Weapons of Class Destruction

Question from dreamybritactor (hope you don't mind me snurching this to post it in my own journal but my answers made me realize a lot about myself and my world): Question for the day: Other than the Hornblower series, name a movie that you feel changed your life?

Hooo boy! This is a toughie, top choose just one, because movies have been such an integral part of my life at every phase and change. So, you're getting a count down. Sorry 'bout that.

5. The Little Mermaid
This came out at such an important turn in my life. I'd just had my nervous breakdown and had been taken out of school for a while then sent to another where I knew no one. My father had started drinking and my grandmother was dying from cancer. Then, out of nowhere, comes this little animated movie that I'm taken to to "get my mind off of things." I'd always loved musicals and I took to the songs and score instantly. Most of all, it was about a misunderstood girl who wanted a better, different life and, at that point, was exactly what I could relate to.

4. Beauty and the Beast
This one hit when I was a bit more stable a couple of years later, still not ideal as my father's drinking began to escalate. But, by then, I'd become a tremendous fan of Menken/Ashman's music and some of my most positive memories come from seeing this movie, especially on premiere night in NYC, with the gay community coming out (so to speak!) in force to support the then newly passed on Howard Ashman.

3. Newsies
A live action musical! Starring Christian Bale and a bevvy of young hotties! I ask you, what young girl wouldn't be taken with this one? Still in my musical phase, I can still probably sing every lyric to every song and, sorry if this squicks anyone but it is important to note, it completely changed my internal fantasy life, especially concerning s-e-x.

2. Star Wars
Why aren't I picking just one? Weeellll... I saw the first two about a week before Return of the Jedi was released (well technically I saw Empire Strikes Back as my first movie but spent most of it screaming because Chewie scared me, and I saw, or heard, A New Hope in utero), so that was really my first exposure to it, all three at once with Jedi really being the one that, at the time, really stuck with me.

It gave me every habit and hobby I have today: collecting action figures, reading tie-in novels, and the very first message board I posted on was StarWarsChicks!

Then The Phantom Menace came along and I was old enough to take advantage of what had become the full Star Wars experience: waiting on line for tickets, the first Celebration, dressing up for midnight premieres! It was wonderful! And it was something I shared with my mother, which was rather unprecedented up until that point!

1. Titanic
Back when this came out, there were only just the 'rivet counters', so to speak, the people obsessed with the ship and how it was put together, what happened to it as it sank, etc. Which left me at odds with the Titanica community because I was rather much more interested in the people aboard and their stories. My mom had bought me Bob Ballard's book of wreck pictures because I'd expressed interest (this was when it had initially come out in '87) and I'd become so deathly afraid of it that I had to have someone remove it from my room. I had nightmares for years. All the while, I still watched all of the programs on A&E and the like because I felt as if something was compelling me to do so.

So, when the movie opened, while it raised the consciousness of other viewers and showed them the horror of that night which might have left them depressed and weighed down, for me, it was a cleansing, it was a release. The nightmares stopped.

It shocked an apathetic generation into feeling something, which, I'm convinced, was the secret to its success. For me, it helped me move on and, as a poem from the time reflects on, I was finally able to see the sun rise the next morning.

Peace, Ghani