Most Memorable Movie Experience

faceman

Whats your most memorable movie experience? I dont mean sitting down the back wearing the face off that girl you fancied for ages!! I mean what experience stands out to you the most. I have 3, 2 from older flicks old and one more recent.

The Matrix:
When i went to see this, i knew nothing about it. The sole reason why i avoided knowing anything about it was keanu reeves. I went to see it with 2 friends in its first week as "there was nothing else on". I genuinely mean it when i say i had no idea what the film was going to be about or even what genre it was etc prior to seeing it. So i obviously got a big surprise when the agents take neo into the room and his mouth sealed up when he doesnt cooperate. I'll never forget it, a woman next to me turned to me and asked if i knew what the film was about and i said no! so as you can imagine, the flick proceeded to blow me away!

12 Angry Men:
Hairs stood up on the back of me neck. It was the first time i saw it, about 12 years ago on tv. Had heard about it but had never seen it. The scene where fonda gets into a bit of a barney with lee j. cobb. All it took was one line that fonda said to make those hairs stand up. last 2 lines of scene:
Cobb: "I'll kill him! I'LL KILL HIM!"
Fonda: "You don't *really* mean you'll kill me, do you?"

The Exorcist:
maybe an odd insertion but the scene with the cruxifix was to me, one of the most powerful symbols in cinema history. It really amplified the horror the film was created without going for obvious scares. If God wont help that girl, no one will. I remember the first time watching it in my teens thinking i should go to Mass more!

Anyway, whats your most memorable movie experiences and why?

Frankmagnet

For me it has to be seeing the Goonies on the big screen in the usa in 2003. Was my fave film ever when I was younger. Finished work one night and went for a walk around the town where i was living. Noticed one of the local cinemas had midnight screening. Walked in to check what they were and the Goonies was playing:D:D
Went back the next night and saw THX 1138. Also a great experence

Running Bing

I'll probably get no end of abuse for this but mine would have to be Kill Bill volume 1!


I went into the cinema not knowing a thing about the film and it just blew me away. Opened my eyes to a whole other world of filmmaking outside Hollywood. Stylistically it is one of the greatest film's ever imo.

Running Bing

Frankmagnet wrote:

For me it has to be seeing the Goonies on the big screen in the usa in 2003. Was my fave film ever when I was younger. Finished work one night and went for a walk around the town where i was living. Noticed one of the local cinemas had midnight screening. Walked in to check what they were and the Goonies was playing:D:D
Went back the next night and saw THX 1138. Also a great experence

You have to love America:D

Ghost Train

Joyeux Noel a day or two before christmas day

Polar express imax 3D version again it was around christmas time, really great movie experience

Supercell

For me it has to be Zonead which will be released next year. Its apparently a comedy about an alien that lands into a small one horse town.

They have spent the day filming in front of my house today.
The makeup trailers are in front of my sitting room window so can see right in..which is pretty cool.
So many very very skinny girls and actor types milling about.
For a ordinary guy like myself its pretty exciting to see it all happening outside my window
I've chatted to various members of the entourage and its been pretty fun to be able to mingle so close to it all.
They are still there right now packing up.
I can't wait to see it in the cinema.

So there you have my most memorable movie experience..and I haven't seen it yet !

johnny_ultimate

Watching Spirited Away for the first time. I remember just sitting there as the credits / concept art and just being absolutely stunned. I would say only two or three others have left me with that feeling: Once recently.

INLAND EMPIRE is also an... experience. That's another one that just leaves you completely dazed and cofused after emerging from a dark room following 3 hours of utter madness.

tman

Donnie Darko - this was back when DVDs hadn't taken over from VHS fully yet, so as soon as I finished watching it the first time, I hit rewind and watched it again... fantastic movie:)

Running Bing

johnny_ultimate wrote:

Watching Spirited Away for the first time. I remember just sitting there as the credits / concept art and just being absolutely stunned. I would say only two or three others have left me with that feeling: Once recently.

INLAND EMPIRE is also an... experience. That's another one that just leaves you completely dazed and cofused after emerging from a dark room following 3 hours of utter madness.

Agreed definitely not one you will forget quickly.

Must say I didnt like it but it left a real impression on me.

Im definately gonna go back to it and have another look.

Doctor DooM

Watching Optimus Prime die in the original Transformers movie.

I still have not forgiven the creators!

Unbreakables twist was also a good one. Wont spoil it

Retr0gamer

Going to see save the green planet and not knowing anything about it. There were two questions I was asking myself when I left the cinema, what the hell had I just witnessed and was that one of the best movies I've ever seen.

Zaph

Star Wars in the Bray Royal cinema when I was 10. It was a bit of a dump, but that didn't matter as I was enthralled for a couple of hours by what was on the screen in front of me. The only time since then that I have ever left a cinema speechless at what I had just seen was when I saw Lost in Translation. The visual impact was the closest to what I experienced when I saw Star Wars.

Seeing my favourite film, Some Like it Hot, on the big screen in the Savoy a few years ago was a big thrill too, but in a different way to the other two films.

ixoy

A few for me:

Seeing "Fight Club", knowing little of what it was about, and being bowled over by it and the directorial flourishes of Fincher.

Ditto with RetroGamer on "Save the Green Planet". Hurrah for the Tartan Asian Film Festival that brought it to us.

Seeing "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" on opening night with a crowd that were completely wired for it. Nothing like an appreciate audience which leads me to..

Seeing the early screening of "Serenity" with Simon and Kaylee in attendance and about half of boards (or so it seemed afterwards). Great atmosphere there.

Gauge

Seeing La Vita è bella / Life is Beautiful for the first time. I cry very easily at movies, but this was the first time I was so moved that I was completely inconsolable! One of the most amazing films I've ever seen.

tman

ixoy wrote:

Ditto with RetroGamer on "Save the Green Planet". Hurrah for the Tartan Asian Film Festival that brought it to us.

That's me sold anyway. I've loved every Korean film that I've seen so far, so ordered this without hesitation...

johnny_ultimate

zaph wrote:

Star Wars in the Bray Royal cinema when I was 10. It was a bit of a dump, but that didn't matter as I was enthralled for a couple of hours by what was on the screen in front of me. The only time since then that I have ever left a cinema speechless at what I had just seen was when I saw Lost in Translation. The visual impact was the closest to what I experienced when I saw Star Wars.

Actually Lost In Translation would be up there for me. I actually didn't know what to think of what Id just seen and me and my friends remained silent for around 2 or 3 minutes after leaving. Then someone chimed in "That was pretty good wasn't it?". I would tend to agree.

And also ditto on Star Wars in Bray - Episode One for me. At the tender age of ten or eleven I had been completely consumed by the hype and was not at an age to actually be critical of a film I was looking foward to. Great experience, even if it the film hasn't stood the test of time.

I remember getting into a press screening of Return of the King when in work experience in the Herald during TY. Terrific - especially taunting my friends about it before we went to see it two or three days after

Would have loved to see Save The Green Planet blind in the cinema Terrific film, but I think the impact was slightly diminished by DVD and hype around these parts. Ah well, still loved it.

qwertplaywert

The ''Cant Stop the Serenity'' Serenity screening in cineworld in june.Nuff said

nacho libre

Bicycle Thief
12 Angry Men

Decuc500

Scream at the Dublin Film Festival. Savoy 1, midnight screening, great audience.

bubonicus

Movie moment would be the nazies bursting into the living room in An American werewolf in london.

lazlo

1. Seeing Lawrence of Arabia on 70mm.

2. First time seeing Mulholland Drive in the cinema.

3. Seeing Andrei Rublev for the first time.

Eirebear

Have to agree with spirited away...i seen it a just after it was released in the cinemas and the hype hadnt really taken full control yet, i think i must have told every single person i met for the next month to go and see it!.

The first movie i ever saw in the pictures was also extremely memorable to me to me...Ghostbusters, ive loved the cinema ever since.

tuppence

Cinema paradiso- Probably the most beautiful film I've seen ,nothing comes close since for me anyway. And sound track, Maraconi, isnt it?. Best bit of all is the scene of all the edited kisses together along with the song track.

The Sixth Sense- All the scenes with the spirits really. The bit were the young boy (dead) invites him to play with his fathers gun. And we see thats the way he had died. Freaked the life outa me. :eek:

TerrorFirmer

Watching Starship Troopers aged 12. the sheer gung ho brutality and being mixed in with my favourite genre, sci-fi, created a movie experience that has never been bettered in my memories.

Wacker

To echo the OP, the Matrix. I saw it in the first week of it's release, and I was already looking forward to it due to ads I had seen. It blew my head off. The moment when Neo does the cartwheel, grabs the M - 16 and blasts the three guys while still upside down was the moment when every single thing I had ever seen before became obsolete.

I had a similair experience during the Return of the King, with the lighting of the beacons and the charge of the Rohirim. That one was a little bit annoying, because I had made a serious effort to get tickets for the opening night of the first two, and when I tried booking tickets for the ROTK, the best I could get was the third night. I worked in a newsagent right beside the cinema at the time, and I had hundreds of school girls coming in who were going to the first day of it as a school trip. Half of them were saying stuff like "It was soooo boring. Maybe I'd have liked it more if I saw the other ones though." I missed out on account of them?!?!!

A good athmosphere in a cinema screen makes a huge difference, and I love the feeling of realizing that you're witnissing something special.

hotnipples

Gotta be Aliens! Hasn't been beaten yet. It's THE action film.

jacko

just saw almost famous on tv last week. remember seeing it in the cinema when it came out first. the part where the lead guitarist rejoins the band after going to the party, when they're all in the tour bus and elton johns 'tiny dancer' is playing on the radio. class scene, really made the film

The Denouncer

Seeing Blade Runner twice in the cinema but when I first saw it on a portable TV in the mid-eighties I was blown away. Also seeing Brazil I was amazed, it disturbed me but I had to watch it again due to the dreams I had after it. Silence of the Lambs in the cinema had a huge affect at that time, the early nineties. The Matrix was also an incredible feeling when I emerged.

Theboinkmaster

4 stand out:

When I was 11/12 Cabelink used to scramble the movie channels for the odd weekend - watched Die Hard as looked interesting and was blown away thought it was amazing and still do

Going to cinema with my mom when I was 15 to UCI Tallaght - saw Shawshank Redemption having heard nothing about it and not knowing anything about it - best cinema experience ever

Going to cinema (think was about 14/15) for friend's birthday (back in the innocent days) going to see True Lies - thought it was the perfect blockbuster, very enjoyable

In recent times - went to comic con in July 2006 and met Borat, though he stayed in character - got passes for some screening of the film in san diego and didn't know anything about it. Went to the screening and was sat beside isla fisher and her family and watched the film - was great experience, had tears in my eyes from start to finish and watching it without any hype for the first time with an american audience was great, I especially remember their nervous laughs at the 9/11 joke

I love films

Vokes

Has to be opening day (same day worldwide release) of the Fellowship in Cineworld Dublin - a morning viewing IIRC.

The screen was packed out solid. The general atmosphere of the crowd was very intense - would the film meet its high expectations? Would it be any good or would it just simply blow?

The trailers finished and the NewLine logo pops up. Black screen ......and then Cate Blanchett starts to narrate, and you hear the first strains of Shore's score - and somehow knew instantly this was gonna be something special.

And it was - came out of the cinema gobsmacked (I, who had read the book) and a friend gobsmacked (who hadn't read the book).

faceman

Actually i just thought of something else there. When i was in movie college, the class were invited to a private screening of The English Patient in Savoy 1 one morning followed by a Q&A with the director, Anthony Minghella.

Most of us blokes werent too keen of watching an overdrawn love story but none the less. The scene were Fiennes carries Thomas out of the cave in his arms with the immense score building into a cresendo in the background definitely moved many of us to tears.

Hmm_Messiah

for cinema experience

Casino Royale in an enormous cinema in Riga, Latvia

Transformers @ Imax in London

Silence of the Lambs with my girlfriend

As in "blow you away" movie experiences : erm


Being There - especially the ending (pre-credits)
Lawrence of Arabia - the size of the desert, and of Peter O Tooles performance
Close Encounters -
ET -
AI - I just absolutely loved this movie

watna

Mine would have to be the first time I watched the third man. If you haven't seen it watch it! The cinematography is just amazing and even though it was filmed in 1948 it still seemed new to me. I watched it a while back with my bf whose really into films and he felt the same, he was blown away by it. Watching it with him knowing he was really going to enjoy it made it a great experience for me too.

missingtime

In no particular order:

The Matrix
Jurassic Park
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Incredibles
The Lives of Others
Lost in Translation
Something about Mary - if only for the scene where you see him caught in his zip. Hearing that many people laugh with disgust at the same time was great.
The Bourne Identity movies....

There's probably a few more, just cant think of them

CiDeRmAn

Seeing Star Wars on the big screen when it was originally released, I was 7 and was blown away, despite not entirely understanding what was going on!
Seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark on its original release in the Metropole with my uncle, we went into the screen too early before the previous screening was finished, remember when you do that?, and I was treated to a guy having his face melted, to this day that scene freaks me out.
Seeing Jurassic Park, redefined what was possible onscreen, or rather drew the line in the sand saying "from now on nothing is impossible".
Listening to everyone cheer when Yoda whipped out his light saber in Episode II.
Seeing Beetlejuice for the first time in the Adelphi I think, WOW, I've been a Burton fan ever since.
Finally seeing 2001 and Dune on the big screen thanks to the IFI, awesome stuff!
And lastly, the joy at seeing The Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy on the big screen, wonderful, even if the diodes all down my left side are aching!

Otis Driftwood

Seeing August Undergrounds Mordum for the first time.
Sickest film I have ever seen.
Still is and I doubt it will ever be topped.
Hopefully it will be though.:D

irishash

For me it would be 3 occasions:

1.Attending the star wars celebration day in may 2005 at Leicester sq in London. To see all 6 eps in one day and before the last to hear George Lucas talk about the films and his future was a moment in my film life I will never forget.

2.Seeing raiders of the lost ark on a big screen in a park in Reno, Nevada with about 600 other people – really showed me what film is all about and how it can bring people together if you have the right film.

3.First time I saw jaws – simple as.