So there's a thing on FB about listing 15 movies that stuck with you...not necessarily movies that are your favorites (though I do have a lot of overlap with those two lists). I thought I'd share mine. If others have their own influences, feel free to share. Maybe 15. Maybe not.
1. Shallow Grave - First movie I've seen with Ewan McGregor and Christopher Eccleston. I still love the ending.
2. Reservoir Dogs - Back when I didn't even know who Tarantino is. I still consider this his best. Perhaps it's because this movie was not tainted by the rush of being told he's awesome.
3. Brazil - It warped my little brain, but it made me appreciate the absurdity of real life. I saw it before I entered the cube farm, and now that I'm in a cube farm, everything is so vivid. I'm a fan of dystopian stories, and this is one of them.
4. The Re-Animator - Not a great movie, but it was amusing because my friend and I snuck out during class to watch this in the AV room. It was the unrated version, so zombified cunnilingus was there in its full glory.
5. Heavy Metal - This movie is so dated, and it's so schlocky and testosterone-ridden, but it was my first adult animated movie. John Candy delivered some of the best lines.
6. Alien - Technically, Jaws would have been my first horror film, but I was way too young to understand what was happening. Alien, however, was on HBO during a time in my life when I understood what was happening, and it scared the shit out of me. My tummy did flip-flops during the scary scenes, so I stood behind a chair so it couldn't see the TV. You can guess that it didn't work.
7. Little Shop of Horrors - I think this was the first musical I saw in a movie theatre. I didn't know it was a musical going in. I kind of wish it had the stage version's ending, but it's a good movie regardless.
8. American History X - There are plenty of examples of bigotry, and they aren't necessarily in works of fiction, but I am glad this is a fictional story. The curb-stomping scene still makes me cringe, but the whole hatred thing just really oozes off the screen, and it makes you angry and sad at once.
9. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover - Probably not my first Helen Mirren movie, but it's the first one where I learned who she was. Made me really appreciate the sexuality of women over 40. This movie was a great blend of music and colors to portray mood along with story. I hate how the choir boy's song overpowers everything and wish for a version where his role is muted. The ending is still one of the most haunting murals of hatred today.
10. Near Dark - I think this was my first taste of nontraditional vampires. No nosferatu or creepy Christopher Lee. This was good old-fashioned redneck vampires in a Winnebago. It also showed just how cavalier they considered life when they slaughter the bar patrons.
11. Tommy - The visuals were pretty wild in this one, so that's unfair. When I was old enough to understand the story, it stuck with me. A Messiah who gets rejected by his own followers when he no longer teaches a path they like.
12. Star Wars trilogy - My first sci-fi love (even though it's not sci-fi). I saw all three in the theatre, though I was quite young. I vaguely remember even seeing A New Hope. I remember specific scenes from Empire Strikes Back. Return of the Jedi might have been the first movie in theatres I saw since my father died (who was with me the other two times), so there is still a soft spot for this series, even though I hated the way Boba Fett died.
13. Memento - I like mindfucks, and this one stuck with me for a while. Technically, it's not entirely filmed in reverse order (such as Irreversible), but the backwards storytelling really put you in the mindset of the protagonist. After watching this movie, I would wake up in the middle of the night and ask myself where I was.
14. Fight Club - This movie really drove home that marketing sucks. I ignored this movie because the trailer looked like another Van Damme wannabe with a bunch of testosterone-laden fights. There was testosterone, all right, but it was in different places. I watched this movie wondering why it was such a big deal for a brainless action movie and realized it was much more than that.
15. Cabin in the Woods - This movie is so meta, it hurts. Deconstructing all your favorites (and yelling-at-screen nonfavorites) in horror tropes. It really becomes a different movie after a certain point, and it has so many quotable lines.