For some reason, I found myself thinking about the movies I watched over and over as a kid; the movies that, no matter how many times I'd seen them, I could always pop in when I was bored. These are the movies that I watched when I was sick; when I was home all summer; on weekends. These are the movies that I want my kids (when I have them) to watch as they grow up.
The movies aren't in any particular order - I just listed them as they came to mind. Most of these movies were recorded from TV, and were watched complete with glorious '80s commercials.
Back to the Future
What can I say about this movie? What can I say about any of them? As kids, we watched this from a VHS tape, recorded from some TV channel I can't remember. I should point out that I'm referring primarily to the first movie, not the entire trilogy. We never had Part II or III on tape, but we watched the hell out of the first one. It's an easy plot for a kid to wrap his head around.
The Star Wars Trilogy (1977-1983)
The unfortunate thing about this trilogy is that I'm unlikely to ever find copies of the original, unedited versions (without going on eBay finding the DVD copies that were released a few years ago with the original theatrical versions) in high definition, because this is how I grew up watching them. I think that I would definitely want to show my kids these versions, and I'll do my best to make sure that happens. I think there's a lot to be said for using physical special effects instead of computer generated crap.
The Karate Kid Part I and II
This one's a funny one for me; I remember watching both of these movies quite a bit - mostly the first one - but I really prefer the second one. The problem is, our copy of the second one got messed up in the recording. Oh well!
Bigfoot
This is an obscure one, and I've never seen it available in any media ever, anywhere, except our one VHS tape that we recorded from TV. There are probably a dozen movies by the same name, but in this case I'm talking about the 1987 made-for-TV film starring Candice Cameron Bure. Yes, starring DJ from Full House. I think the only other bigger stars in that movie were Colleen Dewhurst and Joseph Maher. Have you even heard of them? Yeah, exactly. Okay, actually, the father, James Sloyan, appeared in a few Star Trek episodes (TNG, DS9, Voyager), so there's at least one "famous" character actor in it too. Look, it's a great movie, and you should watch it.
The Great Muppet Caper + A Muppet Family Christmas
I think my favourite of these two is The Great Muppet Caper, but both are excellent films (the latter is made-for-TV I think) that showcase The Muppets at the height of their amazing-ness. While last year's The Muppets was great, I don't think it can ever top The Great Muppet Caper - even though it may have matched it in tone at least.
Ghostbusters
Another of the great '80s films, I probably watched this one just as much as the Star Wars movies.
I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting, and likely will come to mind after I hit "Publish". But if I only remember these movies, that's still one pretty great list to show my kids. There's only one modern movie I can think of that I would add to this list - and it's Moneyball. It seems like a strange choice, but I just finished watching it for the umpteenth time, and I'll likely watch it again and again. It's become one of those movies, like those listed above.
I didn't really have much of a point to this post, just stuff I wanted to share. Got any movies that you watched over and over in your childhood? I'd be interested to see what any '90s kids watched too.
