Movies that changed your life

Transformers 2 is coming out in about 5 minutes so in conjunction with its release which I am sure will be a life changing movie for many, I thought of this topic. A movie that had a major impact on me is Defending your Life with Albert Brooks. I just found it recently and its fantastic. It's the first movie in a long while that has actually gotten me to try to change the way I live my life. Another one that had a major impact on me was Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind which changed my view on the relationships in my life. Now it doesn't have to be a major life change; it could be something as small as a piece of dialogue that you quote to this day or a movie that helped you through a rough time.

Thirteen
Super Size Me
Speed (the movie that made me realize that R-rated movies are awesome)

American History X is the only movie ive seen that has changed my life. It was such an explosive powerful and deep look on racism. That had a serious impact on my life.

Field of Dreams because it made me realize that my dad wasn't an idiot and maybe, just maybe he really knew what he had been talking about all those years that I wasn't listening. It also pretty much hits you over the head that the time to realize this is while he's still alive and not wait until after he's passed away.

Fight Club since for the first 18 months after watching it, I quoted it on a daily basis. My online screen name was I Am Jack's Homicidal Rage (eventually shortened to Homicidal) for a few years. That movie summed up how I feel about consumerism and advertising in a way that I had never seen or read before.

Conan the Barbarian which shows me exactly why I was born in the wrong millenium.

The Exorcist scared the shit out of me for years as a child and now I believe it is one of the masterpieces of film. A horror movie that is scary, has a plot, and character development.

Wicker Park really had an impact on me but for a different reason than the film-makers intended. At the time I watched it, I was a single bartending whore. I randomly had sex with roughly half the population of my small town and I was miserable. I watched the movie and the ending just seemed to tear something open in me. It should be a happy ending but for me it wasn't because I was alone and miserable and I knew it but was covering it up with alcohol and sex. It was just the exact message I needed at an exact time in my life even though the film was merely the catalyst.

And most recently, The Boy in Striped Pajamas opened my eyes to a fact that we seem to have ignored in history. The Holocaust was terrible but how often does it get driven home that children were being exterminated also? Ever since watching the movie I have been reading more about this. Estimates say that 1.2 to 1.5 million children died in the Holocaust. To me that is sickening. That people would hate so much that they would slaughter innocent children simply because of the color of their skin or the imaginary friend they worship.
It also shows how dangerous indoctrination truly is when applied to the human race. We are all so lost that almost anything becomes believable. There is an invisible man in the sky that won't let you die, immigrants are stealing american jobs, the jewish people are monsters who destroyed the "motherland" and must be stuffed into gas chambers. People will believe anything if you tell them the same lie again and again...

End rant. LOL

On a lighter note, Wall-E and Up, made me realize that not all kid's movies are for kids only and that 3D is AWESOME!

Anyone's life who was changed by Transformers 2 is someone I feel sorry for...lol

I can't think of the movies that have impacted my life, I know there's been some but I can't really remember right now.

One was O., I'm not sure why but that movie has stuck with me since I caught it on HBO one night. I think it's the way Mekhi Phifer's character was treated by Josh Harnett simply because he was jealous of his girlfriend. And the whole interracial angle.

Actually most movies that have stuck with me has to do with racism, good or bad. I think it's because I go everyday without encountering it head-on and all these movies just bring me back to how life was, is, and always will be. Movies like American History X, Malcolm X, Do The Right Thing, Black & White, Higher Learning, Talk To Me, etc.

There's been other ones that make me want to change how I live, but I cannot fucking remember any of them. I'll come back when I do.

My Holy Triumvirant

The Last Crusade
Ghostbusters
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

These are the three movies I watched the most as a kid and are also the ones that first inspired me to become a filmmaker.

I credit movies as a whole with influencing (or probably reinforcing is a more accurate description) some of my beliefs. Movies contributed towards my acceptance of the fact that people are people (both good and bad) no matter what race, religion or sexual orientation they are. Probably the first movie to do this was Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, later reinforced by American History X. Movies like Philadelphia and Boys Don't Cry also had an impact.
In terms of literally changing my life I haven't eaten anything from MacDonalds since watching Super Size Me (although I have relented to a coffe or two at times when there aren't any other options), even though I went into the viewing fully aware that it was a one-sided, not scientifically rigorous, flawed design of an experiment.

Keyser Soze wrote:Field of Dreams because it made me realize that my dad wasn't an idiot and maybe, just maybe he really knew what he had been talking about all those years that I wasn't listening. It also pretty much hits you over the head that the time to realize this is while he's still alive and not wait until after he's passed away.

Big Fish had a very similar effect on me. I am sure it helped me understand my father better. Now I need to find a movie that will help him understand me better. Although I guess if he wanted to do that he already would have taken the time and effort to try to. (No sympathy neccessary, due to Big Fish I accept him as he is.)