Movie Sauté

When you think back to the movies that shaped you when you were at your most impressionable age, I'm talking from the age of 8 to 26. A good 18 year span of growing up in school and in the world. I will never have the same experience watching a movie in the theater like I had when I was 12 to 17 years old. There was something very magical about the theater. The smell of the popcorn, the seats of velvet, the huge screen and curtains that would slowly open to the screen. Mostly alone but on occasion, I would go to the movies with friends and family. I think the simple aspect of watching most of these films by myself cemented me to the world on the screen. No distractions and complete emersion. There must be a correlation to these movies we watched at this time of our lives and the way we looked upon and acted in the world. These movies must have some influence on the directions we choose to take in life. At least from my point of view the movies I saw definitely shaped who I am as a person. I've made a list of the films I saw during these years. And, yes, I was 10 years old when I saw The Exorcist thanks to my sister. She also took me to see American Graffiti because cruising was still quite a thing in the 70’s.

In fact, I saw quite a few films at a young age that maybe should have been saved for later years. Once I found the Art house cinemas of the 80's, the whole world of film opened up to me. Sub titles were not just for Godzilla films anymore.

These were the films that made me. Who ever I am and whatever that means.

The 1970's

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

Alien (1979)

Caligula (1979)

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Coma (1978)

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Duel (1971 TV Movie)

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1976)

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973)

Deliverance (1972)

King Kong (1976)

Grease (1978)

Superman: The Movie (1978)

Manhattan (1979)

National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)

The Exorcist (1973)

The Sting (1973)

Taxi Driver (1976)

Mad Max (1979)

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Sleeper (1973)

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)

The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)

The Towering Inferno (1974)

Being There (1979)

Moonraker (1979)

Jaws (1975)

What's Up, Doc? (1972)

Airport '77 (1977)

The Deer Hunter (1978)

Papillon (1973)

The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

American Graffiti (1973)

Looking over these films is like looking at cooking spices on a rack. Each film added a certain spice that change the taste and direction of the final dish. I was served up into the 1980's with a perfect base and the final sauce was poured during these years.

The 1980's

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Amadeus (1984)

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Platoon (1986)

Rain Man (1988)

Cinema Paradiso (1988)

Raging Bull (1980)

The Elephant Man (1980)

Ordinary People (1980)

Batman (1989)

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Gremlins (1984)

Das Boot (1981)

Clash of the Titans (1981)

Top Gun (1986)

The Goonies (1985)

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

The Killing Fields (1984)

Aliens (1986)

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Back to the Future (1985)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Pretty in Pink (1986)

The Shining (1980)

Beetlejuice (1988)

Stand by Me (1986)

Dead Poets Society (1989)

Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)

Blade Runner (1982)

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (1989)

Die Hard (1988)

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Ghostbusters (1984)

Chariots of Fire (1981)

Legend (1985)

Witness (1985)

The Color Purple (1985)

Scarface (1983)

The Thing (1982)

Dune (1984)

Do the Right Thing (1989)

A Christmas Story (1983)

The Terminator (1984)

Brazil (1985)

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Tootsie (1982)

Wings of Desire (1987)

Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)

Blue Velvet (1986)

Love Streams (1984)

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

The Karate Kid (1984)

Poltergeist (1982)

That was where the magic stopped. I have never had the same feeling in a movie theater like I had when I was growing up in the 70's-80's. Now, like a cold splash of water to the face, we are in the age of Covid 19. Even when society ventures back into the theaters, the magic of cinema will always fail. We will constantly be pulled out of the dream world up on the screen and focused on the strangers elbow touching ours and the virus that the news says is gone.