The Movies That Made The Man

As ridiculous as the Hollywood crowd is to me, I have to admit that their work has had a profound impact on my life. What can capture the essence of the human experience, albeit entirely inaccurately, more than the universally-loved Big Screen? They make us hate. They make us love. They make us need to go to the bathroom so badly that we miss the climax of the film. America loves movies and so do I. So, in the interest of further transparency, I’ve decided to share with you some of the movies that have changed my life.

Deliverance. This I will never forget. I’ve mentioned before my mortal fear of prison. Deliverance extended this fear to the mountains of Eastern Tennessee. I was living in Nashville when I saw it, so it had double the impact. My friend Jed and I rented it one night and watched it after my wife went to bed. She wanted to watch it, but Jed, who had seen the movie before, said, “You don’t want to watch this movie.” Of course, that statement only got me more excited to see it.

That movie was creepy from frame one. It is truly a cinematic masterpiece. I feared for my life right away. Whoever came up with the inbred banjo player scene is a genius. It sets up the whole film. After watching that kid on the porch, you know these guys are in a very dangerous place.

Then came the scene. I don’t know of any other movie that has been so universally associated with one single scene. But if you bring that movie up to someone who has seen it, that is the only scene they remember – and they remember it vividly. I have one question: was Ned Beatty given a copy of the script? I can’t imagine being that desperate for work. He had to know that for the rest of his life people were going to associate him with...that. I think that scene was so terrifying because it was so realistic. I mean, if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen just like that.

I was a tad freaked out after the movie was over. Jed acted like we had just watched Mary Poppins. This is because no one on the planet would ever have the poor judgment to try to violate him. He’s Jed. But me – what sicko wouldn’t try to violate me? I’m a tiny white man with no hair on my face. I’m practically a 10-year-old girl.

Not long after I saw the movie, I waited on a family of people at J.Alexander’s whom I am sure are related to the inbred banjo player. They terrified me. I shared this with a friend who was also working that night and whenever I was near that table, he would whisper, “Squeal, piggy!”

So, how did this movie change my life? It changed forever the way I think about my body, I am now deathly afraid of hillbillies, and I’ll never eat pork again.

The Notebook. I’m embarrassed, if it makes you feel any better. But I have to admit that I loved this movie. I loved this movie. I couldn’t get it out of my head for days. [By the way, we are in the habit of skipping the naughty scenes.] The setting, the music, the dialogue, the switching back and forth from old Noah and Allie to young Noah and Allie, the music, Ryan Gosling’s awesome beard...the whole thing was just breathtaking.

I’m going to be accused of being a woman for saying this, but I’m sayin’ it: this movie makes you yearn. It makes you long. It makes you so happy to be married to my wife. And it makes you want to grow old and die together on a gurney in an old folks home. What else can be said?

How did it change my life? I developed a man-crush on Ryan Gosling, I want a kayak, and I accepted the fact that I am the only heterosexual male in North America to have embraced such an unabashed chick flick.

Se7en. This might be the most disturbing film I’ve seen. And I loved it. I saw it with my sister when we were in college. After the movie, we walked silently back to the car, drove silently back to campus, where I stopped silently in front of her dorm, and she silently exited the vehicle. After a few days, the shock wore off and I got the brilliant idea to take my fiancee (now my wife, Shelby) to see the movie.

Now, up until this event we loved to watch scary movies. Silence of the Lambs. The Shining. Cape Fear. Shelby was as into it as I was.

But something happened at Se7en. She was basically ruined on scary movies. As with my sister, we left the theatre silently, but the silence only lasted until we were about halfway to the car, when Shelby began to sob. I felt like the biggest cowpie in the universe. Way to protect the love of your life, moron.

So from that day forward, Shelby retired from scary movies. She has on occasion made the ill-fated decision to come out of retirement, after which she immediately goes back into retirement, swearing to never venture out again. Now all we watch are romantic comedies and Disney/Pixar.

Once, I made the mistake of thinking that a certain movie wasn’t scary enough to bother her, and I begged her to watch it with me. She agreed. It was The Village. It was scary enough to bother her. At the end of the credits, she slowly turned to me and said, “What is freaking wrong with you?”

So, how did Se7en change my life? My wife doesn’t fully trust me to look out for her best interests, I’ve seen more Barbara Streisand films than any male should, and if I want to see a scary movie, I have to ask my sisters to go.

Copycat. This is one for which Shelby came out of retirement. And re-retired. Demented movie. We rented it with some friends not long after we married. We had already seen it in the theatre, but that was pre-Se7en. I think Shelby thought that since we had already seen it and if we were all together, the being scared thing would be fun. It didn’t really work out that way. At one point during the movie, I looked up and all four of us were sitting on the couch hugging our knees.

Bedtime that night was interesting. We were both way freaked out, but she was the only one willing to admit it. She asked me if we could trade places so that she could sleep on my side of the bed. She figured that if someone broke in they would kill the person closest to the door – the side of the bed she usually slept on. If I had taken the time to process that I might have been a little offended, but in reality I was thinking that if someone broke in it would be through the window by the side of the bed I usually slept on – if we traded places, I would be safer. So, we traded, each one hoping that any potential killer would attack our mate first, giving each of us the chance to escape.

How was my life changed? I began to view Harry Connick as the most convincing actor of our time, I resolved to never sit down on a toilet at any institution of higher learning, and I realized that if any serial killer ever breaks into our home, its going to be every man for himself.

Hope Floats. This is one of my penance flicks for having scared the poo out of my wife by taking her to see Seven. The irony is that what Se7en was to Shelby, Hope Floats is to me. I am just flat out terrified of this movie. I’ll tell you why.

IT’S DEPRESSING. Whoever came up with the title should be forced to watch this movie on a continuous loop. The title is false advertising at its finest. “Hey, want to watch a feel-good? Well, here’s one for you! Picture this: A woman finds out on a nationally televised talk show that her husband has been having relations with her best friend. Just wait – that’s not even the feel-good part. She then moves back home to live with her mom, where everyone in town treats her like garbage, including her little girl. Hold on, hold on – it gets even better. Harry Connick, whom every woman in the world would love to love, loves her, but she is still stuck on the philanderer who devastated her on national television. Keep your pants on – that’s nothing. Her mother, the only source of strength in her life goes tango uniform about ¾ of the way through the movie. But that’s just window dressing, folks – the good part is still coming. Are you ready? When the adulterous husband comes to the funeral, the little girl packs a bag and starts to get into the husband’s car, presumably because she would rather live with her scumbag dad and his new whore than with her loving mother. The dad takes her bag out of the car, gets in the car, and drives off, leaving his little girl screaming and crying in the middle of the street, holding her suitcase and doll, begging him to let her come. Mmmm...makes you feel warm inside doesn’t it? And as a bonus, the whole thing is set in a wretched caricature of the Lone Star State.”

I single-handedly kept a suicide prevention hotline in business for a month after watching this movie. Every time I called I could hear the counselors doing Rock, Paper, Scissors. The loser would eventually take my call, after which the counselor would call the hotline his or herself...without even having seen the movie. See? It is devastating just hearing about it. They should have entitled the movie “All Hope Is Gone, Ya hear? It Don’t Float. All Hope is Gone.”

But my wife loves it. So we watch it. Well, she watches it. I just sit in the corner and cry.

So how did this movie change my life? I’m bitter toward Sandra Bullock, I no longer worship Harry Connick, and I’d like to fire-bomb all these daytime talk shows.

Titanic. Again, I know it’s womanish, but I loved this movie. (We always skip the naughty scene.) We saw the movie the first time in the theatre by ourselves. When the movie was over, Shelby made a scene sitting in her seat with a mound of soaking tissues in her lap, racked with sobs for a good ten minutes. I heard one man cussing under his breath at the spectacle. Okay, I cried, too, but only a little. For days – I mean, days – it’s all we thought about. We took a friend to see it a couple of weeks later. (His name might be Kirk and it might not.) After the movie, it was Kirk who was racked with sobs. And Shelby was, too. And yes, I cried, too, but only a little.

During that part at the end when old Rose is hobbling to the back of the ship, I was thinking, “Jump, Rose! Go to Jack! Go to him!” But when she chunked the diamond instead, I thought, “If I ever get my hands on old Rose, I’ll wring her neck.”

Anytime we’re around a freezing body of water, one of us inevitably comments, “Imagine how Jack and Rose must have felt.” We just naturally associate both liquid and chill with that movie.

That haunting penny whistle music, or whatever it’s called, and the lyricless ‘oohing’ of the same theme stabs us right in the heart every time we hear it. It’s that yearning thing again.

We own a copy of the movie, but we only watch it occasionally because it still affects us so much. Every once in a while, one of us will ask the other, “Are you ready to go back to Titanic?” Sometimes the pain is too fresh. And then sometimes, we need the pain.

So, how did this one change my life? I developed a man-crush on Leonardo, I’m obsessed with maritime history, and I flat refuse to have anything to do with the North Atlantic.


There are many more movies that have had a dramatic impact on me, but this post is getting pretty long.

Maybe I’ll do a sequel.

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