My Favorite Movies

In writing a personal profile, I'm often asked about my interests. What movies I like, my favorite music, books I would recommend etc. Usually, I offer up a list of current favorites. Except on those occasions when I feel that my preferences are being recorded for future use. Sound paranoid? Absolutely! Do you know why? On facebook or similar social networking sites, I can be "matched up" with people who have similar interests. Even when I have zero acquaintances in common. Yikes!

But today, I feel a compulsion to at least write down a few of my all time favorite movies. Movies that I can sit down to watch any time without hesitation. Today I found out that Dennis Hopper is dead. To me, he was not just an actor. He was the actor who brought me to Easy Rider. And Easy Rider was the movie that got me through weeks and months of loneliness when I was in Japan. Mombusho was an exciting opportunity, but I was ill-prepared for life in Japan. With no friends, not ready for the cold weather and frequently an outsider, I was lonely and sad as I'd never been before. Till I discovered the LD section of the university media library. And Easy Rider. I found I could laugh at futility and darkness, at my own misery and the hope that comes out of youth, even when that hope is misplaced.

I remember watching How Green Was My Valley as a teenager in my parents home. This movie is probably known only to movie buffs. But I distinctly remember a scene where the rich man's son comes to the poor man's house to ask for his daughter's hand. As the poor man takes a turn, pretending to think this offer over, we see he's holding his boots at his back. A poignant reminder of the futility of this man's attempt to establish his status as the girl's father in the face of the suitor's wealth and rank.

In graduate school, my roommate Anita and I watched Il Postino and Whats Eating Gilbert Grape. How we laughed and cried over them together. The scene where Johnny Depp's mother passes away, or where they buy a cake from the rival grocery store, where Mario Ruoppolo uses metaphors of butterflies to woo his Beatrice, his final gift for Neruda are all stuck in my brain even though I haven't seen the films in ten years.

I have watched many movies over the years. Terry Gillam's Brazil, Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book, Scott Hicks' Snow Falling on Cedars, Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay,Joan Chen's Xiu Xiu have all left a mark. Among recent releases, Bottle Shock, Sideways, Bend It Like Beckham were funny. But for each of these movies I have a story of when, how and with whom. And as I look back to list them I see not only the movies but the faces that I have known, the laughter I have shared and the differences I have experienced.

That is why it is so difficult to simply jot down a few names. Because life comes with a lot of baggage.