How did you guys find this movie?

swiftdriver63 said:Unlike most of you, movie nights weren't really a thing in my house growing up. Back when I started school around '96—it was quite the scene—the shelves were practically buckling under the weight of books (my granddad had started his collection back then), we had this old record player that hadn't been touched in years sitting next to a mountain of vintage jazz LPs, and a tiny TV with only two channels—just the usual small-town life, honestly, with a terrible signal. We didn't even own a VCR, which was basically all I wanted at the time. Specifically, I was hunting for Van Damme, Schwarzenegger, and Stallone. Then, a few years later, the VCR finally arrives! I sprinted to the local rental shop and grabbed a tape featuring some brooding, buff guy on the cover—he looked like the toughest guy out there. Years later, I realized that movie was actually Natural Born Killers. I wasn't a fan, so I went right back to my reliable go-to, Van Damme—the absolute king. I don't recall my dad ever watching movies with me (Mom did, though—she’d share in my wide-eyed enthusiasm), and Dad definitely looked down on my "artistic" taste. On Sundays, he'd solemnly clean his glasses and watch some Western on TV. Cowboys and comic books were the only "guilty pleasures" he allowed himself in the realm of art; for everything else, he stuck strictly to Janson's Art History.
In high school, having a computer made films much easier to access, but I don't remember a single one grabbing my attention the way literature or music did. Father Ryan, Braveheart, Gladiator... they were fine, sure, but there was just no spark. Only Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels—now *that* was something! I remember thinking, "Whoa, okay, this is different, this is actually good." But even that flame flickered out pretty fast. I pretty much gave up on movies altogether.
Then came three years at the Student Union without a TV, a laptop, or the internet—total zero movies. But then a friend asked me to join her at the Student Union for a screening of her favorite film, Sky over Berlin, so I went along. That was the turning point. Something just hit me—it was like I was high or something; actual magic happened. It completely blew my mind, and honestly, I'm still reeling from it.
Good movies exist.

😁

Took me about ten seconds to realize which movie we were talking about...

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.

The video rental store right next to my house. It was destiny. 😁

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.

And we're in the exact same boat. 😬

By age 14, I had a collection of 90 top-tier Swedish action flicks. Is that enough context? 😁 Every single one came with those massive posters they used to give out. I actually ended up paying double just to have my buddy Turk track them down for me since I didn't have an ID, and the authorities here take that stuff seriously.

I kept everything under my bed until my mom decided to clean up one day and confiscated my "stash." Years later, she admitted she took them and sold them off. 😳

Before all that, my cinematic diet consisted of nothing but trashy 90s action intros on local US cable channels. Then it shifted to Swedish action during my puberty years, before I eventually pivoted toward the classics. 🙂

casualgull said:By age 14, I had a collection of 90 top-tier Swedish action flicks. Is that enough context? 😁 Every single one came with those massive posters they used to give out. I actually ended up paying double just to have my buddy Turk track them down for me since I didn't have an ID, and the authorities here take that stuff seriously.

I kept everything under my bed until my mom decided to clean up one day and confiscated my "stash." Years later, she admitted she took them and sold them off. 😳

Before all that, my cinematic diet consisted of nothing but trashy 90s action intros on local US cable channels. Then it shifted to Swedish action during my puberty years, before I eventually pivoted toward the classics. 🙂

😂 🤣 Smart lady! 😍

Varvara's sword

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmHtG8-dqSk

I remember heading to the theater at nine years old with my entire class...

.

Alright, I definitely need to check this one out! 👍

For me, it all traces back to elementary school. I was obsessed with that one film program hosted by Dr. Ante Peterlić that used to air on TV back then.

Then one day at school, my teacher came down with something and couldn't make it. In her place? Her husband stepped in... Dr. Ante Peterlić himself. He was so incredibly serious, standing there in front of us kids—I think we were in fifth grade—breaking down the fundamentals of cinema... I was absolutely floored 😍 even if my classmates had no clue why I was so captivated. 😁 I can still see him clearly, sketching a frog on the chalkboard just to explain the concept of the "frog's eye view." 😍
Not many people can say they had Dr. Peterlić lecturing them on film while they were still in grade school 😁, and I truly believe that’s where my genuine passion for the art of cinema first took root. 😍

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.

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.

Movies actually shaped who I am today 😁

So, here’s the deal...

A long time ago when I was just a little kid—haha, I'm kidding!🙂 Jokes aside, here is how it all went down:

My parents were huge movie buffs; they were watching films almost every single day, and naturally, I grew up right alongside them. When I turned five, they actually got me a VCR for my birthday—which, let me tell you, was insanely expensive back then—and my dad would record movies straight off the TV or rent stuff from the local video rental shop, so there was always something playing in our house.
To be totally honest, I started out mostly glued to cartoons, but that didn't last long before things leveled out, and by the time I hit ten, I was definitely watching more feature films than animation.
While my parents were really big on heavy dramas and intense thrillers, they’d often pivot to lighter stuff for my sake—you know, comedies, action flicks, or those classic family movies.

I remember being about seven years old when my dad was sitting there reading the paper and suddenly starts getting all hyped up: "Oh! Tarzan! With Weissmuller!" Around one in the morning. I had to spend three hours earlier that evening faking sleep just to pull it off, but then finally, my dad and I are sitting there at 1 AM watching Tarzan. It left this impression on me—that movies were something significant, something precious.

Since then, it’s been nothing but endless TV, tons of old classics, Westerns, Musicals. My old man actually had pretty decent taste; he could spot a good film from a mile away, but since he was an engineer, he could never quite put into words *why* a movie worked. Even back then, I had this quiet ambition to eventually get better at understanding it than he was.
Reminds me of those summer nights as a kid, hanging out at the local Open-air surplus events.
And occasionally, he’d actually manage to shock me: watching "Catch 22" when I was barely nine.

But I really found myself through cinema while I was at the university engineering labs, basically ruining my studies by obsessing over Truffaut, Bergman, Godard, Kurosawa, and the rest. That was a long time ago, and honestly, I don't regret it for a second. If anything, movies are what saved my life.

My old man was a massive movie buff, especially when it came to Westerns, so I was basically raised on celluloid. I grew up on everything from Sergio Leone, Bud Spencer, and Terrence Hill, to John Wayne... honestly, back in second grade, I used to fake being sick to my teacher just so I could rush home and watch King Kong—which, by the way, was a way better lineup than what they were playing on local TV back then.
Everything changed for me when I hit 11 or 12 and saw Pulp Fiction on VHS. That was the turning point.
My only real regret is that I never got to see those classics on the big screen. It would be killer if theaters actually played the older stuff every day—not just the "critics' choice" pretension, but real hits like Predator, Rocky, The Warriors, Logan, Mad Max, Soylent Green, whatever.
Back when those movies were actually hitting theaters, I was still just some kid playing Pimpek po Pesk. 🙂

analoghawk13 said:I remember being about seven years old when my dad was sitting there reading the paper and suddenly starts getting all hyped up: "Oh! Tarzan! With Weissmuller!" Around one in the morning. I had to spend three hours earlier that evening faking sleep just to pull it off, but then finally, my dad and I are sitting there at 1 AM watching Tarzan. It left this impression on me—that movies were something significant, something precious.

Since then, it’s been nothing but endless TV, tons of old classics, Westerns, Musicals. My old man actually had pretty decent taste; he could spot a good film from a mile away, but since he was an engineer, he could never quite put into words *why* a movie worked. Even back then, I had this quiet ambition to eventually get better at understanding it than he was.
Reminds me of those summer nights as a kid, hanging out at the local Open-air surplus events.
And occasionally, he’d actually manage to shock me: watching "Catch 22" when I was barely nine.

But I really found myself through cinema while I was at the university engineering labs, basically ruining my studies by obsessing over Truffaut, Bergman, Godard, Kurosawa, and the rest. That was a long time ago, and honestly, I don't regret it for a second. If anything, movies are what saved my life.

What exactly do you mean by that? I’m not sure I follow your line of reasoning.

A questionable joke, if you ask me.
Otherwise, I’d probably be stuck living some predictable life as an engineer. Instead, things turned out a bit messy—but hey, life got a lot more colorful because of it.
(Not that I'm actually agreeing with that, by the way.)

Or look at it this way: maybe this movie just opened my eyes to the different textures of life—the aesthetics, the weird dance of meaning and interpretation, the sheer scale of the Atlantic, or just a fresh expression on someone's face... stuff that might have stayed buried under a mountain of spreadsheets in any other version of my life.

My mom was the one who first got me hooked on movies. Since I used to work so much and almost never had a free weekend, I spent my Sunday evenings catching the absolute best show on TV—it was called *Midnight Cinema*. I’ve watched countless cycles of film history through those broadcasts. I started out with the silent era, where Greta Garbo was my ultimate definition of beauty, and then I went through a phase where I tried to channel Louise Brooks with my hair. From there, I moved into the era of "talkies" and fell in love with *Gone with the Wind*. Honestly, since then, I haven't been able to shake the obsession.

I’ve been watching movies for as long as I can remember—so much so that I don't really have a clue where it all started or which specific flick first hooked me.

But I do know that I owe many of my all-time favorites to one particular show: Black and White in Color
(honestly, my first encounters with The Wild Bunch, Papillon, Once Upon a Time in the Wild West, Straw Dog, Dog Afternoon, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and The Deer Hunter... all on Tuesday nights, if I recall correctly)

I still remember my first trip to the theater when I was eight. I couldn't tell you the title if my life depended on it, but I definitely remember a killer car chase scene. 🙂

Honestly, I’ve been watching them since I was just a kid—I think I first caught a glimpse of Gone with the Wind back in elementary school, maybe even during my first year... though, to be fair, I only really saw half of it because they cut to commercials right at the midpoint, and after two hours, I figured that was the whole thing. I was quite surprised by how much more there was when I actually sat down for a second viewing, along with an additional two hours of footage!😁

I’ve seen most of the classics, whether they were playing on Black and White in Color or during those afternoon time slots. If my memory serves me right, there was this stretch where old movies aired every single day... ah, those were the days—not like now, when A License to Drive a Fokker seems to pop up on TV every other month.

I didn't get a VCR until relatively late in the game because my parents didn't exactly view it as a "must-have" gadget... but once it finally arrived, I practically lived in front of the screen. I truly miss that era of binge-watching tapes and the simple ritual of heading down to the video rental store to browse the aisles...

I didn't even go to preschool, but I grew up glued to the TV watching old racing shows—my parents always joked I spent more time staring at those screens than watching Branko Kockica.
So, listening to Ante Peterlić ramble on about "the art of cinema" is basically one of my earliest memories.
And it wasn't like we had much choice! My old man had a subscription to those classic film services, and once I was old enough to tag along, they’d be running these Western marathons starring Duke. Seriously, if you watched Rio Bravo as a kid, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Then it just kept going with those massive historical epics on TV; El Cid, Quo Vadis, Ben-Hur, Ivanhoe...
and honestly, it feels like it's been going on forever.

Here’s another one whose life was flipped upside down by Stanley Kubrick.

If I remember correctly, there was this cycle of festival premieres on TV.
On the schedule: 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I was in 5th grade, maybe 6th at most.
Sure, watching monkeys was actually kind of cool, but everything after that? Man, it was just boring as hell.

Fast forward three or four years to my freshman year of high school, and suddenly there's Odyssey back on PBS.
I remembered it—that incomprehensible slog of a movie—but for some reason, I couldn't help myself; I had to watch it again.
And that was it—a total revelation. It completely consumed me, to the point where watching this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CglvOos2bA literally made me feel nauseous and lightheaded.

And you can just imagine the looks your friends give you when, as a freshman, you announce that your favorite movie ever is Odyssey.😵

@ Robin Murphy5, man, I had the exact same thing happen to me 👍
I don't know, maybe it's just me, but that Stargate scene was killer. Such a great movie.