I don't know what it is, it might be the list Brown posted earlier, or maybe the fact I hung out with my young niece's and nephews the other day, but I have been thinking about my childhood recently. Then last night, I watched a movie called "Sky High" yesterday, a decent movie that I think I would be really into if I was still 12, and thought to myself, "what were the biggest movies of my childhood?" So over today I have come up with a list, Its a top 11 list, of the most watched 11 movies of my childhood.
So let me start by qualifying a few things. First, I'm calling my childhood from the ages of 6-14 or so, cuz that's all my mind can remember, because its filled with hops and bong water. Second, I didn't really watch a whole hell of lot of movies, my family didn't go to the cinema much, and I was really into playing outside, video games, and sat morn cartoons. It my young young years I think I would rather watch an episode of Thundercats than some kids movie on Disney Channel.
And why 11? Cuz everybody else does just 10.
Honorable Mention - These are the movies that I thought of but didn't make the cut.
Only the Strong(1993) - As you will see from the following list, I loved Karate movies. OTS was the only movie I have ever seen about capoeira, a "dance" fighting style. I tried so damn hard to fight like this. It was great.
Krush Grove(1985) - You know its good, cuz the spelled krush with a K! This movie probably started my love of Hip Hop. Its about how Def Jam got started and all that Jazz. Run DMC, Fat Boys, New Edition, and Beastie Boys all played themselves.
Van Damme Movies - I went through a big JCVD faze. Kickboxer, Lionheart, Bloodsport, Street Fighter, all pretty much the same movie, but I loved them all.
Silvarado(1985) - Still to this day one of the top 3 westerns of all time. Cast was great, and this is the first movie on this list I watched with my dad.
Transformers(1986) - There were two groups of kids that were between the ages of 4-13 when this movie came out, Transformer lovers, and GI Joe head. I was a Joe head, but this movie was still a big player in my house.
All right now to the real list.
11. The Last Dragon(1985)
Holy crap. Here is the plot summery from IMDB : A young man searches for the "master" to obtain the final level of martial arts mastery known as the glow.
How bad ass does that sound? I remember when I first saw this movie. It came on after cartoons on Saturday morning sometime in 1988 or so. I was 7-8 years old, and was shocked that I had never heard of this movie before now. I quickly rushed out and told all my friends about it, and how bad ass Bruce Leeroy was, and how he got the "Glow," but nobody believed me. Nobody had ever seen it either.
I didn't know what it was called, The guy at Take One Video hadn't heard of it. It was like the great white wale of my childhood. I swear it was the best movie ever, but nobody believed it even existed.
Then one fateful day a year or two later, I came across it again on TV. This time I called some people, and those who could watch it still speak of its greatness today. Its was that damn fantastic.
10. Airborne (1993)
Simple story; Surfer guy has to move to Cleavland, where there is no beach. He gets bummed until his folks send him his Roller Blades! Now he falls for a chick who is the sister of his biggest bully, and he has to win a big roller blade race to get on his good side and win her heart!
Now who wouldn't love that movie? It had a lot of the things that a young Big wanted in his life, roller blade prowless, talked like a surfer, and he got chicks! That was what I wanted to be for a solid 2 years. Hell its better than a Trucker or a Wrestler, which is what I wanted to be when I was 4-9.
9. Footloose (1984)
Gayest movie on my list, by far, but till this day I can't not watch it if it comes on. Its like crack. You do it once, its not bad, then you do it again and its even better, before you know it, you know all the words to "lets hear it for the boys."
So lets just start a little sub list of my weird movie loves, so far we got Karate, Surffer/Rollerblade, and now we can add Dancing to the list. I love me some dance movies. I almost put in Breaking in my HM above, but didn't.
I wanted to be Ren McCormack(Kevin Bacon), and I wanted to fuck the shit out of Ariel Moore. She was one of the first "hey now" girls of my childhood.
In case you lived under a rock for the past 20 years, and you have never seen Footloose, the plot goes as such; New guy comes to town where no dancing is allowed, He wants to dance, Fights the preacher, Throws a dance.
I have a feeling this movie was brain washed in my head because I had 2 older sisters, who loved this kind of stuff, at least that's what I'm telling people.
8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
Ahhh yes. This green VHS was worn out in my player over that summer that it came out. One of the more popular games we played as kids was Ninja Turtles. It said a lot about a person as to what turtle they wanted to be.
Michelangelo - A Crazy center of attention kinda guy, the popular kid.
Raphael - The rebel.
Leonardo - The Leader
Donatello - The quite, smart type.
Casey Jones - The crazy mother fucker who liked to "burn things."
I wanted to be Raphael, but I knew in my heart I would always be Donatello.
7. Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
Looking back at it now, the first Rambo, the one in the city was a much better movie, but this one, the one in the jungle, was the one I watched countless times as a child.
I don't really know what happened to all the shoot em up, crazy solider movies, but as a kid I wanted nothing more than to have a bunch of guns, and shoot a bunch of bad guys. Now a days its all about using super powers, and electronics and such to beat the bad guys. Just shoot somebody already!
FBP2 was so money in every way for a you kid. No real love story, no real story at all, just a guy, killing bad guys, saving POW's, and then sticking it to his boss. That's what I'm talking about.
6. The Karate Kid (1984), The Karate Kidd II (1986)
I had to put these two together due to the fact that I can't remember which one I watched more. There wasn't anything better than pretending to do rock the crane kick, or the drum punches, when pretending to fight.
Looking back at it, there is no way this movie could happen in real life. What self respecting mother would let her child kick it with an old karate master from okanawa and not think something special was going on.
The Cobra Kia was the best bad guys ever to be in a movie.
Ever.
5. Top Gun (1986)
How can you get guys to watch a chick flick? Answer, include lots of air plane battles, a troubled soul who loses his best friend, and one Ice Man.
That's what Top Gun gave us. Don't get it twisted this is a chick flick. Boys finds girl, falls for girl, can't get girl, then gets girl. Its what all chick flicks are about. What sets this one apart is the fact that all men can identify with Mavrick.
Because of this movie every little boy, including me, wanted to be a jet fighter pilot, and play sand volleyball with no shirt on.
I watched this movie with my parents probably a hundred times. Its one of the few movies that we could all pop in and be entertained for 2 hours.
4. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
This had to be the first movie I ever saw in the Theater. I was a mear 2 or 3 years old, and it was greatness, one of my earliest movie memories. I almost just put all Star Wars together, but that wouldn't be fair to this one. Now a days I enjoy the second one more than the others, but this one was what I watched over and over as a kid.
Could it be Because of her?
No, i was too young to find that interesting.
Maybe cuz of all the black hero's, both clad and skin?
maybe. But I bet it was because of these guys.
Eeeehheetoya......BOOM
Yea, as a kid I loved the little guys.
3. The Program (1993)
OK, so first let me just say I had pretty cool parents. They let me watch just about anything that wasn't soft core porn, or anti-god. They had trust in me that I wouldn't talk like Eddie Murphy from 48 hours, or act as stupid as the kids from Animal House. They new I was a good kid that like sports, so when I, a 12-13 year old kid, asked if I could watch the Program, they were cool with it. And from that point, it was done.
Everything I did for the next 2 years was based on this movie. I would talk shit during football games the same way Alvin Mack did. I would pretend to be hooked on booze like Joe Cain. I wanted to bust my ass in school like Darnell Jefferson. It was a life style.
To this day we quote this movie. "Fuck you dough boy, I can read. See that shoe, it says Adidas." "You the motha fucka that got my baby sister pregnant. Haven't seen you around lately." "Because we all know, Cain is Able."
I could go on for hours, but you know what I'm saying.
2. Rocky IV (1985)
With out a doubt the best Rocky ever made. Great fights; Rocky vs. Drago.
Great quotes, "If he dies, he dies."
A person overcoming a loss of a friend.
The best training scene ever in a movie. Rocky in the woods, Drago doing roids.
And it single handled ended the cold war.
1. G.I. Joe: The Movie (1987)
As I said earlier, as a child you were either a GI Joe guy or a Transformers guy, as you can guess, I was a GI Joe head.
I don't know how many Joe's I had, but they were easily in the triple digits. I even had the special ordered Super Trooper, that you could only get with like 15 proof of purchases and 10 bucks. He was awesome.
This movie also merged two of my worlds. Joe's and wrestling with Sargent Slaughter. Needless to say I was like a pig in shit i was so happy.
The world was a better place when I was blue vs red lasers. There were no color barriers like Rambo, or sympathizing with the enemy, except you felt bad for Cobra Commander in the movie, but for the most part it was just good vs evil, and good always won.
Welp, that's this weeks non sports story, hope you enjoyed it. If you think I left something out, please, let me know.
