You're 18? Too late!
Submitted by sirilyan on Tue, 02/20/2001 - 09:12
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- Superman III. Stop snickering, dammit! But when you're ten years old and you still think that fake Kryptonite based on nicotine is probably not that much of a fake plot point, that one scene where the woman gets turned into a robot is really damn creepy. Supes 3 predicted the Borg years in advance, and it had Richard Pryor. An A+ for terror if you haven't gotten out of third grade yet. But don't even ask me to think about Superman IV, which I never saw. Even elementary school children have their standards.
- The Police Academy series. Sure, the series was several movies (and a TV series and an animated series, according to the IMDB) too long, but it's still heartwarming in a way that in this modern day and age, you could still make a full seven movies before anyone realized that Bobcat Goldthwait was the most talented in the lot of you. Besides, the voice guy is really funny if voice guys amuse you.
- Battle Beyond The Stars: a Magnificent Seven for the 80s. Of course, when I saw it the first time I didn't know that, and just thought it was keen that all these weird spaceships were flying around, with artificial intelligences powered by Jewish grandmothers. Of all the Magnificent Seven remakes produced by Roger Corman and featuring Jewish-grandmother-brained spaceships, this was undoubtedly the best.
- Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. I was a lot older than 18 when I saw this for the first time (surprise) and I can't help but feel that it would have been a spectacular, universe-shaking event if I were younger. The kids, they love the Jar Jar.
- Adventures In Babysitting. I can't remember a damn thing about this movie, but my sister loved it when it first came out, and when it rains I can still feel in my shoulder what happened when I accidentally taped over it to record an Aerosmith video. (Future-talent watchers take note: it's directed by Chris "Bicentennial Man" Columbus.)
- Transformers: The Movie. Orson Welles! Leonard Nimoy! Robots in disguise! What more could a grammar school boy want, besides Optimus Prime not dying dammit he was the best one? Looking back, this is the movie that has aged the best. And did I mention Eric Idle and Weird Al Yankovic? Hey, maybe this movie doesn't belong on this list after all.
There are some movies that are just the greatest thing in the world when you're ten years old, but when you look back at them afterward, they just don't have quite the same allure they used to. These movies were a lot more fantastic when I first saw them than they are now.