Movies I Had to Watch When I Was Little
As an adult, I've rarely been forced to watch movies that I wasn't really interested in. Sometimes I get suckered into seeing something atrocious (Transformers, Roll Bounce, Speed Racer, Indy 4), which happens with less frequency these days as I'm very choosy with where and how I spend my money. But it was a whole different story when I was a kid.
Growing up, I'd usually have to watch movies I didn't select at my cousins' house or at school, when the teachers would show us VHS tapes as special (time-filling) treats. Here are some of the ones I remember:
1. The Goonies
2. E.T.
3. Labyrinth
4. Explorers
5. The Princess Bride
6. Benji: The Hunted
7. The Dark Crystal
8. *Batteries Not Included
9. Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend
10. Space Camp
11. The Neverending Story
Did you notice that some of these movies are now considered modern classics? And that they're all from the '80s? coughcoughI'm oldcoughcough.
WELL. Just so you know. I realized sometime during my teen years that I didn't go apoplectic about some of these movies the way that my peers seemed to. I'm talking about the BIG NOSTALGIA MOVIES. You know which ones. The ones grown adults still wax poetic about like they're the best movies ever created when really as a viewing experience, they're just OK.
I mean, I had to watch these movies CONSTANTLY while growing up, and probably because I didn't choose them, I never got to feel that strongly about them one way or another. Actually, I'd go so far as to say that I strongly dislike a couple of these uber-popular-nostalgia movies now, and I just don't get them. Sorry. They don't resonate with me the way that, oh... Airplane! does. Or Independence Day. It could be because some had elements of high fantasy which I never liked or that there was too much cuddly family adventure stuff. I wasn't into that as a kid. I liked Beetlejuice. He used the F word. I liked JAWS. Some chick got naked and died in the ocean.
Though I'm positive that my first screenings of the Ghost with the Most or anything the Zuckers ever directed were not activities I planned, there was still an element of discovery with each of these viewings that was somehow missing with those other '80s films. The only one that I think I had a connection to was The Neverending Story. I honestly can't recall if I was the one to pick that movie to watch the first time I saw it, but I do remember watching it by myself sans cousins or classmates a couple times. I think it could be the only movie that I selected on my own. It had the violence and gravitas that I think was missing in some of those other movies, which I now understand was something I favored. I don't think I was an overly serious child, but I didn't have a kids' sensibility with a lot of things.
All that being said, I loved Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer. That movie was boss.
