To The Man Who Taught Me To Love Movies

I don't ever do this because I hate it. I understand that people grieve differently and some people need to put everything out in the open and some people are just looking for attention. I don't like to put any of my personal business on blast for you Facebook-ers to give me a "I'm so sorry" comment for my own validation. That's why over the years, I haven't done a "This is the X anniversary of the death of Y". I don't need to. I don't need to showcase it on the Internet. But, for some reason, I am today.

Today is March 9th, 2017.  On this day, twelve years ago, my father passed away at the age of 42 from cancer. Most of you know this... the ones who don't... I appreciate your private/silent condolences, but there is no reason to say anything further on the matter.

Obviously, this was a significant moment in my life. This is a moment when everything I ever knew for my 17 years of life changed.  And it wasn't just my life.  It was my sister's 15 years of life.  It was my mother's near 20 years of marriage and everyone my father ever knew who was touched by his kindness. There are seriously an infinite amount of things I do and will forever remember about my father. But, other than baseball, the biggest thing that keeps us connected are the movies.

As a kid, I was always into movies. I'd act them out in my backyard with plastic guns or in my pool imagining I'm in a mountain climbing movie and the harness I'm attached to are really six or seven old little league stretchy belts I'd connected together. I grew up loving movies so much that I still am on a mission to make writing them my career (that's a different post). But, I don't think I'd have such a fondness for films if it wasn't for my father.

My dad wasn't a third of the movie buff that I am, but the movies that he truly loved... he TRULY loved them. Much like music, or a song, when randomly heard, can send you back to a truly memorable time... there are movies that I instantly relate only to my father. Most of these are movies I would constantly watch with him, but some are just movies he loved to watch... that the rest of us didn't so much care for (Seriously, dad... Seabiscuit???)

I polled my mother and my sister, without telling them about this post asking them to give me movies that they relate ONLY to my father. There are movies (like The Mummy or The Long Kiss Goodnight) that I relate to my dad, but I also relate to my mom and sister.  I'm talking movies that even a single mention of it makes us think of my father. So, for this day, here is a list of some movies that my dad loved, that even after twelve years, one (or all) of us still attribute to my dad.

Mom:
Lethal Weapon
Die Hard (I can always hear him quoting it)
Christmas Vacation (How hard he laughed at the sledding scene)
Ruthless People (How hard he laughed at the whole movie)
Beauty and the Beast (He took me to see it at the Pantages)
Speed (The first time he saw it was on a plane w/out sound, and he still loved it)
Bull Durham
Dirty Dancing (He watched it with me all the time when I was pregnant with you... he liked it... not that much)
Eight Men Out
Stripes
The Sixth Sense
Crimson Tide
The Fugitive
Men in Black

Katie:
Catch Me if you Can
The Shawshank Redemption
Drop Dead Gorgeous
Liar Liar (Quoted ALL
The Mask  the TIME)
The Prince of Egypt (Organized a church "field trip" to see it)
Lethal Weapon (Never even watched with him, but remembers how much he loved it)
The Rookie
Most Harrison Ford movies

Me:
Major Payne (The movie him and I would watch all the time, just the two of us, when I was young).
Lethal Weapon (Our favorite Christmas movie to watch together... well maybe 2nd favorite)
The Shawshank Redemption (He showed this to me first, now it is my favorite movie as well)
Happy Gilmore (Like Major Payne, this was our guy's movie together)
For Love of the Game
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (Showed it to me when I was young, even when mom said no)
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Pirates of the Caribbean
61*
Groundhog Day (His love for Bill Murray became my love for Bill Murray)
A Christmas Story (Our actual first favorite Christmas movie to watch together)
Liar Liar (Took me to see it in theaters, we couldn't breathe we laughed so hard)
October Sky
Ocean's Eleven
The Emporer's Club
Raiders of the Lost Ark (He knew how to educate me on the classics)
Most Kevin Costner movies (He even admitted Costner was a terrible actor, but loved the movies)
And, ugh, Seabiscuit



However, my father was not without his flaws. He gave me my love for movies and he was my movie buddy when everyone else was sick of hearing me ask, "you guys wanna watch a movie tonight?" But, there was one movie that he absolutely HATED. He repeatedly told me I was nuts for liking this movie. Years and years later, I actually made him sit down and watch it with me again because the movie is such a classic that I convinced him he missed the joke the first time.  He watched it again and he still hated it.

The movie... Dumb & Dumber

I guess there's no accounting for taste. Miss ya, pop. I'm gonna watch Major Payne right now.