Can you pick a favourite film? It's a fuck of a question to ask anyone really. Top 10? No problem. Top 5. Errr, bit of a struggle. Top 1? Not a hope. I've 3 and I'd never be able to pick one over the other. Seen each of them a silly amount of times. One of them I basically know off by heart. I love everything about them. One of my favourite things about the films I love are the memories attached to them. When I first saw them, the moment they grabbed me and wouldn't let go, where I saw them and who I saw them with.
Goodfellas
I was 15 the first time I saw this one. I'd wanted to see it for an age but the local video shop wouldn't let me rent it because it had an 18 cert. A very deserved 18 cert as I found out later. One day over Easter RTE showed it as their evening movie.( I remember this Easter vividly cos Kurt Cobain died while we were on holidays from school) We had just gotten a TV in our room so there was no way I was going to miss this one. I told my ma I was retiring early to study for my junior cert mocks but not a hope did she believe me. She knew well what I was going upstairs to watch. I settled in. The film was about to start. The voice at the beginning said "This unabridged showing of Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas contains very strong language and scenes of extreme violence." This was like manna from heaven to a film crazed teenager. The opening scene blew me away. Three minutes in and I was hooked and by the time Joe Pesci was talking about a bankjob in Seacaucus I knew this was going to be a fave in years to come. Roscrea in the mid 90's was RTE1 & 2 land so when we got back to school all we could talk about was the gangster film that had been on a few days before hand. We were sold.
Dawn Of The Dead
I remember it well. The VHS cover above staring down at me. I'd read about this film so much but had never gotten to see it. And now here it was hovering over me on the top shelf of the video section. I had to play it cool. I reached up for it and carried it to the counter trying not to give away my age with too much excitement. The owner was in a good mood so I handed over my £1.50 and floated out the door. I gathered the boys. We ran to whichever house was free of parents. The film went on. Fags were lit. The screen went wavey. AAAHHHH, the tape wasn't working. Panic stations. Ok, no the tracking was off (remember tracking?? grrrr) but quickly fixed and the movie finally started. The SWAT team assault on a tenement building. Wolly, the crazed racist cop running wild with a shotgun. The basement full of the undead. The shopping centre full of zombies. The bikers. Zombies devouring said bikers. Then suddenly it was over. Two hrs had flown by. We were hooked. It was missing all the gooey bits I'd read about over the years because of stupid British censorship but we didn't care. We'd just seen something special. I returned the film the next day and bought it from the shop for a fiver the following week.
The Outlaw Josey Wales
I was 19 or 20 the first time I saw this. I'd always been a western fan growing up but this one had eluded me for years. One lazy summer evening me and my cousin Bobby decided to go to The Hogan Stand for a few pints. It was one of those quiet nights where there's about seven people in the pub. We were by far the youngest and took the opportunity to sit at the bar with the grown ups. The TV was on in the corner but no one was taking any notice. It was that lovely era pre mobile phones where people used to actually talk to each other in public. All that talking was about to stop. One of the aul boys piped up "Here, turn up that TV." We turned and looked as Clint Eastwood's Josey ploughed his family's field and then stopped suddenly seeing smoke rising above the trees. That was it, no one in the pub talked for the next two hours or so. Pints were ordered by a raising off an eyebrow. I was enthralled and by the time Josey was letting loose with a Gatling gun on a battalion of redlegs nothing could have torn us away from the TV, not even my bladder which was screaming blue murder at me. This is still one of my favourite movie related memories. Guinness, Benson & Hedges and the greatest western of all time.
Do you remember your first time? That you saw your favourite film I mean. Fnarr.
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