7 Movies to get to know me

Continuing with media that has been important to me -- specifically movies -- there is only one place to start:

Star Wars (1977)

I cannot even begin to explain how much it meant to me as an impressionable five-year old.

It may well have been the first movie I saw in a theater, because we didn't go often, and when we did it was the drive-in. The only movie I am really sure that I had seen before this was a showing of Disney's Robin Hood at my church.

But I remember desperately wanting to see Star Wars, and hardly being able to wait, and how exciting it was that they showed it at school two times, so that I saw the movie three times!

Plus, I was madly in love with Han Solo.

I loved that movie. If I would have been perfectly happy with it as a standalone movie, I can live with most of the additions.

Ball of Fire (1941)

Getting cable was huge for me, and not only for MTV, but also for classic movies on the Disney Channel, and I loved this one. Speaking of fairy tales, this was an updated Snow White story, with the seven dwarfs being seven professors working on an encyclopedia, and one of them was Gary Cooper. It is so light and fun when you consider that the plot kicks off with the arrest of a gangster with the victim of a mob hit in his trunk.

While You Were Sleeping (1995)

Despite my romantic nature, I don't like a lot of romantic comedies, because they often prolong the plot by making people jerks, which I don't really love. This one I adore.

End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones (2003)

I liked the Ramones early on, and not long before this came out I realized I loved them, and The Clash, and yet, I didn't think I really was a punk, and had some mixed feelings about that. This film was great in a lot of ways, but one thing it really helped with is reconciling my aversion for the Sex Pistols with my love for punk. I no longer felt a conflict.

(Of course, that all worked out as everyone started dying, but nothing's perfect.)

Pane e tulipani (2000)

I remember requesting this for me, and then my family watched it while I was doing their taxes. A few days later I got to watch it, and I just loved it. So many Italian films are really sad. They are often sad in beautiful ways -- I love Il postino -- but not everything has to reflect despair! But you need your necessities like your bread, and then your beauties like your tulips. Also, it hadn't been too long since I had been in Venice, so there were good memories with it.

Coco (2017)

This movie sure broke me. It destroyed me in the movie theater, and a week later when I saw a different movie and congratulated myself for not falling apart, it triggered a flashback and I was crying over Coco again. 

At the time, I was caring for my mother full-time, and Grandma Coco slipping away cut close to the bone, and still does. However, I love that connection. There is a bit at the end where a you get a family portrait but the dead and the living are together, and I believe in that. Someday Coco will hurt me less, and it will still be a good movie.

Shall We Dansu? (1996)

I love dance movies, though some have been really disappointing, especially since about 2006 on. As easily as I could put Dirty Dancing (1987) or Strictly Ballroom (1992) here, I am going with this one. It is so sweet and charming, and kind towards its people; even the private investigator's assistant is worthy of care. That is the thing that matters most to me now.