Movies that change the way you see life
 

Well just the like the title says, what are some movies that change the way you see life? For example you come out the movie theater having an epiphany or something like that; you either want to change the way you see yourself or see life. So please share any movies you think are worth seeing as far as chagning the way you see life. I feel like watching some movies that make me feel emotional, in a good way.

So far for me it's Frida, Spirited Away, The Joy luck Club, City of God, Pieces of April, Harrisons Flowers, and Amelie.

I think the movie that really got me to see life differently was Frida (with Salma Hayek). It really changed my perception of Frida Kahlo. I know some parts in the film are not reliable but I think when it came to Kahlo's character, they really showed the struggles and hardships she went through but at the same time showed how strong of a person she was because despite all the events that happened to her, she still stayed bold, energetic and positive. She is truly someone I admire.

The Matrix. First ever true cerebral movie I saw. Blew me away and left me with a profound philosophical experience.

Rush Hour totally changed my life.

Seriously. I'll never fuck with a black man's radio. Lesson learned.

Haha Landon.

When I first watched The Matrix in the theater I was so confused about that movie, then again I was in middle school when it came out. The next time I saw it, I actually started thinking about what if we're living in that type of universe, blah blah blah etc. lol But seriously the movie does make you think if you're not just seeing it for the cool special effects. My dad (who is a precher) has made several references to The Matrix about life. heh

yeah matrix confused me a lot..

but i loved Finding Neverland.. it made me use my imagination!

:]

Pay it Forward. The movie has an amazing idea behind it, and really sends out an awesome message. It has a sad ending though... but I suppose that it helps get the point across.

Back in 1997 I watched this film called Bliss that was a goddamn eye-opener for me. When you're in high school you're a horny little fuck, there's no doubt about this. So when I watched this movie that was well-acted, somewhat educational and totally tongue-in-cheek about the neverending crusade for an orgasm I was all eyes and ears.

As cheesy as it sounds, this film made me want to pursue a quest to be a "better lover" as opposed to some horny mongrel who's just out to bust a nut.

OK... So I'm still a bit of the latter in many respects, but I'm trying to ditch that goddamnit... I'm REALLY trying.

"Withnail & I" showed my exactly where I was going to end up, and is what I credit with turning me into a drinker; exactly the same thing happed when I saw "The Big Sleep" and I started smoking. Richard E. Grant and Humphrey Bogart are single-handedly and directly responsible for severely shortening my life.

Films like "The Matrix" and "American Beauty" don't really affect me since even when I was in sixth-form I wasn't a self-indulgent little prick who thought he was smarter than everyone else, probably because I was too busy drinking and smoking behind the bikesheds.

Well... Trainspotting, Requiem for a Dream and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas convinced me never to use drugs. LOL.

As for films inspiring me... Probably Rudy (cheesy, I know). Shawshank Redemption. It's A Wonderful Life. There are loads more, but I can only think of those off the top of my head.

When you've been raised with a view of the world through a Disney prism, watching Charles Bronson in Death Wish 4 with your grandpa opens your eyes to a lot of things. Namely that the crack dealers are out there, and there's a little Charles Bronson inside all of us.

No offense chief, but if a MOVIE was what scared you into not experimenting with drugs, there's a good chance you were far too sheltered to begin with and movies had nothing to do with it.

Nancy Reagan thinks you're a loser.

What do you have to say to that?

She thinks I'm a loser because I do drugs. Ain't nothin' I can do 'bout that, player.

Hmm, not really. I knew a couple of people in high school who completely screwed up their lives due to drugs, so that was probably my main motivation. However, the movies were a big influence as well. Sorry if that offends you...? LOL.

It doesn't offend me, man; all I'm saying that if movies were that big of a factor in you not wanting to try something, especially when dealing with something that falls into a gray area like drugs, then movies are teaching you too much and you're not experiencing enough.

I too have had dozens (literally DOZENS) of friends who have screwed up their lives via the use of drugs and I had a close friend who overdosed on heroin when I was 16. I know firsthand what it's like to have drugs negatively impact your life on account that your peers are not educated enough and rely on "mainstream thinking", such as movies, to base their experiences on. If only they'd gone out and done a little research prior to actually saying, "Yeah, let me hit that pipe" perhaps life would have been far different for them.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't LIKE the movies because of this; I'm just saying that you shouldn't rely on them to "convince" you to NOT try something.

Matrix first time I saw it back when I was 15.

More recently Hotel Rwanda, Constant Gardener
(non movie: Bruce Lee lost interview)


Slightly off topic but these vids are quite cleverly done

http://media2.spikedhumor.com/73535/..._and_stars.wmv - Vid shows how insignificant we are incomparision to the universe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVihDapv3mY - We are monkeys, monkeys that hate other monkeys, and hate being monkeys.

Friday night lights >_> a football movie lol. I was bored and was watching it and realized the time i had to make memories is over. Got to get a fucking job now bye.

Oh and also Harold and Kumar go to white castle made me stop taking everything so seriously.

It was all timing and mood so the movies themself arent really that.. deep.

8mm: When i saw that movie i was still very naive about how sick people can really be. Hell, i still can't believe people who can enjoy snuff stuff...The movie changed in a bad way my thoughts of human kind.

I think 8mm - much like Seven - also challenged our personal ethics to a degree where it became painful. Would I have pulled the trigger in the protagonist's situation? I could never say for sure.

Those three hit me pretty hard. What Dreams May Come did a bit, as did Memento, and most recently (about 2 hours ago) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

I like me the multi-quote, yes I do.

What Dreams May Come was kind of strange. I haven't watched it in a while, but it I remember it being emotional. All I know is that when I watched it I prayed that Heaven will not be like that. lol It was just weird to me.

I don't think a particular movie or movies really did anything life altering for me. I can name some that opened up a whole new view or topic for me. Like Hotel Rwanda and a documentary about the North Korean (very communist) national games event or something. Can't really think of much more at the moment.

The movie that I saw recently that really affected me was "Click" with Adam Sandler. I know it sounds weird, but after watching that, I realized how much we "fast forward" through our lives, wishing it was 5 o'clock. Plus, Christopher Walken was in that movie. Walken is awesome...

I think August Rush should definitely be on the list, and also Finding Neverland

Someone please explain how The Matrix is cerebral. I don't get it.

The only movies that have really affected me are Grave of the Fireflies, Magnolia, and American Beauty. Pretentious, yes. Magnolia floored me as a movie, not so much as a story. American Beauty, I felt, was a fantastic look at modern American life on some sort of fucked-up spectrum. It plays in to my love of Six Feet Under.

Grave of the Fireflies, to this day, is the most depressing movie I've ever seen.

Fight Club, Donnie Darko and... Terminator 2.

:D

Yeah that's sort of lame, cause you, me and Mary Jane might state having had our ways of seeing life changed by those supposedly "deep" and "intelligent" movies (the first two obviously). I don't care if they're overrated or anything, they did what they did.
And T2... Well that's a bit off.

Some movies that I think that changed the way I see life are American Beauty, The Green Mile, and Grave of the Fireflies. All really great movies and I would recommend anyone who hasn't seen those movies to check them out if you can.

Breakfast CLub, changed the way I treated people

KRULL, changed my favorite movie from Last Star Fighter to Krull.. I did not see them order as Krull was out first.

Lost in translation Changed the way I look at Japan.

I wonder why this thread hasn't been curbstomped yet by the "dude - SO overrated" "only idiots think that this film is any good" brigade... o_Ô

Maybe too easy prey...

Because the majority of things listed are so blatantly laughable, there just isn't any point to it. Besides which, no one here is really saying they're brilliant cinema or even good movies. Just that they had a personal impact on them. If people were coming through, talking about how the Matrix completely revolutionized film, or that the Butterfly Effect was a deep commentary on social issues... yeah, I'm sure you'd have people crawling down your throat. But feel free to be inspired by whatever drivel you like. Depressing as it is as a commentary on how much you people think, it's hardly flame worthy.

FIGHT CLUB CHANGED MY LIFE like seriously dude I never saw that plot twist coming.

It's hard to say if any movies actually altered my thinking...sometimes one will stick in my head for a little while but usually I'll forget about it and go back to how I used to think. I don't know any off the top of my head that actually permanently affected the way I act.

Except for Napoleon Dynamite. Seriously, don't ever sell breast enhancement door-to-door, Rex will bust you up.

I just wanna throw it out there, The Lion King.

It had a certain impact on me when i was a kid, I didn't care about the leaping antelopes and the crawling ants, but now i know they are a part of the great circle of life

The most important movie that really changed my life was prolly The Punisher.

These two quotes by far-

Candelaria: "Vaya con Dios, Castle. Go with God."
Frank Castle: "God's going to sit this one out."

And

Frank Castle: "It's been five months since my family was killed. I don't see ONE man in jail."
Police Chief Morris: "Obviously you're upset..."
Frank Castle: "Upset? Is that the word? I used to get upset. When I got a flat tire, when a plane was delayed. I used to get *upset* when the Yankees won the series. So if that's what upset means, what am I feeling now? If you know the word, tell me because I don't."

You're... kidding, right?

^ LMFAO.

Erm... seeing Shine for the first time was really meaningful for me. Seeing David Helfgott rise, fall and then rise again was really a good story. It taught me a bit about redemption and about struggling through the difficult times, never really giving up on the dream.

I wouldn't necessarily say that it changed my life, but it really impacted my life in a positive way and was inspiring.

What makes you think I'm kidding? the concept of the movie? or the lack of sentimental value the movie is portrayed in?

How I interpreted the quotes was...

Quote one the fact that most people take little effort to do things and rely on God to bail them out or GIVE THEM THA POWA to do things. It showed that you need to take initiative to get things done for yourself.

Quote two by showing that you might think that you have it hard, there is always someone else that has it worse and you shouldn't take what you have for granted.

Sure many quotes from movies could be interpreted all different ways but this is one the that "changed the way i see life".

And you needed a movie in which Frank Castle goes rogue to avenge his dead family to teach you this?

Though I see your point about it not having to be a remotely decent movie to have an effect. I concede that. But seriously, mate. The Punisher?

Sure maybe I didn't need a movie in which Frank Castle goes rogue to avenge his dead family to teach me this, but it did and that is why I posted it.

Yeah, no I get that. But I mean...

This...

http://www.tomsgames.com/us/fringedrinking/punisher.jpg

...is your philosophical inspiration. That doesn't bother you at all?

If you can say a movie has changed how you see life, you obviously haven't lived at all in the first place and have no right to say that a movie has changed anything.

The more i read this, the less it makes sense to me

For those more dense - "Cinema never saved anyone's life, it is not a medicine that will save anyone's life. It is only an aspirin." - Luc Besson

Whereas Robert Johnstone says something to the effect of "film being a parable for our existance, creating an oppertunity for us to examine our world and try new ways of being a part that world."

In short, Inspiration can create more chance than you seem to think.

You're such a pessimist sometimes.

For some people who don't use their heads much, I guess some films WOULD open their eyes. =/

Anyways, I saw Requiem when I graduated high school. It wasn't FRIGHTENING, but you know for some people, that's the road they've chosen for themselves. It didn't encourage me to do drugs at all, but it didn't really deter me either. Moderation. =D

Contact, I guess, really touched me. Lame. Carl Sagan in female form, right. But I don't care what you people who think you're too cool to have a philosophical shift from a movie think. I love Jodie Foster. I love the idea presented. It didn't enlighten me, it didn't "wake me up," but I loved how it was done. It gave me a sense of awe and wonder about the universe which I don't come up against very often in daily life. I appreciate being brought to a point of said awe and wonder in a film. I loved the passion in the protagonist, I loved the play on faith and science, and I loved the undertones.

Another one would have to be... and I am sure I'll get ripped on for this... would have to be 2001: Space Odyssey. By the time you wake up from the boring and bleak movie, you realize what was trying to be established. I find it extremely beautiful and very well executed as a film (not to say it is without flaws). Much like Contact, it brings a lot of ideas together, and executes the display of these ideas in a way I enjoyed.

Before those of you with a whole slew of films under your belt come along and piss on Kubrick and Sagan, I just want to say that I am not a film connoisseur. I love film, and I find it a great medium for a person like me to enjoy. (I am a very visual person)

Preemptively, I understand that some people feel that film is for the person without an imagination or without a mind of their own to put together ideas. I want to make it clear that movies for me are an entertainment form.

That quote's not saying anything different than your first post. It's not that I didn't understand what you're trying to say - just questioning its validity.

It seems reasonable that any information can change one's outlook on life, be it a movie/book/experience/whatever. Not that they all contribute to the same degree, but surely they all do to some extent..wouldn't you say?

Oh blah blah blah. Question my validity all you want - but questioning a director/screenwriter on it is paramount to you being stupid. "I disagree with what you just said despite the fact that your opinion is in complete agreement with someone who's made many blockbuster films and is a respected person in the field of cinema! What do either of you people know?!"

The director who goes out to change the world is going to end up disappointed in his career. I can count the number of people on one hand who have changed the world through cinema and it takes two hands to count the films made. What does that mean? That the overwhelming majority of films made are not as good or intelligent or mind-blowing or (stupid slang term for "amazing" here). This is very easy to defend - since very few movies affect large populations of people on a permanent basis. Star Wars would be one. Can we name many other movies that have the longevity or popularity as that? Hell no.

Yeah, I know I derive all my philosophical truth from the guy who made the Fifth Element.

I agree with you on this, LeHah, I don't think Film can change the world, it can just influence people to consider things in a different manner, no different than a book. It won't save someone's life, but it can impact it in a positive or negative fashion.

But to say that Luc Besson is the final word on cinema theory because he made some cash with his films? Come on. That's lazy logic and you know it.

Like I'm going to start waving around Georges Bataille everytime some jackass on the internet thinks he knows something? God knows if I did that, I'd've rubbed my dick off years ago from all the constant jacking off.

While I don't think Besson is the greatest director ever... or living... (or even just plain French...), the point is that Besson is an acredited director whos worked in the field for years. His statement is testament toward what I said before. God knows Anthony Hopkins would agree with me, but I'm not going to go through all those IMDB updates saying how much he hates his career.

You don't have to get all worked up..I'm only questioning, and didn't say you were all out wrong or anything. Perhaps if you elaborate more (which you just did), I might see more clearly where you're coming from.

It's a philosophical issue. I'm not pretending to know even a smidgin of what he knows about film-making, film theory, anything like that. Besides, it's never stupid to question anything. Take things at face value on authority if you wanna, but I'd say that's a bad idea, yeah? Especially when it comes to philosophical issues which can be debated endlessly.

Point 1: Maybe so, but i still think "intelligent" people are just as equally capable of being affected by a film (a non-shit film, perhaps?). Why would anyone watch a movie if it didn't affect them in some way?

Point 2: Agreed. Movies affect individuals in totally different ways, so significant collective trends don't really come up.

No one in this thread is remotely acredited to make a philosophical debate, least of all you.

Yeah, but it'd be really erudite intellectual masturbation. Gotta give it that much. Some weird mix of Bataille and Besson? Like a commentary on the concept of experience between the spiritual and the physical, only it has Bruce Willis in it?

nice logic.

Thats not an individual error. The weakness of Besson's analysis is exactly that he is content with a single aspect - the inclination of rejection of transcendental form. This is what reduces it to negative observations which have only to be situated in time or history for us to get a positive view. The collective relationship between production (the film) and expenditure (the result of the film - critque, income, etc) is in history - Baudelaire's experience is in history, after all. Postitively, it has that perceise sense which history confers upon it.

Film may be assenting to life even in death but those are unquantifiable abstracts in which none can weigh their costs upon.

So really the difficulty doesn't lie in the concept of the production, but in the ephemeral nature of the result. It is, like all creative endeavors, incapable of hanging anything on itself beyond that mean which people infuse into it. It is, as a concept, a hollow thing, until someone prescribes meaning based on their own understanding and experience/history. Besson isn't wrong, Film won't save your life. It isn't a firm construct by any means, just a hollow vessel for projected meaning. Which is well and good, but what about the sort of Geertzian or Barth models, which would say that a meaning of different things to different people is almost Marxian in its ability to reflect their social standing?

Too broad, perhaps. But the irony of it being truly panem et cricenses in the truest sense, at best a distraction (What up, Pirates of the Caribbean?), and at worst, straight propaganda (What up, Hero?).

But let me go all Althusser at the end and say if Film is just a hollow concept, something to be read into and prescribed meaning by the viewer, it can be a saviour. You just need someone desperate enough to be saved by Ray Romano doing the voice of a Mammoth and bam. Transcendental conceptualization in a cartoon box. Film isn't lacking, the person sad enough to be saved by it (or religion, or philosophy, or politics) is.

The contradiction of modern film, especially of industry film, consists of the fact that it is the negation of art from the standpoint of art or the negation of art which itself is again deconstruction art; this contradiction especially characterises the Terrence Malick philosophy.

For modern film, and hence also for Malick, the non-material being or being as a pure object of the intellect, as a pure being of the intellect, is the only true and Absolute Art, that is, Film and not movie. Even matter, which some turn into an attribute of the divine substance, is a metaphysical thing, a pure being of the intellect, for the essential determination of matter as distinguished from the intellect and the activity of thinking – that it is a passive being – is taken away from it. But Malick differs from Besson's earlier philosophy by the fact that he determines the relationship of the material sensuous being to the non-material being differently. The earlier filmmakers and producers of the 1970s held the true divine being to be detached and liberated from nature; that is, from sensuousness or matter. They situated the toil of abstraction and self-liberation from the sensuous in themselves in order to arrive at that which in itself is free from the sensuous. To this condition of being free, they ascribed the blissfulness of the divine, and to this self-liberation, the virtue of the human essence through film. Malick, on the other hand, turned this subjective activity into the self-activity of the Absolute Art. All film, then, must subject himself to this toil, and must, like pagan heroes, win his divinity through virtue.

Only in this way does the freedom of the Absolute from matter, which is, besides, only a precondition and a conception, become reality and truth. This self-liberation from matter, however, can be posited in Film only if matter, too, is posited in him. But how can it be posited in him? Only in this way that he himself posits it. But in Film there is only Film. Hence, the only way to do this is that he posits himself as matter, as non-Film; that is, as his otherness. In this way, matter is not an antithesis of the ego and the spirit, preceding them, as it were, in an incomprehensible way; it is the self-alienation of the Art Form. Thus, matter itself acquires spirit and intellect; it is taken over into the absolute essence as a moment in its life, formation, and development. But then, matter is again posited as an untrue being resembling nothingness in so far as only the being that restores itself out of this alienation, that is, that sheds matter and sensuousness off from itself, is pronounced to be the perfect being in its true form. The natural, material, and sensuous – and indeed, the sensuous, not in the vulgar and moral, but in the metaphysical sense – are therefore even here something to be negated, like nature which in theology has been poisoned by the original sin. The sensuous is incorporated into reason, the ego, and the spirit, but it is something irrational, a note of discord within reason; it is the non-ego in the ego, that is, that which negates it. For example in Besson's nature of Film it is the non-divine in Film; it is in Film and yet outside him; the same is true of the body in the philosophy of Kubrick which, although connected with me, that is, with the spirit, is nevertheless external, and does not belong to me, that is, to my essence; it is of no consequence, therefore, whether it is or is not connected with me or you or anyone. Matter will remain in contradiction to what is presupposed by philosophy as the true meaning inside film.

No argument from me on that point, as matter will always stand in contradiction--if not direct opposition--to philosophy. It's the argument of the knowable versus that which is unknowable. It is, at its heart, the argument to the proof or disproof of the Divine (given reverential capitals here on account of a desire to avoid using specific deities). So do we take this towards an argument of truth? Is there more "truth" in the experience of the static observer in the static moment of the static viewing? Or is "truth" the extended, shifting experience of the whole (history) in relation to a static object (film)? Or maybe it's not a matter of what is the true nature, but rather the intention? Do we weigh the belief of the creator of something higher than the people who experience it. If a man makes a statue to fight communism (fuck you, Terry Goodkind), but it is taken as an endorsement of communism and turned into a propaganda tool by what it was meant to destroy, what has he really accomplished.

It's an interesting conundrum, especially in non-documentary film. Because it truly doesn't offer anything beyond a fictional encapsulation of an event that is, for all intents and purposes, a falsehood. Is belief in a beautiful lie, to be reverential to what Marxian philosophers would view as a form of social control (rich men making movies about inner city poverty, glorifying it to keep more people under the thumb of the bourgeoisie; he'd have a field day) something to be treated with respect, or scorned as a distraction, a vice no different from laudanum?

In short, do you respect the reverential dreamer or scorn him for a lack of logic and true-sight. The Grecian debate. Laud the blessed madman or lock him away, as he's unsightly and lacks pure logic.

Any man who poses such a question is worthy to dine at my table. Any man who answers such a question is a fool.

I don't know how you could answer that question without making yourself utterly asinine.

Though I imagine we've made this thread theoretical enough for the moment. I almost feel I should just blurt out "The Big Lebowski" to make it seem more legitimate.

Sometimes I wish my school had better theory classes so I could fit into this conversation more... Oh well, they taught me how to make films pretty damn well, and that's good enough for me.

http://growabrain.typepad.com/photos..._flashback.jpg

I'm going to say Hitchcock.

Most of the serious movies in the last 20 or so years and those particularly from Hollywood try to go for some grandiose, existential, philosophic theme. They often utilise clever script writing to interweave stories and are very deliberate almost to the point of being forensic in their use of symbols and metaphors. I don't have anything against that, however I find it distracting when I'm searching for extraneous meanings rather than concentrating on the story.

My personal preference is for movies that tell about everyday mundane life. A simple story told with honesty, no tricks or gimmicks, that's not forced in it's delivery or attempts to underline it's themes, has most meaning to me. I can think of one movie that I've watched lately that fits that bill: Whisper of the Heart (1995) by Yoshifumi Kondo. I was surprised actually by how much I enjoyed it.

As for Hitchcock, he's changed the way I see movies. He's so original and unorthodox. I love how how he builds up the tension. The red herrings he throws at us. You're really kept guessing until the sudden denouement and he often finishes it abruptly so that it's up to the viewer to imagine / discuss the epilogue. I also like how he uses unusually colourful and varied backdrops - most thriller / detective films are quite serious and visually dark/dull. Hitchcock instead goes for beauty, colour and humour which I find incredibly charming.

I would say "The Butterfly Effect". Think it makes you appreciate what you have and the decisions you make in the present more. I saw it once and I remember nearly every scene in the thing...Which is very rare for any movie I see nowadays.

This post really proves my point.