AVQ&A: What's the best movie your mom introduced to you?

Young Frankenstein

This might be stolen valor, because my parents share such similar tastes in films that our family’s media collection has been a real joint project over the years, but one of the best films that I remember my mom laughing at until she cried—thereby making me laugh until I cried—is Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. What also makes me associate this with my mom, who to this day quotes “Frau Blücher” and “seda-give” around the house, is that her way into that parody wasn’t just from the comedy angle. She’s still watching Turner Classic Movies and weird channels like Comet that broadcast old Hammer horror and Universal Monster movies; last Christmas we watched Godzilla Vs. Biollante together. Her introducing me to this movie wasn’t just a way to jumpstart my young sense of humor, but to open my eyes to a world of genre weirdness just waiting to be explored. Young Frankenstein both encouraged my curiosity and showed how many layers lie underneath the things we love. [Jacob Oller]

History Of The World, Part 1

My mom is the original cinephile in the family. I remember she introduced us to all kinds of movies growing up, from my first subtitled French movies on Bravo and Charlie Chaplin shorts on Turner Classic Movies to finding a random show on public access TV that showed Bollywood music videos clipped from the latest musicals. But one day in the middle of doing the weekly shopping, she found a copy of Mel Brooks’ History Of The World, Part I—one of his movies I hadn’t seen yet—and we came home to watch it that afternoon. I remember laughing so much with her and my sister because even if I didn’t catch every reference, Brooks’ outlandish sense of humor could make a meal out of every punchline, every exaggerated expression, and visual gag. From the bit about going from 15 to 10 commandments, Orson Welles narrating the birth of the critic, to “It’s good to be the king,” the movie became an instant sensation in our home. It was a movie she remembers fondly because she quoted it with her brothers, and now she quotes it with her daughters. [Monica Castillo]

The Godfather 

I credit my mom’s love of Al Pacino for my love of The Godfather. More than any of the film’s many powerful elements, Pacino’s onscreen evolution stayed with her; it’s what inspired her to revisit it in the years since she first saw it, and eventually share it with her kids, some of whom were as young as nine at the time. (Look, watching TV and movies was only time all seven of us could keep relatively quiet.) I’ve found something new to appreciate about it with every viewing—lately I’ve been thinking how wild it is that this was only Diane Keaton’s second feature role—but early on, I think I was mostly drawn to the similarities between Mexican American culture and Italian American culture, down to the ambient Catholicism. (Goodfellas is a near beat-by-beat retelling of my older brother’s first summer job.) The Godfather ended up being my gateway to Pacino and Keaton and Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, but I’ll always remember that first offer I didn’t refuse. [Danette Chavez]

Monty Python And The Holy Grail

My parents were usually pretty strict about bedtimes—forcing me to adopt a fairly devious “reading in bed with the light from my alarm clock” approach to keeping myself entertained after-hours. But I remember one of the first times they ever relented, at my mom’s suggestion: A PBS showing of Monty Python And The Holy Grail. And, sure, there were some awkward questions at certain points—no parent wants to field a 10-year-old’s questions about what “The oral sex!” might be—but Mom clearly knew that the film’s beautiful absurdity would blow my little mind. Did she regret it in the days to come, as our house filled with cries of “Ni!” and questions about the airspeed velocity of unladen swallows? Probably, but such are the sacrifices mothers accept in their duties to warp their children’s brains. [William Hughes]