Life changing media

I read Flowers for Algernon today. It was an amazing book, one of my favorites. I've never really had any movie, show, book, game, etc. have an impact on me to the extent where it changes something about me, but recently three things have.

Little Miss Sunshine - This movie was ridiculously sad and depressing. Yet in the end (SPOILER)the family was happy, even though life still sucked. I don't exactly know what impact this movie had on me, but it made me think about things differently, and maybe that things aren't quite so bad.

Flowers for Algernon - When I was done with this it really drove home the point that every day was worth living, no matter how unimportant the events of that day might be, because tomorrow you might not be able to live quite like you used to.

Perks of Being a Wallflower - This book had many interesting ideas and points. As well as being emotional, the book made me realize that when I'm feeling down, comparing my situation to someone who has it worse (eg. kids starving in Africa), doesn't make my situation any better. Blahblahblah.

So, what forms of media have changed your life, or had a big impact on you positively or negatively, recently?

Everything by Philip K. Dick that I've read has moved and changed me a good bit.

I just mentioned something similar to this in another thread :P But animation in general has changed my life on more than one occasion.

I honestly can't remember the first time I saw a Disney movie, but whatever it was it was the beginning spark of my creativity. Disney movies back then were so different from the stuff that was on TV it was mindblowing at the time. Ninja Turtles was my first exposure to an action show, and Inspector Gadget is another of my childhood favourites.

After I got a little older and entered high school at 11, this was around the time when the internet was starting to become mainstream. I was exposed to Dragon Ball Z. I had never seen the show before then, but friends of mine would always talk about it. In later years, my friends and I would go on to download every single Dragonball/Z/GT episode onto the school's computers, and we watched every one of them.

Soon after graduating and starting college, I was exposed to fansubs. And this really expanded my animation horizons to a much wider range of what's out there.

So my growing-by-the-gigabyte anime collection, and even some of the non-Japanese animated shows on TV are really fascinating with their quality and the range of emotions/genres they stretch across. If I didn't have the exposure that I had now, I would probably think that animation could never be as deep or emotionally involving as watching real people or reading something, but I know from experience that is not the case at all.

Babylon 5. That's had a deeper, more profound effect on me than any other media I can think of.

Lucky by Alice Sebold. An absolutely beautiful book, and one which conjures a huge array of emotions.

Deus Ex. Absolutely fantastic game, brilliantly executed.

Pink Floyd - The Wall and Radiohead - OK Computer had a lot of effect on me when I was still having trouble figuring out who I was.

The message in American Beauty is very profound and I wish I could live it out better.

The music of Frank Zappa blew my mind when i first heard it, opened my mind to music other than metal and has consistently inspired and influenced me as a musician. Captain Beefheart had a similar effect.

Old BBC comedies like Red Dwarf,The Young Ones, Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses. And I guess Street Fighter 2 too.

Nothing yet, but I'm working on it.

TOOL has probably had the most profound effect on my life thusfar. Before them, I listened and cared for no music at all. My life was pretty devoid of music. Then a friend sent me "Forty-Six & 2" and I said "Yes." He sent me a few other songs after that and I was pretty hooked. I'm still not a musical guru, and I doubt I ever will be, but it makes for a better life when music is apart of it.