Movies to get to know me

Extra Mustard: Movies that influence me

Photo by Houses Cheung on Unsplash

For a little Extra Mustard this month, I’m providing some personal flavor about me and my influences.

We’re going to start with movies. Movies have always been a part of my life. When the lights go out and the screen is black for that moment, there is always an expectation. Will it be good? Better than you thought? Worse? Surprise performance? Crazy action sequence or unbelievable special effects? I enjoy the art of movie making. Last week, I shared the Disney+ docuseries on Industrial Light and Magic and the creativity and ingenuity of designing visual effects puts me in awe.

So, for my first installment of my Get-to-Know-Me series, I decided to share movies that have are representative of some of the phases of life. These are movies I could watch over and over again and transport me to a specific moment in time. These may not be my favorite movies, but they are a part of me.

Star Wars - It’s hard to find a Gen X boy who wasn’t impacted by Star Wars. These are touchstones in my life. I think I was a little too young (3) to see the first one in theaters, but when I watched Empire Strikes Back, I was in awe and quite scared of Darth Vader. By the time Vader confessed, “I am your father,” I remember feeling excited, frightened, and alarmed. I was Luke, and here my enemy was actually my dad? For months afterward, the playground game was to have the kid who was “it” walk around and say “I am your father.” Still freaks me out. Return of the Jedi was the first movie I saw without an adult. Not only that, but my cousin and I were dropped off at the theater two hours prior so we could stand in line. If that isn’t Gen X, I don’t know what is.

Back to the Future - I saw the first one in the theater five times. I couldn’t get enough of it. I remember going down a wormhole with my friends asking where does new timeline Marty McFly go when he travels back in time? Before the multiverse, I thought he just disappeared. I also loved the idea of seeing your parents when they were younger and loved the music. Honorable Mention during these years: Top Gun. Also saw this movie multiple times in the theater, the first time with my sixth grade friends. We walked two miles (yay Gen X) to go to the theater and the flight scenes were amazing. But the “Blue Silhouette Scene” where ummm… you know… I’ll just say I hadn’t had that reaction before.

Kevin Costner Sports Movies - I love sports. I love watching and I love the framework they provide to a story. It’s part of the reason why Lose Yourself (Out next Spring) is set at a baseball game. I’ll watch Kevin Costner’s sports movies over and over again. Tin Cup is my favorite, a Don Quixote for golf. It even inspired a tournament I organize every year where we play nine holes with just a seven iron (and is featured in my novel Friends in Low Places). Bull Durham is a classic and I tear up every time at the end of Field of Dreams. I also enjoyed For Love of the Game, which became an inspiration to write a sports novel in the first place. At the time, I only got a third of the way, but in some ways, Lose Yourself is a continuation of that inspiration.

Swingers - I went to college in Southern California about the time when Swingers was released in 1996. By the time it hit the video market, all of my buddies and I were watching this on a nightly basis and spewing the same Vince Vaughn quotes. “So Money”, “Beautiful Babies”, “This place is dead anyway.” You could hit the Dresden and the Derby where Big Bad Voodoo Daddy was playing.

The MCU - These movies have become the shared family experience. The kids were a little young to start from the beginning, but by Avengers: Age of Ultron, we were making a point to see them together. Prior to Endgame, we watched all 20-something movies in preparation, and we watched them again during the pandemic. As I discussed in a different post, Endgame was the pinnacle of the genre and franchise, but it still holds a special place. As the kids become adults and head to college, we’ll always have these memories together.

What are the movies that shaped you?