8 Movies to Know Me
Part of the User Manual Series where I give some brief overviews of the media, experiences and thoughts that help make me...me. Released hourly on my 32nd birthday.
Jurassic Park
Dinosaurs are cool.
The original released not long before I was born and has always been connected with my parents who went to see it at the time. They shared it with me when I was slightly more appropriately aged. I was terrified of the scene where the T-Rex is chasing down the jeep. I would leave the room for a couple of minutes every time I watched the movie and then come back to enjoy the rest.
In the years since my love for the movie has only grown. Nowadays I'm blown away by the lunch scene where they are essentially laying out the thesis for the movie. I just think it's such incredible characterisation. It's crazy that a movie about rampaging dinosaurs has such well-defined and interesting human characters.
My favourite memory of the film was when I was in secondary school, and my mother pulled me out of class early to sneak off and see a showing in the cinema. What an amazing experience to see the movie on the big screen just like my parents had in 1993.
Knives Out
Not only did Knives Out help reignite my spark for dressing up, it also led me down a rabbit hole of detective shows, movies and novels. This, in my eyes, is a perfect movie. It is the epitome of what a murder mystery can and should be and it does it with an incredible level of reverence to the past.
It led me onto Murder She Wrote and Clue. To the Good Girls Guide and a bunch of Agatha Christie work. I've already written pretty extensively about how much I adore this one.
"A doughnut hole in the doughnut's hole. But we must look a little closer... it is not a doughnut hole at all, but a smaller doughnut with its own hole!"
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
This is where the fun began. It's been such a delight to see the perspective change as our generation ages into being the loudest voice in the room. Hayden and Ewan absolutely deserve the love they've been getting in recent years, and Episode 3 is the pinnacle of prequel moments.
The choreography is incredible. The effects were very ambitious for the time, and a lot of them do still look quite good, but I think the imperfections of the movie are a part of the charm. Star Wars is at its best when you can see the seams.
I also love how elevated this movie has been by the additional stories told around it over the years. Seeing the flashback in Ahsoka or the final season of Clone Wars leading right into this film are just really additive to an already packed world.
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
I had my phase of being really into martial arts movies and there are loads of fantastic ones. Particularly the work of Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Jet Li and Bruce Lee (of course) often get recommended the most. However, I think there is something really special about the 36th Chamber. It is a highly regarded film and, likely, is one of the first that anyone trying to dive deeper into the genre will find.
The opening scene is almost mesmerising. It sets the scene for a film that reveres the artistry and graft of training to be a warrior. It feels like a template for the genre as a whole. Plus it's where the Wu-Tang Clan got a lot of inspiration for names from...so that's cool.
Inside
When I was younger, I was a fan of Bo Burnham and his silly music on Youtube. It is absolutely insane to see the progression of his work to the point of releasing this comedy special.
It hardly feels like a comedy special though. It's a deep exploration of the pain and anxiety associated with the modern world framed around lockdown.
The music is incredible. The thoughtfulness put into every frame is utterly insane. It's a mind-blowing experience.
That Funny Feeling had a weird effect on me. It's a chorus that I come back to all the time as it matches how I feel dealing with anxiety in my day to day. It's been so difficult dealing with it for years now and it always seems so disconnected to the world around me. I get told over and over that it's just anxiety. That there's nothing wrong with me. Nowadays I try to shrug it off, there it is again huh? That funny feeling. That dread.
Godzilla Minus One
"This country has treated life far too cheaply"
I have become so reluctant to go to the cinema. The lack of exciting releases, people on their phones or chatting and even just the cost of it. It is great that a release like this could completely shatter all of that anxiety for me. Godzilla Minus One is an incredible experience and heavily elevated by seeing it on a huge cinema screen.
It recreated a feeling that I hadn't felt in years. This intense excitement to learn more about the production and the reaction to the movie the second I was walking out the door. I can't remember why but I had to take the Luas to a stop I'd never been to after the film, and I spent the entire time reading the comments on reddit as a way of reliving the experience I had just had.
The Fellowship of the Ring
I had those DVD extended editions in the very unique cardboard cases for many years. Multiple discs per movie packed with special features that got very well used. My defining memory of these films is sitting in the back of the car, watching them on a portable DVD player that hooked onto the headrest.
Fellowship of the Ring is the best of them. Such a wonderful movie and a marvellous showcase of practical effects and clever filmmaking. The trilogy as a whole is the kind of project that had never been attempted before, was so unlikely to succeed when it happened and, despite the success, will basically never happen again.
Your Name
Kimi No Na Wa wasn't the first Makoto Shinkai film I had seen but it's the first one that really smashed it out of the park for me.
It is by far the best experience I've had watching a movie at the Lighthouse Cinema, one of the coolest spots in Ireland.
Radwimps made such a cool soundtrack for this as well. It's funny, in working on this series I am constantly talking about music which was something I never thought I had much of an affinity for!
