My Cinematic Journey...So Far!
My whole life I have loved movies and discovering new and interesting ones to watch. There are a lot of people who played a role in my passion for film and, in the spirit of the new direction I am taking with this space, I thought I would expand on who they were and how they influenced me. When I set out to change this blog I decided one of the things that I wanted to do was become less “Ebert” and more “lifestyle bloggerish” in my approach. Obviously I’m not a professional movie critic so I don’t see the harm in casual blog posts, lists, or personal stories amongst reviews and opinion pieces. That is more in-line with what a blog is supposed to be anyway. Part of that encompasses being more open and personal. It seemed like a logical place to start then, to write a post about my cinematic journey (so far): how my love for movies started and grew, how my tastes were formed and changed, and why this has enriched my life. This is probably going to be a long one, and the first part of a new series, so settle in with a cup of tea or coffee (or an adult beverage of choice) and enjoy the ride!
I have been watching movies since I can remember. My parents—though not bonafide cinephiles—really enjoy them. They were typical parents in a lot of ways, but when it came to consuming media they were, to put it lightly, very…liberal with the rules. Growing up we were never told what we could and could not watch and we were often included in watching movies with them at night that were certainly not age-appropriate. In fact, some of those experiences were seared into not just my brain but my sister’s as well.* BUT it also expanded my knowledge of films, filmmakers, actors/actresses, at the entire industry from an early age. I was film-literate pretty quickly and probably the only 10/11-year-old in my school who was allowed to watch Identity or was familiar with John Cusack in general. Of the movies that I can remember, we mainly watched mid-nineties to early 2000s middle budget crime thrillers, dramas, or comedies; a majority of those titles are ones that have faded away over time for general audiences, but I remember them well and still look back (mostly) fondly at them. Even the bad ones. In fact, most of my best memories of family life growing up are either from camping and hiking in the mountains (I grew up in Alaska) or watching movies together on Friday or Saturday nights.
Of course, I didn’t ONLY watch barely PG13 and hard R movies. I still watched some kids’ movies. However, my parents had almost no patience for typical children’s programming. I did watch a lot of Disney movies from all eras as most millennials did. Growing up we almost never had cable or Dish Network so I wasn’t watching Disney Channel or Nickelodeon like my peers did; I was confined to whichever VHS tapes my local video rental store had. Later, after we moved to Anchorage from the smaller town I spent half my childhood in, we still preferred our local store (RIP!!!!) to Blockbuster for most rentals (more on that later).
I think that the movies I watched from a young age certainly reflect that of many other millennials, albeit those born a little before me. I was born in October of 1992, but I rented/owned films that may have been more commonly watched by those born in the mid-80s. Movies like The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, Once Upon a Forest, and my deeply beloved 1995 Dave Unwin’s The Wind in the Willows. I’m pretty sure it isn’t an accident that all of these have anthropomorphized animal characters; based on my favorite Disney films like The Great Mouse Detective, Oliver & Company, Robin Hood, and The Lion King I definitely had a pattern as a child. As an adult, I am a passionate vegan (for the animals) and a lover of wildlife and the environment. I’m not saying this is directly correlated to movies like the ones I gravitated towards as a child, though I certainly think that watching films like Once Upon a Forest or Charlotte’s Web instilled a level of empathy towards animals at a very young age. I still hold all of these titles, as well as Beatrix Potter’s BBC animated stories, close to my heart. Maybe it was because my mom didn’t feel like listening to annoying songs and bad movies made for toddlers but everything I watched when I was young was good quality. Storytelling was instrumental to all of these and so many of the early childhood staples in my life were high-quality works of art that set my standard for writing well above average for the years to come.
And as the years moved forward and I began to approach my pre-teen and middle school years I had seen some classics that most people my age still haven’t seen. There were movies starring Clint Eastwood, old westerns, black and white films, cult classics, 80s action movies, and definitely-too-mature-for-me horror movies. A lot of these movies I was finding independently at the movie rental place and watching by myself at this point as well. Around this time I also began forming my own taste. I like those middle budget trashy thrillers from the late 80s to early 90s—movies like Sea of Love—because they held a certain level of suspense. But I had some high brow choices as well. Speaking of suspense, my mother loves Alfred Hitchcock movies and that was a preference that was passed down to me. My dad is a big fan of the mobster and crime genre (and westerns. So many westerns.) and that also rubbed off on me. There’s something endearing about a bad boy I guess.
When we moved from the small town of Valdez, Alaska to Anchorage we discovered a wonderful little local place to rent movies. My sister and I would spend forever walking up and down the rows of movies to pick four or so that looked interesting almost every weekend. The store was old and stocked mostly under the radar VHS tapes, and that was what we had the most fun hunting for. If we wanted to rent DVDs or new releases then we could always go to Blockbuster but it never seemed quite as fun. I discovered a lot of those mid-level thrillers I was talking about while I was renting here.
My dad had a friend who used to have a massive collection of a wide variety of movies. I owe most of what I wound up seeing and loving to him. He used to let my sister and I browse his collection when we were there and he said we could borrow literally any movie as long as we promised to bring it back. And borrow we did. We always left with 10-12 tapes (and almost always brought them back…some he let us keep). I have a lot of fond memories of him, not all related to movies, and I don’t hesitate to say that other than maybe my parents, I owe my love of movies to him more than probably anyone else. He used to get so frustrated, too, since my sister and I would go into every room in his house and take all the movies off the shelves, concentrate them in one spot, and reshelve them one by one alphabetically. He had his own system, which I now appreciate, and he didn’t exactly LOVE having to skim by letter, but he let us do it anyway. And of course, my parents never told us we couldn’t borrow any of the ones we picked. In fact, they rarely even looked at what we were borrowing.
One of the most stand-out memories of my cinematic journey involving him was when he called me downstairs into his den where he and my dad were having a couple of beers. I think I was in middle school but it COULD have been early high school at this point. He said to me “Nikki, you’re dad’s an Irishman. He has no sense of humor. So I’m going to give you this movie to watch because I know he hates it and it’ll piss him off.” That movie was a VHS copy of Howard the Duck. During that trip I also borrowed Dogma and when I showed it to him I remember him chuckling to himself and telling me to watch them together because my dad would hate them both. Howard the Duck became a personal favorite. I thought it was a genuinely fun time to watch but it also has such personal meaning to me because of how I acquired it. I tell people I love that movie all the time and I get weird looks but it’s not an ironic feeling—I genuinely love this movie. And I genuinely love Dogma. I still have both of these tapes and both of them still mean a lot to me. I don’t know what made this particular recommendation so special because he had recommended plenty more to me before and after that, many much better, but for whatever reason, these movies and that memory remain fond for me.
He also let us borrow books. He was probably Stephen King’s biggest fan and so most of the ones I borrowed were King (I still have his copy of Carrie). With that in mind, he also suggested I watch what was probably the most formative movie for me. He lent me a copy of The Shining. That was the first time that I ever saw a movie for an actual piece of art—when I watched it and realized there is another human being behind that camera that is making decisions and turning this into the masterpiece that I am watching. And my mind was blown. From that moment on even movies that I watched for enjoyment I still saw through that lens. And that is still the case today. My mom bought me a copy of that movie on DVD for my 15th or 16th birthday after a couple years of me asking for it, even though she hates it, and I still watch it from time to time. I don’t love it like I used to but for most of high school that was my favorite movie and I loved Kubrick unconditionally. My dad’s friend is no longer with us, but I think of him every time I watch so many different titles, when I browse shelves at a store that sells DVDs, when I read Stephen King, and whenever I think of Howard the Duck.
I took a film class in college and I got exposed to more art-house titles and learned about techniques and cinematic elements that make a movie notable. It helped me refine my taste from high school, introduced me to foreign classics such as Vivre Sa Vie. I also learned how to look at these films critically and understand what truly makes a movie good or bad in a much more objective sense; these things can never be 100% objective, but there is a reason why a movie like Citizen Kane is constantly cited at the top of the movie game. From here I learned how to be a snob, for sure, but I also learned how to back up my new opinions and not be a dick about them. (Usually. Hopefully. Maybe?) Shortly after my sophomore year of college, I started working for a buy/sell/trade store that carried anything related to games, music, and movies. I had been a frequent shopper of the location near me and so when I got hired at another one in a different neighborhood I was so excited. My time working there didn’t prove to be as much fun as I thought it would be but I found so many great titles that people would trade in. Many of these movies were pretty rare too.
We also had customers that would come in and engage with us. I was introduced to a lot of horror movies and cult classics this way. I used to spend my shifts filing specifically DVDs so I could write down on a post-it note movies I wanted to go home and try and find online (I don’t download anything illegally anymore but when I was working minimum wage it was the only way). However, it did provide my almost spiritual connection to the movie Clerks because YIKES, now I get it, Dante. I get it. As a side note, I also met my boyfriend here, so I guess it wasn’t all bad.
Eventually, all of these different experiences culminated until I was able to boast a broad cinematic knowledge that keeps growing and growing. So many people in my life have contributed—friends have made suggestions, teachers have assigned thoughtful films, my parents encouraged my sister and me to explore wide horizons of movies, and the internet has made it possible to reach out and connect with all of you lovely people. It is incredible how radically different each of our preferences can be from one another’s and how we got there. It is so funny because despite having almost identical experiences with film growing up my sister and I actually developed such radically different tastes. We do like a decent amount of the same things but not everything, and that’s really interesting! Really this is just the cliff notes version for me but I want to get everyone thinking about their own cinematic journeys. Why do you prioritize writing over visual? Or is the other way around? How did your favorites become your favorites? Which movies provided you with emotional connections that you hold so dear? (I’ll be writing another piece expanding on that about my own emotional films in the future!) Leave me a comment below (or on Instagram) letting me know. I find it so interesting to see such a wide variety of film-love online.
Stay well, everyone.
*I texted my sister while brainstorming for this piece. I asked her if she could think of any family movie night films that we watched as kids that we probably shouldn’t have she immediately said “SLEEPY HOLLOW” and I was like YES I THOUGHT ABOUT THAT TOO and then she was like “I just remember running outside and then inside back and forth because it was cold outside and dad getting really mad and saying if you want to be in then be in if you want to be out, be out but if you’re in you’re watching this. That’s how much that movie impacted me.” She continued on by guessing that maybe he actually wanted us to just stay outside. Then we both talked about how we would never forget the scary part with the eyeballs and hiding under a big quilt my mom made. There’s a reason why we are the way we are I guess…