The movies that formed your love of movies?

My mum however, was more strict, and would rarely let me see the "søndagsfilmen", which always were sent at 21:00 on sunday night, and where I early on got caught up in the whole 007 world of excitement and adventure.
I guess most of these films from 1962 and up till the days of Timothy Dalton, were all great in my young eyes, but two films often stood out, not because they were the best, but somehow they where the ones that I would always see together with my dad, and they included so many memorable scenes, characters and music/songs, but later on, I guess one could say the same for about, everyone of those titles.

You Only Live Twice (1967) and A View To A Kill (1985), I must have re-watched those, so many times over, and so much, that I even tried to convince my school teacher to let us switch the annual christmas play in front of our parents, to rather go all out and instead make our own James Bond show. That never happened, but for a few seconds, I was very sure I have won over my teacher, sadly she did not care much for James Bond nor action films. 

One thing I realized early on, I rarely wanted to be James Bond, but instead it looked so much more fun to play as the villain, likes Jaws (who always were my favorite back then).

Of course, it is impossible to forget the huge impact of Disney films during the late 80s and early 90s with their whole golden revival era, and few films of that period had struck me more powerful than getting to watch Beauty and the Beast (1991) at the big screen in winter of 1992. From the very first scene, from being drawned deep into the enchanted forest, then heading towards the dark and mysterious castle. It was a stunning film to look at, but also where the music, voices, songs and of course the more dramatic and serious theme/tone, made it out to be one of the most memorable movie experiences of my young life.

At the same time, I also had many fond memories of Don Bluth and his late 80s releases, such as The Land Before Time (1988) and where also the danish cinema had quite an impressive period, with ditching out beautiful and wonderful animated films such as Valhalla (1986), War of the Birds (1990) and Jungledyret Hugo (1993), which all were very popular films back then. Sadly, the last one, ended up getting butchered (according to the films makers) by the americans, when it was later on re-edited and I guess those changes did not do the original film any justice. But not the first nor the last time something like that happens, when it is tried to be promoted with a more "american" styled approach. 

So the love for animated films and adventure/fantasy, surely thrived in the early 90s, and most of these childhood films, still have held up, very well. But few ever came close of re-capturing the majestic impression that Beauty and the Beast and later on The Lion King (1994) set out with. 

Most of the films I saw around 1990-1994 were american, english or sometimes danish and swedish releases, rarely if ever any norwegian ones. As I kind of "hated" norwegian films, they were extremely dull and slow moving. Something that was as fun to behold, as watching paint dry, and our teacher had a bunch of old filmtapes from the 50s and 60s, that we often would be "forced" to sit through at school. I guess she thought it was an "educational" ride for us youngsters, but damn, if she knew how much damage those terrible norwegian films did us, and how it caused many, to stay as far away of that kind of "entertainment" for very long.

But, then one day, I saw Flåklypa Grand Prix (1975) on tv, and I was completely sold. This highly exciting and fun filled animated comedy, came with such a charming and funny plot, memorable and sweet characters, and where the special effects, music and voices all just added to the whole magic behind it all. That was one of the important moment, where all of a sudden, I became far more interested in my own country and their filmmaking.

Another one, that also added to the interest, but showcased a much more serious and darker side of norwegian cinema, came through the teen-drama Døden på Oslo S (1990), which showcased Oslo as anything but a "nice" and cosy place. Here the main actors were mostly young teenagers, and it came with sex, drugs, violence and felt a very long way of the more family friendly and adventurous Olsenbanden franchise, which also went on in Oslo during the late 60s and up til around mid 80s.

I guess now, looking back, Døden på Oslo S might seem a little comical at times, but watching it as a kid, it was surely a very different kind of a movie back then.

Beside watching films late at night, with my dad. I guess the best way to broaden my world of movies, was to see films at other classmates birthdays, as I remember some of the parents to those kids, were not exactly as strict as others. I mean, suddenly you had Conan the Barbarian (1982), and that one was really a gamechanger for me as well.

It was bloody as hell, sex scenes, scary scenes, very violent scenes, and to make things even more exciting, one of my closest friends, had two older brothers, where one was a huge horror fanatic, and owned hundreds of VHS titles (all horror related). And he did not mind, that his much younger brother and friends would tag along, and see the same films as he did. 
This was both very interesting, but also at scary as hell. I will never forget the first time I saw Return of the Living Dead (1985). That one scared me shitless, and for weeks and months, I had trouble sleeping at nights. As I was so sure, that Tar-Man would come find me at night.

Anyway, my love for movies really took off, when I begun sneaking up at night, sitting all alone in the dark living room at watching pretty much everything I could see on TV. Lots of sleazy erotic thrillers, and action films, but where The Terminator (1984) really shook me up a bit. As I had never seen it, instead I was more familiar with Arnie as the good guy, in T2 (1991), which I had seen several times over. 
But watching The Terminator all by myself, that was quite something else.

Scary, haunting and left me with a feeling of complete hopelessness and lots of frightening thoughts of what could happen, if those damn machine actually ended up taking over, as in the film. It took a long while, until I got the nerve to go back and re-watch it, even with friends, I kind of felt unsafe and very few films have ever managed to make me feel like that. I guess Aliens (1979), The Shining (1980), The Thing (1982) are a few other which comes close to that kind of sheer horror.

I started watching way more films during the early 00s, which of course is due to the fact that I really started picking up on my visits to the city and purchasing VHS tapes, and since the DVD were in the rising, the prices of video cassettes had fallen low, and it was great news for me. 
I remember one day doing a bit of a impulse buy, when stumbling upon a big table, with lots of VHS titles, and I of course went all out for the coolest, meanest and most scary looking titles/covers they had. Which resulted in me bringing home stuff like:

Henry: A Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
The Exterminator (1980)

and having seen those two, for the first time. Well, there was no going back. I fell in love that kind of sleazy and violent b-movie style/themed plot/characters, and went more and for, into looking for similar films. Sadly, very few came close of re-capturing the same atmosphere and shocking scenery, but when I later on found The Toxic Avenger (1984) and the Pete Jackson Splatter Comedy Box (Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Braindead aka Dead Alive). It really had a big impact on my love for b-movies and low budget releases.

I would have just as much fun or in most cases, way more, when watching Frank Henenlotters Basket Case (1982), than the usual Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey big budget comedy films of that time. 

Action and adventures, such as the James Bond films, Arnold, Sly, Bruce Willis, Van Damme, Seagal and so on, all played a huge part in steering me into becoming a big fan of action film.

Comedy is of course impossible to mention, without the many hilarious adventures of Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau and the Pink Panther franchise. Which along with the norwegian version of Olsenbanden and the Police Academy films, all played a huge part of my love for these charming and witty caper-comedy adventures in the early 90s. Then, you had big favorites like John Candy, Robin Williams and Bill Murray and where when Jim Carrey arrived in the mids 90s, it was pretty much impossible not to become a fan of this new and exciting comedian.

Horror, as I have mentioned, came through lots of terrific and often scary movie nights along with my friends and where we would either borrow or see these gruesome films, along with older brothers. And nobody dared to chicken out, or to cover their eyes, when something bad happened (which it did a lot), so one just had to sit through and kind of take it like a "man", even if it pretty much killed off several weeks of potential sleep. 

Drama movies, I never really loved as much as the ones above. I mean, Forrest Gump and Dead Poets Society, I think those I liked back then, or enjoy, even now as an adult, are those that would combine comedy, romance and drama, but never goes too much in any of the directions, but manages to combine them and of course, I do have a certain love for darker drama-comedies.

Adventures and fantasy is also one that played a big part of my childhood, specially the Disney, Don Bluth and Spielberg movies, but where also the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, really stood out, and even now has managed to uphold everything I loved about it, and sadly, that is not something I can say about too many of my nostalgic favorites.

Movies like The Terminator, The Running Man, Total Recall, Demolition Man and waching one of the Star Wars film on cinema back in 1997 (the re-done edition) and of course Blade Runner, all did a big part in making me interested in sci-fi films, but I could go on and on, and I will stop here, for now.

The more I write, the more films and memories show up, and I know that I have always loved movies, and I should probably have tried to pick out a few films, and written about them, than bringing up so many. I guess one gets a little overexcited, when talking about films, specially those that have played an important part on your own long journey and movie taste.

Still, one of the main rasons to why I still watch a whole bunch of films, every years, is that I do hope I might get to find a few more (every now and then) of these important or potential new favorite films, that might someday take me into a whole other direction, such as many of my favorites did way back.