Saw 2,’ now it’s just annoying.
Runaway Train (1985) – Six years old. My first memory of a movie theater experience. Far too young to be seeing a dark and violent thriller. I love this movie to this day because of it, though. That is probably the only time I’ll ever use “love this movie” in reference to anything starring Eric Roberts (a small cameo in ‘The Dark Knight‘ doesn’t count), no matter how much Mickey Rourke assures me that he’s a great actor and just needs a chance. Between this and ‘The Thing,’ the groundwork was laid for me to instantly equate snow in movies to thrilling and potentially violent outcomes. I have yet to go back and watch this again in my adult life, but if I can find a copy somewhere, I’m looking forward to finding out if it’s as good as I remember. (Knowing now that it was originally written by Kurosawa and is Danny Trejo’s first film, I’m sure it will be even better than I remember.)
Robocop (1987) – My first R-rated movie. The panther was crawling through the jungle and then turned into a silhouette on a red background. I got nervous just sitting there. I was sure that someone was going to stand up and yell “Get that kid out of here!!!” No one did. At eight years old, I was not prepared for what lay before me. The brutal killings, unbelievable amount of swearing, and amazing special effects (for 1987) blew my mind. I was sure that all of the coolest movies were R-rated, and I was now going to have to figure out a way to see all of them. Nowadays, an R-rating is often equivocated to box-office failure. That may be true, but back then the mystique that went along with movies you had to be “old enough” to see, just made everything a little cooler. It was like being snuck into a secret club and being allowed to be an adult, even if only for a couple of hours. It was one of the greatest cinema experiences of my life.
The Crying Game (1992) – I mentioned this briefly a couple of weeks ago in my first UK column. I was 13 at the time and was still unaware of a lot of details in the sexuality department. I had never heard of the term ‘transvestite,’ and was not expecting to see a woman with a penis (in my defense, I don’t think anyone was expecting that). It shocked me, woke me up, and introduced the very principle of surprise endings. (I’d feel bad about ruining it for you, but if you haven’t seen it after 18 years of release, it’s your own damn fault. Oh yeah, Darth Vader is Luke’s father, by the way.) I have been both a Neil Jordan and Forest Whitaker fan for years, largely due to this movie. For the record, this is a very very very odd movie to watch with your dad when you’re 13.
Reservoir Dogs (1992) – This movie, on the other hand, was the coolest movie ever to watch with your dad when you’re 13. I had obviously never heard of Quentin Tarantino, but my dad was excited to see this and I fed off of it. I have enjoyed most of his movies since, but nothing will ever hold a candle to ‘Reservoir Dogs.’ Not having seen any of the movies that he pays tribute to in this movie, it was the first of its kind for me. Even at 13, I was shocked at how entertaining dialogue could be. I was actually riveted by a bunch of dudes in suits talking. Just talking!? How could this be? Then the action hit. The infamous torture scene floored me. Nothing was actually shown in gory detail, but it was still terribly uncomfortable to watch. After this movie, two things were confirmed: I was the envy of all of my friends for a couple of weeks, and my dad was the coolest dad ever.
Sliver (1993) – Fast forward to 1995. My parents went to a wedding, and I stayed at home to hang out with a couple of buddies. We were 16 and as such, thought that ‘Sliver’ would be a great movie to watch. If nothing else, at least we’d get to see Sharon Stone naked, the perfect night for 16 year olds. Halfway through the movie, my parents came home. My dad came downstairs to say hi, and we paused the movie to talk to him. All went well. Then he told us to get back to our movie, so we un-paused it. Much to my embarrassment, we immediately discovered that it had been paused mere seconds before a graphic display of Sharon Stone in all her glory. The scene played on, and we were all awkwardly silent as we watched Stone’s nakedness with my dad standing over us. The scene was coming to and end and then my dad poignantly broke the uncomfortable silence with “I’ve seen better.” And then he left the room. It couldn’t have been scripted better. Those parting words cemented what I had thought before: my dad seriously was the coolest dad alive.
To this day, we continue to discuss movies. While he doesn’t keep up with the current releases nearly as much as I do, he is a wealth of knowledge about the movies that I’m trying to catch up on from before my time. Every once and a while he still surprises me though, like when I was out of town and he decided to go see ‘Moon‘ with my mom and a few of my buddies. I wish I’d been there.
Happy birthday, Pop.
– Pig
Well . . . . what do I say? Just remember that when he said, “I’ve seen better.” he meant me.