I have a little different blog post this week. Usually, I just rant about something in the industry that I can't really control and leave it at that. But as I write this today, I'm not mad at anything. So, in place of a rant, I could give you pictures of cats or whatever Reddit thinks is cool today, but I'll spare you.
Instead I will give you my top five favorite movies, and/ or television shows. More specifically, the top five that influenced me to try my hand in this crazy industry…or, shall we say "chummed the waters…"
Wow. I crack myself up.
Right, moving on...
#1 - Jaws.
I firmly believe that there are few better scenes than Quint's Indianapolis monologue. Regardless of who you believe really wrote that scene (there have been numerous stories) it's my favorite all around scene from any movie -- ever. So, added into everything else about that movie that made it so great, it puts Jaws first on the list.
#2 - Lethal Weapon
When I think back, this was the first movie that really got me, as a kid, to attach to a character in a film. Say what you want about Mel, but I wanted to be Riggs, dammit. I felt for that guy and how he got screwed over with his wife and all that. And he was cool as hell. It was also the first buddy cop movie that hooked me.
#3 - The X-Files (Series)
This had me from the first episode I ever watched. I was in awe that somebody finally embraced the geeky, nerdy shit that I was into like UFO's and strange creatures. It was also, strangely enough, the first script that I ever looked at for a television show. We didn't get a lot of chances in small town Missouri, but the script came on some DVD-ROM PC program that I got. It was that moment that all writers have when I realized that writing scripts was a real job that people did. My first television pilot script was a direct result of this show. Chris Carter is actually the one guy I would love to meet, just to thank him.
#4 - Star Wars (cause that shit wasn't called "Episode IV" when I was little.)
Yep. I saw it. Original run in the theaters. Seven times. It was the first movie that actually transported me to somewhere else. Somewhere where everything was cool and they had freakin' lightsabers. LIGHTSABERS! Even at a very young age, I think I understood the strange attraction that movies on a big screen had. And it was before video, so the only way I could see it was in all it's theater glory. It was the first movie that really got me into the story.
#5 - Aliens
This one not only solidified my science fiction craze, but I sat in awe the first time I watched it. The idea of taking a scary-ass creature like the alien and putting it into a totally badass action movie blew me away. It really made me both want to be on LV-421 and not be there at the same time. Not to mention the fact that they had the most awesome, yet seemingly realistic, guns I had ever seen. And though it probably didn't register at the time, I know it led to me seeing (and ultimately using in several scripts) female heroes as action heroes.
So that's my list. There were others, with scenes I liked or characters, but these five did it with the whole package.
- Mike
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