30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 29

            I decided to do the 30 day movie challenge as a blog series as it ties into my blog activities rather easily and I am once again not blogging my usual series with regularity in spite of saying that I would.

            Today is "A Movie from my Childhood".  And I thought, Why do only one?  Growing up less than wealthy I watched and rewatched the same bootlegged movies dozens of times.  I loved taping movies off of the TV trying not to record the commercials and frequently missing the beat to hit record again, losing 2 minutes of movie in an attempt to not record 4 minutes of commercials.  Now, I have already mentioned "Ghostbusters" as the movie I know all the words to because I had watched it more than 100 times, but I had 4 other movies as a kid that I watched and watched and watched.  What are these movies?  Well, keep reading.

Pretty much this.

             "Aladdin" holds a certain position in my mind as my favorite animated movie growing up, it was a high adventure heroes journey film with lots of personality and great songs.  I actually learned the soundtrack in middle school chorus and with little coaching could pull most of it out of my brain for some of my bellowing attempts at singing.  I also watched the Cartoon show produced by Disney that followed, it stared the entire original voice cast sub-ing only Robin Williams for Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer Simpson, and the voice of the Genie in "Return of Jafar").  The cartoon was actually quite good and had a very Dungeons and Dragons in the Middle East vibe to it, with a rouges gallery that did a good job of contrasting the hero and the other cast, though lacked any original music (unlike the "Hercules" cartoon which had lots of original music, but was very weak in story and setting).

And I like singing it.

            "Masters of the Universe".  I swear to god, if Lego would just get its shit together and start selling models based on Nostalgia for old cartoons and movies I want then to produce a "Ghostbuster's" fire house, and a Castle Grey Skull.  I used to play with the toys for "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" that had belonged to my uncle John at my grandmothers house and the universe while cheesy holds a lot of charm for someone who likes a blend of science fiction, super hero, and fantasy to produce a Jack Kirby like over the topness.  This movie is a live action rendition which transports the Masters to 80's Earth, where they meet Monica from "Friends" and Lt. Tom Paris from "Star Trek: Voyager"... I shit you not.  The fight scenes are below standard and the special effects are far below those of industrial light and magic (which is ironic because this movie lifts more influences from "Star Wars" then one might think possible, not to mention how they steal the opening credits from "Superman" without so much as a 'thank you sir').  Strangely, the movie could be sold entirely on the performance of Skeletor, who is so apologetically evil that he even keeps his word, acting authoritarian but logical and frequently with honor (at least when he has the upper hand), it's actually quite fun.

WHERE IS THE REBOOT OF THIS?

             "The Goonies", holy crap it is so goofy fun.  It has escaped criminals, and booby traps, and pirate treasure, with puzzles and team work and lots of kids cursing, and Corey Feldman being a dick.  How can you not like this movie?  If you haven't seen it, it is about of smart mouthed poor kids who go looking for a local legendary pirate's gold in hopes it will keep them all from being evicted and their neighborhood leveled.  Strangely you're introduced to the antagonists first and as they run from the cops each of the kid protagonists is introduced, it's rather clever.

I am fairly certain this all started by naming various forms of masturbation, with the Truffle Shuffle and One Eyed Willy just sparking something in Donner's brain.

             "Monster Squad" is basically "The Goonies" vs the MGM stable of classic movie monsters.  It is like what if "VanHelsing" had been made with a sense of reverence and love of the source material and had a soul instead of being hammered out on a weekend and hoping the leads star power would be enough to sell tickets to rubes.  You want Cheese, holy hell this thing will constipate your mind with the cheese.  I highly recommend this movie, as my brother and I bought the special edition of it on DVD last year and very much enjoyed hearing that Liam Neeson was passed over for the part of Dracula, though I have to say the guy they got new what he was doing.

And yes, there is a "Ghostbusters" reference in the first 5 seconds of the Trailer.  I went through a lot of ghost/monster interest as a kid.  I expect it to wind down sometime around my death in the year 2257.

             So those more or less make up my childhood.  I hope that grants you a measure of insight into my mind.  I just realized that I put about 30 links in this blog.  I need to cut back on those.

            If you liked my take on this movie, please click the Google "+1" button in the comments section, post the link on your facebook, or send people over from anywhere else you might social network.