1968

Film of the year this year, as any fule kno, is going to be Herbie: Fully Loaded, good clean family fun and not at all a desperate attempt by a deliquescent Disney to prove they can live without Pixar.

The original Love Bug was not the first film I saw at the cinema (that was The Magnificent Seven, which I saw at the Odeon in Luton with my mum and dad), but it was the first film I got really really really excited about. I remember queuing outside the cinema in Dunstable, all down the street, with hundreds of other excited kids.

My wife was born in '68, and I couldn't tell you know whether I saw the film in the second half of 1968 or in 1969, when it finally landed in the waste land of Dumpstable. And it may well have been the last film I saw there before it became Bingo (as Don McLean might say, the day the movies died).

My wife's first film was E.T. meaning she was deprived of the pleasure of the pictures till she was the ripe old age of 15. Such is the lot of the French paysan.

The Love Bug started in me a love for the pictures that only began to die when I saw a ridiculous number of films in 3 months after winning a free cinema pass in a Guardian film quiz. Seeing everything that comes out in a 3 month period makes you realise how much dross there really is, and causes you to question the ability of film to match the quality of a single season of NYPD Blue etc.

The Love Bug started in me an emotional attachment to Volkswagen cars, too, which is nothing to be proud of, but goes to show how impressionable a child can be when it comes to cinema.

I know plenty of people for whom the original Star Wars had that effect. Unlike me, they can't go out and buy 11 Volkswagens in 20 years, and have to make do with Lego. I pity them.

What was your first impressionable moment of cinema excitement?