I have seen many movies….I mean many many movies. Probably not as many as some of the people  I  follow who are real movie reviewers unlike me in the blogsphere. They are  the real diehards I have come to know in this thing we call the internet.

I am simply, myself, an avid moviegoer who likes to traverse through  all movies, not really caring for one genre over the other. I look for good quality and uniqueness in the story & characters. I could find it in horror,a drama, a comedy, an action flick , sci-fi, or a fantasy movie.

I found that certain movies have shaped me as a writer in the direction I wish to go in my craft. The five  I have listed below barely scratch the surface for what has moved or shaped me but they are a good sampling to show you where my head is at. I highly recommend seeing any and all of them if you haven’t already. Some of the five I picked  you may recognize right away, while others may be a little more  obscure.  I picked them mainly because of their obscurity because I believe they should be seen.

Btw, I have NOT put them in any particular order of preference or rating for this listing:

NO. 1 –  Safetey Not Guaranteed

I recently saw this first one above on a whim as I was clicking through my Netflix account. I read the premise and I was hooked. You see, I’m a sucker for almost anything that involves time travel big or small. It’s about a guy who puts out a want ad in the newspaper claiming he has invented a time machine and wants a companion on the trip.  “Safety is not Guaranteed and by the way bring your own weapons”.  The movie plays on many subtle levels and I don’t think you will be disappointed. And I will not give away any plot points because I don’t want to spoil the experience for you.

NO. 2 – Dark City

Now Dark City; I saw this movie  a while back in the early part of the 2000’s on video…I never  did see it in the theatres when in it opened in 1998 but wished I had. This movie to me was very ethereal to me. Besides having an ensemble cast of great actors, like Rufus Sewell,Kiefer Sutherland, William Hurt, and Jennifer Connelly,  this movie dragged you into this world of Alice in Wonderland meets the Matrix.  This was probably where the Wachowskis Brothers (sorry brother & sister now) got the idea for their  Matrix movie. This movie put a man in maze like a rat and told him to find your way out…and in the end he did so much more…he thrived and won through bending the maze to his will.

NO. 3 – Groundhog Day

Ah Bill Murray, how I have loved him in so many roles and none more than GroundHog Day!  If you haven’t seen this one then please crawl out from under the rock you have been living under for too long and go buy it. Yes, go buy it, don’t rent it because you will want to see it more than once down the long line that is your life. He’s a weather man in the middle of a mid-life crisis  who doesn’t know he’s having one until he visits the small town of Punxsutawney in PA. As the same day repeats its over and over and over again NO MATTER what he does. He quickly comes to realize he’s trapped in a virtual world of never-ending days and unless he can figure himself out, he may just go mad. What would you do if every day was the same with no consequences no matter what you did?

NO. 4 -Man From Earth

 This story took me by surprise. Made in 2007 and written by a man named Jerome Bixby (who wrote some Star Trek Stories in the 60’s). I found out Jerome actually dictated the final screenplay to his son a screenwriter on his deathbed in 1998. To me right off, it felt like a play on stage for the big screen. It’s a very small and intimate story between a man and his colleagues he has called good friends while working at a University for the last ten years as a teacher. But he has a very big secret…or does he..or is it all just fantasy. It is a very cerebral thought provoking piece of work that will challenge your mind. It may lead you down many different roads of thought about life and your place in it. At least it did for me. What if a friend told you they were a caveman from 14,000 years ago who lived through the ages up until now?

NO 5. Stranger than Fiction

For me Will Ferrell can be hit or miss depending on the roles he plays in any movie I have seen him in. For me, his character in “Stranger than Fiction” hit it out of the park. Here’s a man, named Harold Crick who thinks the world can be enumerated and cataloged and placed in a  nice neat box and tucked safely away. When he starts to hear a voice in his head, more accurately a narrator who tells him how pathetic his life is and then tells him his death may be imminent he begins to rethink what life and really living means to him.

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As my title plainly says, I love writing stories based in reality while bringing in the fantastical element, and it can come in many forms. I want to lend to the reader a sense of escapism and allow them to leave their boring life for just a moment while at the same time grounding them to this earth they call their lives  so they can take it with them when they finally close the book.