Question of the Day

Well, since we haven't done this one since 2005 (!), and since I referenced it today and I'm feeling nostalgic, I'll bring this one back:

What's the movie that changed your life?

My life-changing film was, and still is, Time Bandits. As I said in my old post:

Time Bandits had a profound effect on the way I view film, "stories" in general, and the world. I was ten when it was released, and I don't know how I managed to do it, but I got my parents to take me to see it in the theatre.

Here was a film "starring" a young boy that suddenly finds himself thrust into a bizarre, otherworldly situation with a number of eccentric companions, and he is trying to find his way home. This wasn't necessarily a new concept; "children's movies" had been working with that theme for years. But there were a number of differences with this film. For example, the "companions" weren't friendly. They didn't immediately take Kevin under their wing and protect him from the dangers of his new situation. They bickered, they were violent, and at first, they seemed to be a genuine danger to him. Within minutes of meeting him for the first time, they're threatening to eat him, for chrissakes. At this point, I'd also never been exposed to British humor (my first viewing of Monty Python would come about a year later), so the fact that I could be amused by something so dark was completely new to me.

Then, they lean against Kevin's bedroom wall. And it moves.

Soon, the Time Bandits (along with Kevin) are pushing the wall down a seemingly endless hallway, a hallway that incredibly has the same wallpaper as Kevin's room, pursued by an enormous, glowing face intoning "Return the map... return what you have stolen from me... It will bring you great danger..."

Then... the wall falls away. And they plunge into darkness.

I was in heaven, let me tell you.

That scene still makes me shiver. So, how about you?