Project 365: Day 37 — Movies I’d Make My Kids Watch

Inspired by my partner Nihal, known on Medium by his Twitter pseudonym Kung Fu Panda , I’m writing a list today. He wrote a list of 50 movies, he’d show aliens if they ever visited Earth. With his fascination for sci-fi, I wouldn’t expect otherwise. I have a slightly different take on it though.

A list of movies I’ll show my kids. I genuinely believe life’s best lessons come from films and in my head, I know there’s a few films I’d definitely want my kids to watch when they’re older. Here’s a few films I’d like them to watch when they’re of the appropriate age.

• Lootera: This will be my favourite “romantic” film for a long, long time to come. There’s magic in this film and if I could describe it in one word, it would be melancholy. It helps that my partner and I are huge fans of this film. If I remember correctly, one of the first few things we hit it off on was this film. So there’s something to tell the kids. Given how this film is set in the fifties, they’re likely to think their parents were romantic old fools.
• The Shawshank Redemption: The thing about hope. Also, Morgan Freeman. ☺
• Inception: Again, for when they’re older, I love how Nolan (among my favourite directors) used concepts like ‘The Kick’, the totem, limbo to talk about dreams. Also, great cinematography!
• The Lion King: I caught this one only 3 years ago (I was too scared when I saw Scar as a kid). It’s lovely and a rather good film for its time.
• Haider: Cinematic adaptation of Hamlet set in the context of the Kashmir conflict. Brought to life by my favorite director, Vishal Bhardwaj.
• Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola: Speaking of Bhardwaj, I can’t leave out the one film in which the hero (or heroine?) was a pink cow! Only he could’ve used a cow to front a satire.
• The Before Trilogy: These films are beautiful in a heartbreaking sort of way and I’d like to show them to my kids when they’re older. Imagine what it must be like to live in a time when there were no cellphones, no Facebook to find people and you can’t find someone you met by chance, someone you loved for a night and hoped would meet again. If Before Sunrise and Before Sunset hadn’t played out the way, they did, would Jesse and Celine still be together by the time we watched Before Midnight? Would both of them have been as tenacious about their romance or would they have let go of each other after that brief dalliance? I love that these movies encapsulate the couple’s journey across 18 year. They’re beautiful and raw.
• Kill Bill Volumes I & II, Inglourious Basterds and Pulp Fiction: I’m probably flipping off a few people in saying this, but Tarantino’s the master of stylised gore. The kids have to see it.
• 3 Idiots: For extremely personal reasons, aside from being an extremely funny film, it’s also touched my heart for the way it’s dealt with the subject of education. I always cry while watching this one.
• The Godfather films: Too much legacy associated with these two for them to miss these.
• Ek Hasina Thi: Just a brilliant film, one of the few that proved Saif Ali Khan could act if he was honed by the right director.
• Gulaal: For the dynamics of power. Some great performances. Helmed by Anurag Kashyap, the only Indian director who comes close to making gutsy films like Tarantino.
• Gangs Of Wasseypur: Good old revenge saga. Again, helmed by Kashyap. Some great minor characters that could appear in a movie of their own.
• Black Swan: One of my favourites in the last 5 years.
• Spotlight: Last year’s wonderful film that leaves you unnerved for all the right reasons.
• The Batman films — Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992) and The Dark Knight (2008): The first two starting Michael Keaton are films I remember having watched while growing up. The 2008 film is a favourite of recent times.

That’s all I can think of! Thanks for reading!