Sometimes a fish is just a fish

And a Beatles film is just that, a Beatles film. Light on subject matter but a bit high on the laughs. Just got the Beatles HELP! on DVD finally, which was one of my favorite films to watch while I was a kid. I just saw it on television recently and it brought back great memories. Which leads me to want to write down a top 10 list of films I watched religiously as a kid, from the time I could remember to about the age of 14, which was the age that my eyes were opened to the world of cinema with a little film called Reservoir Dogs when my good friend Mike from back yonder gave it to me on VHS. What's that you ask? I'll explain that in another blog.

Time for some list action. Oh, and I'm not listing any Star Wars or Indiana Jones film considering that of course I loved them all. I'd just rather people see an overall viewing of my taste as a child. The only thing is, this will take a few days to write the snippets on each movie. So await a great top 10 (or so) list.



10) Wayne's World : Man, what can I say about this film? Made me appreciate and love Queen on so many levels, saw the brilliance of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey before one squandered it all on animated tripe and the other just disappeared into obscurity. It's a doofy film operating on a different level though. A lot of layers, especially to the characters. And Rob Lowe as Benjamin Kane always made my skin crawl. And Tia Carrere... wow, she was someone who was exotic to me. What? I was 12 when it came out people! Schwing!




9) Batman and Batman: The Movie : One was a dark knight like we only saw in the comic books. The other was from the 60's and did the Bat-toosy. And you know what? I loved them both to death. One was a nostalgia thing I'd watch with my mom, where she would keep telling me how she met both Adam West and Burt Ward at the premiere in New York City. Years later, hearing about the very sexual nature of those two, switching partners like they were sweatpants, I asked my mom if she was a conquest in their sexual escapades. Then she reminded me she was 8 at that time.

And the other, a Tim Burton film when it actually meant something (Don't get me wrong, I liked Sweeny Todd, but it's sub par, and I don't like the message of Big Fish at all, thought the remake of Wonka was cgi laden and without a soul, and let's not get into the Apes remake as well.). He took Batman, made the city of Gotham dark, took the Joker and had a coked to the moon Jack Nicholson play the Joker like we had never seen before (I'm hoping Heath Ledger changes that). It was an eye opener, a film that was quite violent, sexually charged and deaths galore... yet it was PG-13 and my parents took me to see it. And I loved every minute of it.



8)Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory : What can I say about this movie? Made me see the brilliance of Gene Wilder at a young age. Asking my parents to see any film with the Wonka guy. But why is it so great? A film that was originally just a huge candy commercial for a new chocolate bar from Nestle (which melted really fast), it became such a childhood favorite because essentially it's creepy as all hell. I remember when I hadn't seen it for a few years and finally picked up the DVD release
and just reliving the demented scenes and the very subtle humor that passes through scene to scene. And Gene Wilder's calm yet crazed portrayal of Mr. Wonka. Sorry Johnny, but I still prefer Mr. Wilder. And the Oompa Loompas were actual people, not just one guy that was repeatedly implanted in each scene. Lame as hell. And I was happy to know that my friends also fast forwarded the song/scene 'Cheer Up Charlie.'



7)Explorers : Here's a weird one. A young Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix. A children's sci-fi film directed by Joe Dante. Robert Piccardo in more alien makeup. Dick Fucking Miller in another grand Dante role. A film about if you dream hard enough and have the help of your friends, you too can build a spaceship and fly to the heavens in search of adventure. It's also about disappointment in life but to not beat yourself up about it. When they meet the aliens who might have helped them construct the circuit board for the ship, they aren't too excited about what the aliens look like. Instead, it's almost a smile and a nod. Imaginations sometimes run a little wild, and this film just opened my little eyes to always look to the stars, but don't go crazy about it.



6)Time Bandits : What's better than a film of a bunch of time travelers? A film about a bunch of little people who time travel in order to rob from the past's wealthiest patrons. Terry Gilliam crafted a dark children's film. A film of betrayal but also of friendship. I remember thanking some unknown person in my room that Kevin's parents weren't my own. Those people were just a bit mean and cared too much for material things. And when you have a cast that consisted of Sean Connery (as the kind King Agamemnon who Kevin wants as his father), Ian Holm (a power hungry and drunken Napoleon, who hides his hand in his jacket because it's fake), David Rappaport (the greedy Randall who is good at heart and helped create the universe), David Warner (as the Evil Genius, who is so brilliantly despicable), John Cleese (as Robin Hood, who steals from the rich and has someone beat the living crap out of the poor, but then gives them a little loot), Peter Vaughan (as Winston the Ogre, who has terrible back pains), Katherine Helmond (who plays Winston's wife Mrs. Ogre) and Kenny 'R2D2' Baker (as Fidgit, one of the thieving creators of the universe).

It's just one of those films that I can still pop in, relive my childhood and laugh at the little things now, or notice that Jim Broadbent is in the film, and appreciate the hysterical script by Gilliam and Monty Python alum Michael Palin (who also has a great part as Vincent, the whiny gentleman who has something wrong in his nether region and wants so bad to be with Shelly Duvall's character.)

"I must have fruit!"



5)The Adventures of Baron Munchausen: The second Terry Gilliam film on the list, as you can see at this impressionable age, I was opening my eyes to the absurdist humor of Monty Python. Having both this and Time Bandits on a tape together was always bliss. I would just sit in my room, pop it in and for 4 hours be transported to another world, a scary but fun world. Of course with the newly released DVD, with the fantastic making of documentary (don't want to ruin it for you, but as a kid you don't realize all the trials and lawsuits that this film went through, makes you appreciate it just a bit more). John Neville is simply amazing as Baron Munchausen (I'm sorry, it's actually Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen), who has aged significantly since his heyday. Everyone thinks he's an old nutter because he thinks the actors are his old crew of adventurers. All but Sally (played by a young Sarah Polley). She believes him and wants to help him find his friends so they can fight the Sultan and his never ending army of turks.

You have Robin Williams as the king of the moon, who when attached to his body, is a sexually crazed psychopath), Oliver Reed as Vulcan, the god, who's wife Venus (played by a very young Uma Thurman) opened my eyes with the brief showing of her 18 year old breast. It was a PG film but had that?? Fantastic. Unbelievable. And true! You also had Jonathan Pryce as the evil Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson and Eric Idle as Berthold, the fastest man alive. Music by torture was something that I could never imagine as a child. As was the Baron's insatiable sexual desire for women. Which was sometimes his weakness. But like any grand scale adventure film, everything somehow works out in the end. It's one of the films that I show to as many people to gauge what kind of film fan they are.



4)Mrs. Doubtfire Yes, I know that it came out when I was 13. But it was a film that was probably watched more than any other film on this list because my brother and I were huge Robin Williams fans. Especially in drag. And as a kid, I realized that it was a bit creepy for a guy to dress up as an old woman so he could take care of his kids. I remember asking my dad why he didn't just be a good dad and husband so he could have kept his family together. And he said that he was a crazy and it was a movie so I shouldn't think too hard about it. Which made me think hard about everything I watched from that point forward. This coming from someone who connected the sitcom Charles in Charge overlapping the true life events of Charles Manson and his band of killer women.

But this film is the last great Robin Williams film. He got to play a guy with a screw loose with good intentions. That's the thing we notice right away. He does love his kids more than his own well being. And Sally Field is great as the ex-wife who is finally taking her life into her own hands and sick of having to pick up the pieces from her husbands child like ways. Pierce Brosnan plays the debonair former friend/ fling of Field's back in college, who light their relationship back up and isn't a bad guy at all. In fact, he's very cool with the fact that she has 3 kids and loves them to death. He's just not a big fan of Daniel Hillard.

Throw in Harvey Fierstein as his gay brother who is also a special effects guy, hence the transformation into Mrs. Doubtfire. It makes you look back at Chris Columbus and ask yourself, "This is the same guy who directed both Home Alone films, Bicentennial Man and Rent?"





3)TIE The Last Starfighter/Masters of the Universe : Another tie between two films that haven't much in common. It doesn't mean they aren't both fun as all hell. One is a movie based around a video game which is in actuality a test for a galactic federation of space pilots.



2)Flash Gordon : Flash! Ahhhhhhhhh! He'll save everyone of us. That's all I need to say. Queen's music mixed with cheesy effects. And Timothy Dalton's almost Bondish prince and Max Von Sydow as Meng... that's all I need to say about that.




1)The Monster Squad and Gremlins : Two horror themed kid movies. Well, are they really kid movies? Both are by horror directors (Fred Dekkar and Joe Dante). Both are films I can still watch today (especially since Monster Squad just came out with a grand DVD release which I cherish the moment I bought it a week before it officially came out). Both had violence unheard of in a children's movie (well, I know Prince Caspian supposedly is very grim for a PG flick, but Disney knows how to pay off the MPAA). The Monster Squad has so many memorable lines in it, such as "My name is Horace!", "Don't be such a chicken shit." and the many references to the word faggot by every character I'm surprised Dracula didn't utter the word as well. Hell, the Squad was a bunch of believable kids who were horror freaks like I was, who battled the Universal monsters tooth and nail and ultimately defeated them with team work. Gremlins had a believable kid who gets a cute pet, who sadly pops out some fucked up mogwai and they all eat after midnight to transform into the title creatures.

Good times for all. Spielberg's influence is felt throughout the film, but unlike a film like Poltergeist, it still has Mr. Dante's signature on it. Sorry Tobe, I had to go there. Dekkar had just done Night of the Creeps (where's that dvd release?!?!) and who'd have thought he would do a competent children's movie which people have grown to love and taken it beyond some kitschy film of the past and into a cult phenomenon. These films have that rare thing instilled in them. Great stories, great acting, great special effects, great scares, great laughs, great direction and perfect timing for someone as susceptible as me. To this day, I've probably watched them over a hundred times. I wore out my tapes to the point where certain scenes were no longer viewable. Luckily DVD is slightly more durable and will last a long time for myself to watch these films again and again. And you're doing yourselves a disservice if you don't check them out.


I'm speaking about every film on this list. Netflix them, buy them for cheap. Do anything to get a chance to see some films that if you missed as a kid, then you didn't have a proper childhood. If you're ten years younger than me, well, no excuse either. See them now and make them your own. That's the great thing about cinema and the art of film making. Even if you weren't born at the time of release, you can adopt a film the same way today that someone 25 years ago had taken these films into account when they saw them on the big screen.

Until next time, check out Stuart Gordon's latest Stuck. I know I will on my birthday, May 31st. And while you're at it, buy me some gifts. You know you want to.

-James