How did you guys find this movie?
in Movies ·
I’ve been obsessed with movies since I was a kid—always been a total night owl, staying up way past my bedtime just to stare at the TV. It blows my mind that nobody here mentioned the one show that basically defined my childhood back in the late 90s. Every Monday through Thursday, late at night, they had this "Film Night" thing on. Every single day featured a different director or actor. I vividly remember the week they did Film Night with Alfred Hitchcock. I must have been six or seven when I first saw Psych—I remember watching that shower scene through my fingers, and that shot of his mom's skeleton? Yeah, I couldn't sleep all night because of that. My folks were pretty chill and never really banned me from watching anything, so I ended up seeing everything from Psych and Corn Child to classics like French Connection and Casablanca—even if half of it went straight over my head because I was too young to get it. The first movie I ever saw in a theater was Filnstons. My grandma used to take me and my brother to the Patri theater in a neighborhood near downtown—we always sat center row, front balcony. That was our spot. =) Back during the holidays, it was a ritual: my older brother and I would hit up the local video rental store every single day and walk out with three movies.
I used to skip out of class just to get home in time for some movie—total waste of time, right? But back then, we didn't have high-speed internet to stream everything, and the local video rental store barely carried the classics. It was what it was. And yeah, like you said, those habits definitely stick with you even now, but honestly? I don't regret a single second of it.
No, not really. Not until I actually fell in love with cinema—you know, that moment where you stop just watching and start obsessing over the directors, digging into how they actually shoot stuff, and suddenly thinking, "Man, I want to be behind the camera one day."
Back in 2003, I was constantly eyeing the US edition of Total Film whenever I passed by the newsstand. I couldn’t quite bring myself to grab it—just kept staring at it like a weirdo. Then one day, walking home from school, there she was: Uma Thurman staring right back at me from a bright yellow cover. Right underneath, in massive letters, it screamed: QUENTIN Tarantino PROMISES: KILL BILL WILL BLOW YOUR MIND. Honestly? I didn't even finish the walk home. I just bolted straight to my house and started begging my old man to buy it for me. $8.25Honestly, I’m basically snatching that win right out of my aunt's hands. That was the exact moment I fell head over heels for Tarantino—and the second I started seriously thinking about one day giving him a run for his money.
goldenhound32 said:I think I started reading your translations before I could even properly read myself.
Every single evening, I’d find something to watch, always nursing this quiet hope that my father would finally pass out on the sofa. If he did, maybe he wouldn't kick me upstairs to bed at eight, nine, or ten at night. Some nights I got lucky; most nights, I didn't.
Back then, the best programming in the world was local public access TV—stations where the staff basically just pirated movies from god-knows-where... a colleague of yours mentioned them once. There was this strange, intoxicating sense of victory in seeing a film before it ever hit the local multiplex.🙂 ...just that old-school grit in my soul, I suppose.
When I was eleven, my absolute favorite was the first Mortal Kombat movie, mostly because of that heavy-hitting soundtrack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAwWPadFsOA
By twelve or thirteen, I caught Blade... and god, what a masterpiece that was. All I have to do is recall that one specific scene and the music playing while they trigger the blood spray.🙏
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNOP2t9FObw
Then, at fourteen, I stumbled upon that old Usenet newsgroup, film.rec.movies... and that's when it really started. There was no saving me after that. That was the moment my disdain for summer blockbusters and mindless "popcorn" movies took root, a phase that lasted for many, many years. I’ve mellowed out since then, though I'm not quite as judgmental as I used to be.
By fifteen, I was sitting there watching The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, haha... and The Seventh Seal, wtf... just a steady stream of heavy, serious cinema. There were films I didn't truly grasp, which was expected at that age... but I was stubborn. I refused to let anyone talk about some "important auteur" if I didn't personally understand why they mattered.
At fifteen, I discovered Fight Club. Watching it, I couldn't believe that someone on the other side of the country was experiencing the exact same thing. Instant identification. It wasn't just a movie unlike anything I'd seen; it was proof that a different kind of world was possible. That’s what I love about cinema—it pulls you in so deep that you momentarily forget you have homework to finish, a job to go to, people to fake a smile for, or dinner to make. Just pure immersion. An instant classic for me.
High school passed by. My peers were out drinking and socializing, while I was tucked away watching movies. I can still see the consequences of those choices today.
In those days, the internet was painfully slow; downloading movies wasn't really an option. But I started collecting DivX files. My first few were Alien Resurrection, The Matrix, Cube, and Hollow Man. You start accumulating them, keeping meticulous lists in Notepad. You’d trade with people online... one good trade involving six DVDs might net you thirty carefully selected titles.🙏
And so, the years roll on. People change, lives get busier, we all grow older... but film remains. My first love, and the one I'll never forget.
I used to skip out of class just to get home in time for some movie—total waste of time, right? But back then, we didn't have high-speed internet to stream everything, and the local video rental store barely carried the classics. It was what it was. And yeah, like you said, those habits definitely stick with you even now, but honestly? I don't regret a single second of it.
No, not really. Not until I actually fell in love with cinema—you know, that moment where you stop just watching and start obsessing over the directors, digging into how they actually shoot stuff, and suddenly thinking, "Man, I want to be behind the camera one day."
Back in 2003, I was constantly eyeing the US edition of Total Film whenever I passed by the newsstand. I couldn’t quite bring myself to grab it—just kept staring at it like a weirdo. Then one day, walking home from school, there she was: Uma Thurman staring right back at me from a bright yellow cover. Right underneath, in massive letters, it screamed: QUENTIN Tarantino PROMISES: KILL BILL WILL BLOW YOUR MIND. Honestly? I didn't even finish the walk home. I just bolted straight to my house and started begging my old man to buy it for me. $8.25Honestly, I’m basically snatching that win right out of my aunt's hands. That was the exact moment I fell head over heels for Tarantino—and the second I started seriously thinking about one day giving him a run for his money.