It Was a Very Violent Year - What Movie Are YOU?

The game is this. Look up movies that came out on your year of birth. Select NOT the one you like best, but RATHER the one that best represents your life in terms of mood, theme, incident and characters.

(Tips: Google "Movies YEAR" and you should have the most popular possibilities to scroll through at the top. For cinephiles or if you find nothing useful, the first link is usually an IMDB list of all films from that year. Down a link or two is a Wikipedia page that lists some films' release dates.)

Now, I was born in 1971, the year of Clockwork Orange, Dirty Harry, Get Carter, Straw Dogs and Shaft--I mean what the heck was happening?! Not just violent films, but movies that actively EXPLORED violence. That's not me at all! I seem to remember reading some kind of Mad Magazine "Violence Special" (judging from the date, probably the one above) which had a number of reprinted parodies of violent films and television shows from the 70s. I feel like it was wall-to-wall Dirty Harry/Shaft/Clockwork Orange jokes (13-year-old jokes sounds about right). Looking at the list of possible films, that memory bubbled inside me like so much rage. The rise of independent film and relaxation of censorship took us to the point after a few watershed films in the late 60s, but I don't identify with the movement. Nor with the cynical sf of the time (movies like The Omega Man and The Andromeda Strain).

So I feel a little silly saying this, but I think the Movie of of My Life is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!
A would-be mentor in whimsy acting like a jerk until he's found someone worthy, or otherwise like the Doctor, inviting people to his home to discover new tastes and sights? Kind of sounds like me.

I mean, it sure ain't Walkabout, even if it came out a few days before I was actually born! (Or Shaft, which is even closer.)

What about you? What's the movie of YOUR life, according to these rules?

Comments

Tim Knight said…
1966 - either Manos: The Hands Of Fate or The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
snell said…
1964--Goldfinger. 'nuff said. Honorable mention for My Fair Lady and Dr. Strangelove.
Shotgun Godin said…
1989 - Dead Poets Society. You said it yourself: A movie about a teacher where the main message is "Carpe Diem"!

I'm the YOLO queen after all!
Doctor Futurity said…
1971 for me as well....but that means Omega Man and Escape from the Planet of the Apes do explain my fixation on dystopian and post-apocalyptic SF....! Really though, the first two movies I remember watching as a kid that really impacted me were Guns of Navarrone and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly....saw both about a year before Star Wars came out.
Toby'c said…
1989 as well, Dead Poets Society as well, though I may be stretching it.
Anonymous said…
Hmmm, 1972 for me; I'm tempted to say "Behind the Green Door", but that's more wishful thinking than anything. My life would probably best be represented by something farcical, like "What's Up Doc?" or a weird, dark story like "Slaughterhouse-Five".

"Play It Again Sam" would be cool, but Bogey's never walked off the screen to help me with my love life ... at least, not yet.

Mike W.
Anonymous said…
1965...
The Agony and the Ecstacy for sure. Sometimes I'm Heston, sometimes I'm Harrison.

Jeff R. said…
Also 1971, which is getting extremely picked over at this point. (In addition to violence in general, when you go beyond the top 50 there certainly seem to be way more vampire, satan, and serial killers than one might expect.)

I'm going to pass over the two strong comedy options (Bananas and The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight) to go for Gamera versus Zigra
Brendoon said…
A good game!
The hand I have to play with is 1970. It startles me how FEW of those movies I've watched.
I haven't got the balls to be Patton.
While my early attempts at life and the universe were misinformed by M*A*S*H, it wasn't the movie version.
I'm too starry eyed to pull off Catch-22 and I'm far too nuts to fit "One Flew Over the etc."

Not buff enough to be Hercules In New York.

Never watched it, but I'd always thought that "Woodstock" would be my awesome lot in life. More a mild deception than an actual destiny!
Brendoon said…
In fact, the badly sucking "Mr Holland's Opus" from the early 90's has turned out more accurate. "What a loser that guy is," I thought. "I hate this movie!"
However, there really are more important things than being a rock star, which was the point of the movie.
Anonymous said…
1974.

I'd love to say Young Frankenstein or even Blazing Saddles (yes, those came out the same year...), but with as much as I spend my life in front of a screen, probably The Terminal Man is most appropriate.
Unknown said…
1955.

I'll go with Marty -- middle-aged schlub looking for love.

Wadda you wanna do tonight?
Erich said…
1970 for me. As much as I'd like to be the insanity of El Topo or the debauchery of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, I'd have to sadly admit my life (and everybody's life, really) is closer to the quiet frustration of Five Easy Pieces.
Stu Ordana said…
The year was 1967 and I was born on Easter. As I would like to think I was suave like the main characters in You Only Live Twice or In Like Flint, or a rebel like in Cool Hand Luke (without the prison), or just tough like in the Dirty Dozen or Hombre. I was not.

My early life would probably be a mixture of The Graduate, The Jungle Book (crazy wild life), The Comedians (group of friends) and Two for the Road (I drank a lot).

My life now would be Doctor Doolittle (taking care of parent's hoard of cats) and Bare Foot in the Park as I have some romance in my life.

And on a side note, I really hated the James Bond spoof Casino Royale.
Anonymous said…
1974 and I'd be remiss for not picking The Towering Inferno. Life has been a spectacular disaster with some nice moments within.
Anonymous said…
1967 - there's really no choice, "Catalina Caper". This is me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv0S2gzcEeU
Siskoid said…
I saw on Science Mystery Theater 3000!
Anonymous said…
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

An exceedingly clever and often funny story about people who keep having disturbing glimpses of their small purpose in a larger world while unable to change anything about it.

(I am not always cheery about life in general, I admit)
A cynical curmudgeon wallows through life on jobs that are few and far between having to put up and trip over all the loud intrusive and overly annoying antics of all the other characters.

(Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1988)