Robin Williams

July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014

The death of actor Robin Williams was of course quite a shock.

Like pretty much everyone around my age, I grew up with Williams due to his roles in movies like Hook, Aladdin, and Mrs. Doubtfire. But my two favorite performances of his are in movies I didn't see until I was much older.

I had trouble sleeping (insert Insomnia joke here) when I was a teenager. I would just lie in bed, watching the same movie over and over again every night. I'd go through different phases where I'd watch a certain movie every night for around two weeks and then I'd pick a different movie from our very limited collection of DVD's or cassette tapes. For some reason we had a copy of Good Will Hunting on VHS, so that was one I regularly watched on school nights when I couldn't sleep.

I hated English class all throughout high school. I could go on and on about why, but this isn't the place for that. Once in a while though we'd read a good book or watch a good movie. One teacher who I didn't even particularly like showed us a few things I still love to this day, including a movie that affected me profoundly: Dead Poets Society. It always amused me that rather than attempting to inspire his own students, my teacher showed us a movie about another teacher inspiring his.