Your most memorable film experience

As a part of our weekly topic, I figured this was a pretty good place to go.

For me it has to be Jurassic Park. It is the first film experience I remember really really well. I was only about five when it came out, but I can remember seeing it in theaters with my grandma and being in awe. There was a thunderstorm outside when we left the theater and I thought we were going to be attacked by a T-Rex. lol.

 

1) At my Buttman/Soupman screening yesterday there was a huge spider on the projector lens so there was a silhouette of spider the whole time on Henry Cavill's face

2) Went to see The Good Dinosaur, screening got interrupted midway because there was a bomb threat at the mall and everyone was evacuated, I don't really feel bad about missing the second half

 

Definitely saw Deep Blue Sea way too young. Thought a shark was gonna tear through my bed most nights the following few months. and rub me in half against a wall. I guess that's memorable.

 

I saw the Departed in theaters with my dad and grandpa and it changed the way I looked at movies and I knew I wanted to actually learn about this stuff and not just consume movies as popcorn fodder. That movie and Clerks, which I saw around the same time, led me on the path to film school and working for a film production company and watching multiple movies a day and writing about them and reading about them and listening to podcasts about them.

I bought the Before Sunrise DVD around that time as well on the recommendation of a friend. I watched it and immediately as the credits started I drove back to the video store to buy Before Sunset. That memory is really vivid.

The Dark Knight was an exciting theater experience. It was a midnight showing and the theater was packed and super engaged with what was going on, it was the most responsive audience I've ever been a part of. Until Magic Mike XXL, a screening for which I was the only man in the theater surrounded by women who screamed and laughed and squealed and were filled with such infectious joy that I couldn't believe what I was experiencing.

Inglourious Basterds was my first date with a girl who would become my girlfriend whom I am still dating today. Also it's one of my all-time favorite movies.

Then there have been fun screenings I've gotten to be a part of. I saw a pre-screening of the Social Network with Jesse Eisenberg, Aaron Sorkin, and Armie Hammer in attendance. I got to see 21 Jump Street before it came out and couldn't wait for that movie to explode and take over the world like I was sure it was going to. Just recently I went to the Ann Arbor Film Fest where we got a reel of Chantal Akerman's D'est shipped to the festival from France, and I got to go to a Jem Cohen retrospective where he was in attendance and talked about his work.

Then there are the times I've seen a masterpiece and just not known what to do with myself after. Do the Right Thing, Margaret, Ikiru, the Last Temptation of Christ, Into the Wild, Apocalypse Now, Boyhood, Yi Yi, Mulholland Drive (my current avatar and cover photo here), the Lego Movie, the Tree of Life, Magic Mike XXL, after seeing each of those films I can vividly remember how I felt as the credits started to roll and I thought about what I just saw. I love that feeling so much.

 

I would go over my friend's house before school so his dad could take us on certain days. Deep Blue Sea was on PPV and I was scared of it so I hid in his pantry at like 6:30 AM and peeked through the blinds to watch the film

 

My grandmother and cousins lived next door to me growing up, and they had a ton of movies always lying around. When they moved out, their VHS tapes stayed. Anyway, I was home alone one day in like 6th or 7th grade and found the VHS for Dazed and Confused. I knew my grandmom was coming home from the store within an hour or so, so I played the movie in the kitchen, ate Cheetos and would hop up every 5 minutes or so to check and see when her car was pulling in since I thought I'd get in trouble for watching an R rated movie. Later that night, I had a sleepover and showed the movie to my friends. I wore that tape out over the summer.

More recently, I've had some wonderful experiences eating dinner with my fiancé and heading to a local brewery before seeing The Master and Inside Llewyn Davis.

 

I was pretty sheltered as a kid. My grandparents really wanted to see The Sixth Sense. It wasn't animated and not a kids movie, so I didn't care and didn't really want to. I went with them to see it at the show. I was about 8 and it really affected me at the time, especially since I experienced a lot of death at that age.

 

Seeing Die Hard for the first time at the age of 11 and thinking how it was the best movie ever (still do to be honest) but pretending to be John McClane while saying "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker" at every opportune moment didn't go down too well.

 

Is this limited to just theater experiences? I watched Requiem for a Dream in front of a computer screen as a teen and I can still remember the way it made me feel, physically.

 

Certainly not. I remember being scared to go in my kitchen after that one.

 

One of two things

I saw Avatar with my father and my brother in iMax the week it released and it was such a bonding experience for all of us. We were all captured in this unbelievable world together almost to the point where we felt a part of it.

Other one was when I saw Boyhood in theaters. Can't even explain how that movie made me felt. It was a weird feeling of nostalgia but also feeling the future. Sounds strange, I know.

 

- seeing the first Harry Potter movie on my 11th birthday
- when I saw The Two Towers I remember about halfway through I had to pee soooo badly but it was the most exciting movie I had ever seen so I held it for another hour
- when I saw The Social Network, I had no idea what to expect and it totally blew me away, I now consider it my favourite movie

 

Seeing Tree of Life at a small theater in South Florida was an experience that sticks out to me. Just being absolutely floored through every second of the film's runtime, then snapping out of it when all ten other people in the theater groaned audibly when the credits rolled. Then reading all the venomous note cards on the feedback board. It was pretty entertaining.

Seeing Return of the King was probably the most memorable experience from when I was younger, though. Couldn't have been more excited. Had a One Ring on a necklace and everything.

 

1. Seeing Mad Max: Fury Road in a nearly empty theater with no prior knowledge of the series and no preconceptions other than a few people online saying it was good.

2. Beginners at a really old theater in Kansas City with my then-girlfriend. That memory is less tied to the film itself than it is to the time in my life and trips out to Kansas that summer to see her. We were the only people under 50 years old in that theater, and I can still remember the exact sound of the film spinning in the projector when I think about it.

3. The Force Awakens on opening night.

 

Same thing happened with me and Predator. It probably didn't help that one of my friends told me it was "based on a true story" and I believed him.

 

Cloverfield opening night. Godzilla (2014) opening night. Both of those were some of the most fun I've ever had in a movie theatre. People were getting involved (but not in anyway that was detrimental to the film), the movies were fun, and I'm just a sucker for a good monster film.

 

Opening night of The Dark Knight. That was a whole lot of fun. Also, opening night of The Force Awakens, b/c the crowd was great.

My mom let me skip school when I was 9 so I could see Jurassic Park on a giant screen. I was scared of the raptors b/c my friend lied to me and told me how gory the movie was, despite never seeing it. I was very naive.

Snakes on a Plane, b/c the entire crowd was into the cheese of it all.

My first R-rated movie, Con Air, just b/c it was cool to feel like an adult at 13 lol

Seeing Dances With Wolves when I was 6, which was a terrible, stupid idea on my parents' part. At least it made for a funny mention.

 

Seeing Hot Rod in theaters with my brother when I was 12. We were both in tears, half out of our seats laughing.

 

When I saw the remake of Dawn of the Dead in theaters my entire body was numb and I literally couldn't move my hands. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before or since. At the time it was terrifying (obviously duh) losing all control of my body, but looking back that was a state of terror I doubt I'll ever feel again.

 

I had to go get water watching I am Legend in theater cuz I was too freaked out. The movie isn't even a horror movie haha. I'm not good with that stuff in theaters.

 

I will never forget my babysitter taking me to see Terminator 2 when I was 9 years old. My mom was working all the time so I never got to go to the movies. My babysitter said she would take me to see it as long as it was ok with my mom. I called my mom's work and she didn't pick up, so I pretended to talk to her and told my babysitter she said it was ok.

The scene where the T-1000, posing as John Conner's foster mother, talking on the phone with John, the camera pans to the right to show his foster father impaled through the mouth by the T-1000's arm. I remember thinking, "how are they going to beat this guy!?!?!" I can't remember the last time I felt the stakes of a conflict to that extreme in a film before.

My mom wasn't pissed, she was glad I got to see it, and took me to see it 3 more times!

 

I was hoping Tree of Life would get mentioned. I still don't completely know how I feel, but my theater was fairly packed (in a small stadium auditorium) and one of the people said "what the fuck did I just watch" when the credits rolled. Haha.

 

Watched Schindler's List in my history class sophomore year of high school. I hadn't ever been too engaged with movies before, but that one just sucked me in and tore me apart.

 

I couldn't agree with you more. I was 16 when that hit theaters and I went with a group of about 20. People were sitting on the stairs just so they could experience the film with their friends. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Dawn of the Dead was released in early 04 and Saw wasn't released until October. For the most part, people hadn't experienced carnage like that on the big screen...i think it was the last great horror experience in theaters pre-torture porn.

 

1) Seeing Napolean Dynamite in theaters and having it blow my mind. My life would never be the same
2) Seeing Friday Night Lights with a girl had a crush on, and I was so excited and so happy it was happening. Her parents ended up coming with us.
3) Consuming every single item of Star Wars media I could get my hands on pre-TFA, and just having the biggest smile on my stupid face when it finally came out. That opening crawl was seriously one of the happiest moments of my life - Kind of pathetic haha.