Get your popcorn - my son’s top 20 movies.

Big- This was and is still the biggest child wish fulfillment movie ever made. Forget all those garbage tales where parents and their kids switch places because of a magic mirror or a coin in a wishing well or whatever nonsense the writers come up with, Big is it. Kid grows up to work at a toy company. What could be more magical to a boy like me who wasn’t much younger then the main character at the time?

Evil Dead- The evil dead series is a must for any lover of horror and camp (used in the cheesiness sense, not the tent and sleeping bag sense, though the movie sort of satisfies that as well). I put the first one in here not because it’s the best, or even necessarily the most influential, but as the one that opened the door it has seniority. Evil Dead introduced audiences of my generation to intelligent, relatively gore free horror.

Tron- When I was growing up computers were still a little mysterious, not to mention bulky and weak. But to us there was something magical about them. It’s incredible how entertained we were by little green lines rolling around black screens. Tron managed to be just realistic enough to us Neanderthals that we could kind of believe that that’s how computers worked.

Blade Runner- Some people, when they think of the first cerebral sci-fi they ever saw, the first one that posed real questions, that went far beyond firing rifles at invading aliens, they think of 2001. Well, they’re wrong. 2001 is a horrible movie that doesn’t pose any questions, it just meanders for, what, like six hours or something, or maybe the end just feels like six hours. Blade Runner was the first serious sci-fi movie that my generation had and it opened our minds to all kinds of classics in the past, as well as opened the door for thinking more sci-fi to come.

Jurassic Park- Looking back it wasn’t really that good. The kids were annoying as hell, the technology wasn’t even close to correct, and the entire series focused way too much on the raptors. But still, at the time, it was pretty much the most kick-ass thing anybody had ever seen.

Clerks- Kevin Smith’s first movie is amazing… if you are in high school. That’s sort of the problem with Kevin Smith, he’s really great until you grow up, but luckily I wasn’t grown up when I was introduced to him so I had a few years to enjoy his stuff. Clerks not only reflected what we all felt as angsty teenagers worried that we’d never amount to anything, it also showed us that you don’t have to go to Hollywood to get movies. In fact, it was these little auteurs who were really telling our stories.

Pulp Fiction- Sticking with directors who are only entertaining when you’re a kid… I hate Quentin Tarantino, I think his movies are shit, I’ve always thought they were shit, I’ll always think they were shit, but you can’t deny the influence that this movie has had on pretty much every aspect of the pop culture of my generation.

Aliens- My parent’s had Alien, we had Aliens, and we loved it. The movie took everything great about the first movie and made it better. Tighter corridors, more Aliens, more panic, a metric butt-load of bullets! I think a mass of marines with guns made the thing even more frightening over-all because even with all that firepower everyone knew they were all going to die.

The Royal Tenenbaums- This is not my favorite Wes Anderson movie, but I do believe it is the one when he finally got everyone else in the world who was not an outcast to notice him. It was also the movie where he cemented his personal style, taking all the best parts of Rushmore and refining them while adding a few more genius gimmicks that really made the movie stand out.

Fargo- Some of us had already been aware of the Coen Brothers (Raising Arizona has long been one of my favorite movies), but Fargo made EVERYONE aware of the Coens. Great story and the kind of violence that Tarantino wished he could direct. The success of Fargo led the Coens to make…

The Big Lebowski- Almost the exact opposite of Fargo, and much better even then Fargo. The Big Lebowski is almost the perfect movie, both in form and in timing. Jeff Bridges gets to basically play himself as the transcendent slacker, “The Dude” Lebowski, who helps redeem the rest of us slackers by being the hero in the end.

Toy Story- Much like The Simpsons taught us that television cartoons can be fun for the whole family, Toy Story taught us that feature length animations, and computer ones at that (it was pretty much the first decent fully computer animated feature) can be for adults as well as children too. Best of all, it was heartwarming, something Pixar always manages to do regardless of the subject matter.

Pi/Memento- I’ve lumped these two together because basically they are the same movie. Yes they each have their own significance, but their influence fits into the same slot. There was something dark about these movies, something primal and psychological that had never really been attempted before. Kind of like if Hitchcock wrote a movie that took place entirely in the head of a schizophrenic. The rest of Aronofsky’s stuff is shit (The Fountain was ok), but Nolan kept up the good work.

Spider-Man- Our entire nation had been waiting for a good superhero movie until Spider-Man came out. Let’s face it; the Superman movies were actually pretty bad. (Make the Earth spin the opposite direction to turn back time? C’mon!) The first Batman movies were sort of fun if you didn’t pay attention to them, and whoever cast Michael Keaton as Batman was high on something. And of course, any superhero movie made earlier than those can just be thrown away right off. Spider-Man was exactly what a superhero movie should be. It contained the entire gamut of emotions Peter Parker had in the comics, it had love for the story and the art of comic books, it had Stan Lee. Spider-Man was the first in the now long series of well done superhero movies, and for that, we thank you.

Edward Scissorhands- As much as I dislike Tim Burton and am tired of his sad-sack routine, I have to admit this was a beautiful movie to watch. Tim Burton proved he could be that line between sanity and lunacy that Cronenberg and Lynch never could quite walk. Edward Scissorhands made us feel it was ok to be sad, something that would be touched on in my sister’s generation with Donnie Darko, but frankly, I think Burton did it better.

Lord of the Rings- This series really transcends generations, it should be on everyone’s list. ‘Nuff said.

Showgirls- My generation’s movies could be really good, but they could be really really bad too. Showgirls is on this list because, if nothing else, people are still talking about it. There were probably a bunch of excellent films that came out at the same time that absolutely no one is talking about, but right now, somewhere, somebody is reminiscing about watching that completely filthy, awful movie.

Life is Beautiful- Life is Beautiful made it ok to enjoy a foreign film. For a lot of people, watching this movie was the first time they allowed themselves to watch a movie with subtitles. It’s a gorgeous movie that deserves to be watched by everyone, but for its role in opening up America’s large theatres, not just its art houses, to foreign films, it goes on this list.

The Matrix- I’ve saved the bottom two movies for the bottom two movies. We’ll start with The Matrix which everyone was sure, at the time, was the greatest movie ever produced. Of course now we know it was possibly the worst thing to star Keanu Reeves (and it’s got some competition people). Still, it introduced us to bullet time, awesome “kung-fu”, cool sunglasses, leather trench coats, big guns shooting many many many many many bullets, “There is no spoon”… I could make a huge list here. It’s too bad it couldn’t live up to its own expectations, but it was pretty cool while it lasted.

Star Wars- Though I am now loathe to admit it, Star Wars probably had more influence on my early adulthood than anything else, including my parents. The worst part is, if it wasn’t for George Lucas fucking around with the films and adding three new horrible ones I’d probably still be a huge Star Wars geek. Well, while it was still “cool” Star Wars was more important to my friends and me then getting laid, and this was well into our twenties. So, though it is with some trepidation that I say it, Star Wars is by far the most influential film of my generation.