Movies, movies, movies

We had a workshop at my place Saturday and finally all the second years got together. It was quite fun, and after workshopping all the works we kind of lingered and talked. We had some discussion on movies, and many titles came up that I hadn't seen or even heard of. I felt like I was missing so much that I had to take notes on which movies to see.

I'm always amazed by how popular movie is in America. Not that it's not in Japan, but Americans produce (if not always create) way more movies and it seems as if people are always catching up with them. It's also a surprise to me that everyone seems to have their "childhood favorite movie," for it means they have been watching movies since they were kids. When I was a kid, I didn't really watch movies, except cartoons. My main entertainments were TV, books, and comics.

I started really watching movies when I was in junior-high. One of my best friends, a huge movie fan (and Leonard Dicaprio fan), introduced me to the pleasure of watching movies. We went to see Titanic together, and I dozed off a little while she cried next to me. She was also into English and American culture, and told me watching American movies was a good way to learn English, the idea that still haunts me so I still tend to choose movies in which they speak in English over other languages for my linguistic practice's sake even though I have some European or Asian movies on my movies-to-see list.

I don't know if watching movies in English has really helped me improve my English ability, but it certainly has been a good barometer. The first time I came to the US, I saw Armageddon with my host sisters. And I has absolutely no idea what was going on. I understood Liv Tyler was with Ben Affleck, but then later Bruce Willis said something about his promise (that much I caught) to Liv Tyler and I wondered if she was actually in love with Bruce Willis. It wasn't until I saw it again, dubbed in Japanese, on the plane back to Japan I knew what actually happened in the movie. It has been about eight years and now I can understand most movies in English without subtitles or dubbing Japanese voices. It's a good thing because if not I wouldn't be able to enjoy any movie life while I'm in the US (well I could use English subtitles, but I usually don't like reading them in English, it tires my eyes).

After everyone left my house Saturday, I was thinking about the movie discussion and how they all seemed to have their own recommended movie lists. So I thought of my own, and here are ten movies that will definitely be in my DVD collection if not already (in no particular order);

-Fried Green Tomatoes
-Ghost World
-Spirited Away
-Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald
-Hedwig and the Angry Inch
-Cabaret
-Mulholland Drive
-Cinema Paradiso
-Farewell My Concubine
-Girl, Interrupted

Not all of them helped me with my English practice, yet I loved them all.