My Movie List – Nils Geylen
Nils Geylen is sole proprietor at No Dependencies/No Logo. A 9rules member and 37-year old resident of Belgium, Geylen is a web editor by trade and an obsessive twitterer by nature (I swear – every time I check, there are seventeen tweets from Nils in just a few hours).
Movies That Did Something (To Me)
It’s hard thinking of favourite films as it is, let alone films that were somehow “life-changing” but these, well, I “lived” with all of them for some time, and they were definitely defining, some way or other.
Star Wars (1977)
Because it’s what started the idea. I explain why it meant something to me in my post, and I can’t really circumvent it. I suppose the fairy-tale approach and the idea of escaping something, even though you’re not sure what it is, even though you might just make a tour back to yourself the long way, is something that appealed to me, and still does.
Wonder Boys (2000)
I actually wrote a guest post about this one too (I forget where). I’ve always been drawn to the self-centred narrative, the guy who thinks he’s a loser and is stuck in a rut but then discovers there’s bigger losers than he is and crawls out of it clean the other side. That, and the acting is great, the collegiate atmosphere spot-on and the cramped storytelling mesmerizing (it’s only about two days or so, dealing with a small group of losers all stuck in a rut).
Manhunter (1986)
The first in the Hannibal Lecter series that was overlooked by most critics and fans but in my opinion is the best and the only one. It introduced to me to Michael Mann (who at that point I only knew from Miami Vice) and his awesome and unique talent of telling a story the way it should be told: tense, tight, right. It’s an ode to clean, stark, minimalist filming.
Bande à Part (1964)
While he’s done tonnes of other brilliant films, this is my favourite Jean-Luc Godard of all time. It’s just sweet and weird and disquieting, all in one go. The story isn’t much, the people in it aren’t much (losers too) and their dancing sucks, but to me it was a revelation when I first saw it: cinéma at its best. It also helped me discover the brilliant Long Island independent Hal Hartley who just loves to recreate that atmosphere of endless dialogue, pointless inaction and stilted fight scenes. An no, don’t tell me I should like Tarantino for that same reason – I hate his work.
WarGames (1983)
It was me. David Lightman was me. An angst-ridden, asocial teenage kid in the Cold War 80s who preferred sitting in his room tapping away at his IMSAI (well, VIC20 for me) rather than meet real people – let alone girls! Me and a buddy made a BASIC video game based on it, I drew comics based on it. In a way, I was always disappointed when they managed to save the world after all. I was in that kind of state. Still a classic in my mind.