The start to my quest for movies.

Since as long as I can remember, I've been enjoying movies. There are probably two movies that have mattered the most to me, two movies I watched at a very young age and they probably have opened the door to my now movie-me. Wow, that almost sounds as if I'm starring in a movie myself! Anyway... those two movies are: Dracula and Terminator 2: Judgment day. While today I don't really like Francis Ford Coppola, (I think he's one of the slowest directors of this day and age, well, of the well known directors that is. And yes, I hated the The Godfather trilogy and I thought Apocalypse Now was a total bore. Big respect goes out to my mom, who watched the entire, mind numbing long, movie in Paris, dubbed in French, without subs. Really. Respect!) I'm still much of an Arnold Schwarzenegger girl (really, I can bet my life on it that I'll come to talk about that someday too :P). I watched Dracula when I was six, with my then best friend ever and her father and my mom was highly displeased with it. What kind of parent would let a six year old watch a horror movie filled with so much sexual tension, that the child watching is bound to get screwed up? (No pun intended. But hey, I might have discovered here why my mind is permanently in the gutter!) She was sure I'd get nightmares out of it, but I didn't. Or maybe I did, I'm not really sure, because I did dream about the movie for a few days in a row, but never about the scariest parts of the movie. I re-watched it when I was older and understood why I wasn't impressed as a six year old, because it's a Francis Ford Coppola movie and everything Coppola touches, turns into a total bore and a long one at that too.

It's a whole different story with T2. I LOVE this movie. I loved it when I first watched it when I was seven, and I love it now. While it's from 1991, it clearly is a leftover from the 80's action movies. I LOVE the 80's when it comes down to movies. Most of the time they're awful, horrible, poor, and awful, but I like them. It's absolutely a unique era when it comes down to movies and that's why I do not believe in remaking those movies or in kicking them back to live by creating sequel number whatever that no one's asking for. In my humble opinion, T2 is one of the best action movies ever made. With, whatever you may want to say about the guy, a perfect role by Arnie. I may not be a big fan of James Cameron (well, at least he isn't Steven Spielberg. It really doesn't make any sense, but I dislike Spielberg so much, that I dislike his movies just because he directed them. It doesn't matter if they're actually good (like Schindler's List for instance) I still dislike them, just because Spielberg directed them. I know, not something that looks good on an almost professional movie watcher! But at least I'm being honest about it ;)), but with Terminator he created a movie legend. I really think that if you're such a movie nerd as I am, this is a movie that should be on your 'I watched these movies and they were awesome' list. T2 is one of those movies that I watch at least once a year and it never gets boring. I know what happens, but it doesn't matter. Robert Patrick in his role as the T-1000 is still the fastest man on earth in my eyes. And the scene in which Arnie pulls a gun out of his bouquet of roses and starts shooting, is still as epic as ever. Of course, in the end T2 is nothing more than a 137 minute long chase through the city, but that doesn't matter, because the chase is awesome and filled with adrenaline. What makes the movie so great to me, is that Cameron succeeded in building a credible and realistic (as far as that word fits) relationship between a human and a machine. Cameron didn't forget that a machine can learn and that means that it can learn to be human. At least, to some extent. It can learn to understand certain things that come normal to humanity, but are foreign to a machine that's, in essence, only build to serve. But just in that idea, that idea of to serve, Cameron found room for learning. Because, in the end, if a machine doesn't understand what someone is asking of him, how can he do as he's been told? If I give my computer to run the command aiyajadiuhdhd and it doesn't understand it, nothing's gonna happen. I cried my eyes out the first time I watched the movie, when the Terminator had to terminate itself.

Maybe there's one other movie I should mention before posting this post. I didn't watch it at the same age I watched the aforementioned movies, but it still plays a big part in my love for movies. It's also a movie I at least watch once every year again. The Exorcist is in my eyes still one of the very best horror movies out there. While of course it's a much older movie and people have discovered other ways to give terror and horror a face, but The Exorcist has, in my eyes, never ever lost its value. Coming from a whole other era, 1973, it still has shock value, because what is happening in that movie, still happens in a lot of other movies in this era. Only The Exorcist still does a better job at it. Another reason why this movie is so good, is that it's successful in mixing drama and horror together, creating perfect balance. It's not just about the horror, about the girl being possessed and terrorized by a - or more - demon(s), but also about what it does to the family structure, to the friendships of her mother and most importantly: to the mother herself. The despair that she feels has been given a prominent place in the movie and has been build up so realistically, that - aside from asking whether or not something like this could be really true - you can believe that this is real. Also, the make-up is AWESOME. I've never seen Hollywood doing a better job at it in later movies than they did in The Exorcist. Add the magnificent special effects, which, in my eyes, still are better than most CGI we get nowadays, and you've got yourself a perfect horror movie, that dares to ask (good) questions about faith, without being judgmental. It's an intelligent horror movie, with intelligent dialogues rather than just screaming, mindless girls. The Exorcist actually is also about the story, as to where most horror movies we get nowadays, aren't at all anymore. It's just to watch the pretty girl running with dancing boobs and screaming, right before she gets beheaded by a serial killer that, even if he walks as slow as he possibly can, still manages to get somewhere faster than her.