Pajiba

Labryinth, we watched it at my 9th birthday party, it was a sleep over. Any mention of the movie makes me sing Dance Magic Dance and makes me think of popcorn fights and Excite Bike.

Since I'm clearly quite a bit older, the movie is Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers with Richard Chamberlain, Michael York, Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch and a boatload of other famous faces.

I saw it when I was 14. It was one of the first movies I saw with my friends and not my parents, so it represents those first pre-adult years, independent thinking, etc. It also was directed by Richard Lester and had his distinctive qualities -- odd edits, lots of background mumbling within the dialogue, and quite a bit of slapstick. It wasn't Easy Rider, of course, but it broke the conventions of the more traditional Hollywood movies I was used to, and gave me an idea of how inventive one could be in film.

Heavy Metal. Apparently I saw it once when I was very young, probably with a very high fever. But I had nightmares about the part where the B-17 crashes into the airplane graveyard for years. Then, when I actually saw the movie as an adult, I almost panicked when that segment started. I didn't realize it was really from a movie.

Romancing the Stone. It ALWAYS makes me feel like I'm a kid. I didn't quite get the humor when I was young, but I still loved it.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers will forever be linked to my mom and my sister. We used to dance around the living room and try to copy some of the barn raising choreography.

Terminator 2. Sara Connor's dream of nuclear destruction kept me up at nights.

The People Under the Stairs. The night me and my two best friends rented this for our weekly sleepover we went skinny dipping and later fought a bat that was trapped in the living room. So basically this movie makes me feel naked save for the pillowcase on top of my head.

Young Sherlock Holmes. The cupcakes that young Watson sees after he's drugged scared the CRAP out of me.

Ghostbusters brings me back. I couldn't have been more than about 7 the first time I watched it. Little did my parents know this would trigger a conversation about "Well, when a Keymaster loves a Gatekeeper very much..."

In related news, don't ask your wife to roast you in the depths of her Slor. It won't end well.

Oh, hundreds. Pretty much any Disney movie, definitely, but especially The Little Mermaid and Alice in Wonderland. I get such a strange, indescribable feeling every time I see the beginning scene of the former where the crab guy (oh, Christ, I've forgotten the name!) takes out the music score from the shell. That scene is so ingrained in my memories that it has such a unique texture to it. It's odd.

Also, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (simultaneously horrifying and hilarious for a kid) and Amadeus, which my older sister insisted on watching every time we went to our grandparents' house.

I'm not just saying this to be cool, but for me, teenage ninja mutant turtles II: Secret of the Ooze. I watched that movie over a dozen times with my friends in middle school and just laughed...and...laughed at how bad it was. I can't see it without going back to those days when we would eat lunchable pizza and mock bad movies.

Office Space. I don't remember what year it came out, but it was mid-1990s, the heart of my childhood. And when I finally saw it on video, I realized what it really was: a documentary of my people. My people: young urban professionals working dronish office jobs in North Texas. I am from Dallas. I still carry the belief that most of the exteriors were shot in Plano, and the IniTech office building is, my dad swears, a few blocks away from his own in Plano. Everything, from the strip of chain restaurants to the furnishings of Peter's apartment to "we're putting in the drywall at the new McDonalds in Las Colinas" seems to be some degree of nod to the city of my birth.

What sticks with me after all these years is the memory of the conviction this movie gave me that I should get the hell out of the corporate purgatory of north Texas and escape. And I did...

...I moved to Bloomington, Indiana, was a music major for two years, burned out, and switched to anthropology. Now I'm in a Museum Studies graduate program and scrape by on my earnings as a...sigh...office temp, in Indianapolis.

I didn't move sideways, I moved diagonally down. Not out of the frying pan and into the fire, but rather, out of the frying pan and into that little space between the stove burner coils and the top of the oven where all the little bits of splashed food and other crud reside until someone moves in with the bleach, wipes you up, and throws you away.

Yep. That's temping in Indianapolis.

Candleshoe and Freaky Friday (there can be only one)--both of them Disney movies with a very young and tomboyish Jodie Foster, and both awesome and a bit weird.

The Batman movie with Adam West. We always watched it together
and it was one of the few things for which we were allowed to eat a
meal in front of the TV.

We also always watched The Court Jester together. It did not hold
up as well over time.

National Lampoon's Animal House. Between that and Caddyshack, I got my first major exposure to R-rated fun (and boobs) through those two movies.
Most importantly, the boobs. *singing* Oh, Mandy...you came and you stood by the window...

Robin Hood, the Disney cartoon. I remember going into town with my Mom to rent it on Laser Disk. It's one of the ones that my sister and I can still recite verbatim.

Same with The Pirate Movie. It started a bit of an obsession with Christopher Atkins.

I miss laser disks. There's nothing quite as awesome as having to get up in the middle of your movie to turn your disk over.

Goonies

Neverending Story

JAWS (seriously)

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

E.T.

YAYYYY TOPIC!!!

Ferris Bueller's Day Off - "You killed the car." That line will sit with me forever. I was over my friend Justin's house watching it on VHS and none of us had seen the movie yet. The Ferrari crashes through the garage and in a rush of agony seeing the death of a thing of beauty I said "He killed the car." My firends thought i was psychic...which is pretty cool when you're 8.

The Goonies - Because who doesn't love the fucking Goonies. This is on my top 10 "Have to Wacth'em if They're On" list....possibly number 1.

Neverending Story - I remember thinking the way that Bastian could fold all 4 of his fingers, 1 over the next, was amazing. The theme song was the absolute tits and Atreyu was a bad motherfucker! Plus...I still want may very own Luck Dragon dammit. Falcor FTW.

Labyrinth - Made me want to learn how to do special make-up effects. Funny how something as trvial as a movie can shape one's entire life.

A Nightmare on Elm Street - First horror movie I ever saw. Changed my life.

Not a movie but...the Spice Channel - birthing sexual deviants since 1990.

I forgot about the Pirate Movie - how could I forget Christopher Atkins and Kristy McNichol? I always found it so odd that Kristy McNichol had very noticeable bathing suit tan lines that were not period specific. I watched that movie all the time on HBO - back in the day when you got a booklet every month that told you when your movies were on. I poured over that booklet and circled everything that had to be watched - it was my bible.

Oh! and I can't forget Beetlejuice. Went to see this with 8 or 9 of my friends for my 8th birthday. People actually hung out in the theater afterwards to watch us dance to "Jump In The Line" by Harry Belafonte.

The first thing that popped into my head was "The 10 Commandments" with Charlton Heston. We had it on VHS in the 80's. My family was the OPPOSITE of religious, but my mom was an Art History teacher, and that movie was all about Egypt. My brother and I watched that thing endlessly. Out in the sticks where we lived there were about 4 TV channels including PBS, so we watched what we had. To this day I can recite practically every line of dialog from that movie.

We also had 'The Last Unicorn' in heavy rotation.
'Schmendrick' is still one of my favorite words.
That and "No cat out of its first fur has ever been fooled by appearances."

You Only Live Twice came out much earlier, but my best friend developed a Bond obsession by the age of seven. The scene in which he's shot, the Murphy bed folds up, and he's shot out to sea as though dead is the very first Bond scene I remember seeing.
Help! (See above, but replace Bond with the Beatles.)
The Wind and the Lion, which my dad rented at blockbuster once. I remember being utterly mesmerized during the scenes where the Raisuli punishes his band.
The Sandlot, THE movie about being a suburban white boy growing up in America, as far as I am concerned.
The Rocketeer is one of the first two movies I remember vividly from a theater (the other is The Land Before Time, though I know there were others in there). It probably helped that I recognized Timothy Dalton from Bond movies and that Jennifer Connelly is Jennifer Connelly. Plus it had a zeppelin and was just SO COOL.

Oh, I completely forgot about The Neverending Story! I remember watching it and being terrified when Bastian imagined the gigantic waterfalls before he jumped off into the pool. I don't know why THAT scared me the most, but it did.

Angels in the Outfield.

My dad rented it for me so many times he might as well have just bought it for me.

The Sound of Music -- oh, man, the memories!!

I was involved in a Korean choir (I was the oldest kid by far -- it was so embarrassing), and my teacher entered me in a singing contest. She chose "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" for me. I didn't know the song, so the fam headed out to buy it, along with the sheet music for "Sixteen Going on Seventeen."

It quickly became my favorite movie and I watched it so often that I knew it verbatim. I even knew all the steps to the ländler.

Once, on a long car trip, I recited the whole thing (including all the musical numbers). It must have been annoying, but it spared us from having to make conversation with my friend's Korean-speaking-only mom. Later, she said that it was like watching the movie without the movie.

I came in third in the singing contest, btw. *sigh* Darn those older girls with more mature voices!!

As far as my actual childhood goes, what immediately comes to mind is all of the Abbott & Costello movies that were on WPIX (Channel 11 for you NY'ers) on Sunday mornings. They were always on after we got back from church, and eating the great crumb cake and crusty rolls from the bakery around the corner. Yes, I'm old. My grandpa and I used to do the "Who's on First" routine for the family. I knew it by heart by the time I was five.

For the teen years, Ferris Bueller is the quintessential movie. I think it came out when I was a junior or senior in HS, and it just spoke to me. I wanted to be Ferris.

Real Genius always reminds me of late HS, early college. My personal favorite line (paraphrasing): "I was thinking of the words of Socrates, who said, 'I drank what?'"

Another HS movie was Purple Rain. Oh lordy, we watched that movie so many times. I even had the tape, along with Vanity 6. Not sure if I had the Appolonia 6 tape. But probably.

For college, it's totally Alice in Wonderland. If you haven't seen that movie on acid, you haven't seen that movie.

Newsies
Mary Poppins
Labyrinth
The Princess Bride
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
The Land Before Time
The Dark Crystal
The Wizard of Oz
Willow
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (cartoon)
Top Gun
Sleeping Beauty
Aladdin
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

As far as my actual childhood goes, what immediately comes to mind is all of the Abbott & Costello movies that were on WPIX (Channel 11 for you NY'ers) on Sunday mornings. They were always on after we got back from church, and eating the great crumb cake and crusty rolls from the bakery around the corner. Yes, I'm old. My grandpa and I used to do the "Who's on First" routine for the family. I knew it by heart by the time I was five.

For the teen years, Ferris Bueller is the quintessential movie. I think it came out when I was a junior or senior in HS, and it just spoke to me. I wanted to be Ferris.

Real Genius always reminds me of late HS, early college. My personal favorite line (paraphrasing): "I was thinking of the words of Socrates, who said, 'I drank what?'"

Another HS movie was Purple Rain. Oh lordy, we watched that movie so many times. I even had the tape, along with Vanity 6. Not sure if I had the Appolonia 6 tape. But probably.

For college, it's totally Alice in Wonderland. If you haven't seen that movie on acid, you haven't seen that movie.

And apparently I'm on acid right now.

I just realized I don't know how to format. I iz smrt.

I love this topic!

In no particular order:

The Neverending Story -We were watching it in the school library one afternoon (I have no idea why) and when Artax sinks they had to stop the movie to console all of the girls. We were all bawling. One girl asked to sit in the office for the rest of the movie.

Mary Poppins -My sister’s favourite movie and because she was a willful child, my entire family knows it word for word.

Grease -My Favourite movie and because I was a willful child, my entire family knows it word for word.

Legend -I’ve only seen it a couple of times but when I do I could swear I’m sitting on the floor of my parents living room, cross legged and I can smell the spaghetti my Mom was cooking. I remember asking could we eat supper in the living room so we could keep watching the movie. Mom said no cause ‘scetti was messy.

So, so many more.

Field of Dreams is the first one that comes to mind. I watched it a lot when I was little. I think that is where my love for sports movies (but not sports) comes from.

I've seen a few here that bring back memories for me too. During my childhood in Miami, our local indie station used to run Abbot & Costello movies on Sunday mornings. I distinctly remember a song from one military-themed one with the lyric "Three cheers for the red, white and Captain Brown." I hated it when they aired one of those awful, full-length Three Stooges movies instead of Bud & Lou (Stooges shorts = awesome, Stooges movies = suck).

I also grew up on the live action Disney movies like Freaky Friday (still a favorite), Escape to Witch Mountain, The Apple Dumpling Gang (Don Knotts 4-eva), The Shaggy D.A. (Tim Conway 4-eva) and Pete's Dragon (I still have an animation cel from that one on my wall.)

The last one I saw here that I had to mention was Sgt. Pepper's LHCB. We had just gotten cable and I saw all 40 showings of that movie the month it debuted (I blame my Peter Frampton obsession, which still endures today.) I also watched the movie with a friend on my 21st birthday because I was unable to go out to bars due to the fact that my wallet (with ID) was stolen that SUNDAY morning. Good times.

Oh and until I was about six and lost the vhs, My Little Pony Movie!! I watched it on youtube a few months ago and it was as if I had dreamt the dialogue--I still knew most of it even though I hadn't seen the movie about fifteen years. Freaky.

Scully,
As long as there is Pajiba, you are not alone.

We actually liked the movie though.
Cast of thousands, great acting, HUGE plot, (implied) sex, violence, torture, Plagues, wrath of the gods, Yul FUCKING Brenner?!
Whats not to like?

Anyway, about 80% of the movies I see others putting down are also on my favorites lists, but later, in HS. When I had a life. 'The Princess Bride' was the first movie I was allowed to go see with friends (freshman year) in a theater. Love.

Captain Ron - My sister and I loved this movie. We also watched Overboard a lot, our mom had a big crush on Kurt Russell. Anytime Captain Ron comes on I'm glued to the sofa and giggling like I'm eight.

We also quote The Emperor's New Groove and Out Cold a lot. They were staples of our high school years. "Carpe the Dium, seize the... carp".

I can't watch a Mel Brooks film without calling my dad and we watch Blazing Saddles at a lot of family functions. Its all-purpose - birthday, Father's Day, 4th of July, Easter - the jokes never get old to me and every time I watch it I can remember being curled up in my dad's lap in his big old orange recliner, and his moustache smells like Miller Lite. The chair and the moustache are gone, but a bunch of guys "Harumph, harumph"ing brings it back. Dad still smells like Miller Lite though. Some things never change.

Wow - this topic is dragging right out of my four year lurking status and into "please shut up bitch - we don't care - stop commenting every five minutes" territory.

Sugarcane - I too had great love for the live action Disney Movies. The Apple Dumpling Gang rocked. Escape to Witch Mountain was the first movie me and my sister watched on HBO. I can remember getting our popcorn ready, lining up all our stuffed animals in rows and asking mom if it was ready to start yet every five minutes for at least an hour before it started.

I feel so old now that someone mentioned they were 8 when they saw Beetlejuice and then realized it was on HBO in the background when I had sex for the first time. I never knew I had so much history with that channel.

What a great comment diversion. My movies are:

The Boy Who Could Fly: My brother and I watched everyday for two weeks when we had the chicken pocks. I tried watching it again a few years ago, but had to stop because I started itching. Oh well, it probably isn't very good. Looking back I think it was actually pretty bad and very cheesy.

Terminator 2: Probably my first R movie when I was 10 and my brother was 8. We watched the movie for a whole summer, though now we both prefer Terminator 1. We tend to watch both any time we are home for the holidays.

Those Daring Young Men in their Flying Machines: My dad introduced this one to us. It made me laugh then and it makes me laugh now. In fact, it is on the list of movies I am showing to my nieces and nephews. Also on this list: Most anything by Peter Sellers, The Princes Bride, Willow, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, and The Land Before Time. All great movies then and great movies now.

The Empire Strikes Back
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Ghostbusters
Aliens
and oddly enough, The Hunt for Red October

"Witness". It was my late father's favourite film (though he always called it "The Witness"), and I still think of him every time I see it. Not that I need the prompting, I think of him and miss him every day....

The Secret of Roan Inish.

You know what I just subjected my sons to the other day? Caveman. Ringo Starr, Shelly Long, a young Dennis Quaid, John fucking Matuszak. I forgot that it even existed, but what a horrid, horrid, awesome movie that was. I must have watched it a hundred times with my cousins. Now THAT brings back some memories!!

I'm with Jillster on Goonies and Innerspace. I LOVE Innerspace and have it on DVD. Catch me on the right day and I'll sing "Twistin' the Night Away" or scream that it's "like a white-hot sewing needled shoved through the pupil of my eye" with very little prompting.

Along with these:
Mannequin
Weird Science
Sword in the Stone
The Glass Slipper (Cinderella story with Leslie Caron)
Swing Time (Fred and Ginger)
The Man with One Red Shoe
Lambert the Sheepish Lion, which was shown back to back with Dumbo. And I still get weepy at the scene in Dumbo when the mom rocks him through the bars of her jail cell.

Ferriws Bueller's Day Off, fo' sho'. I may have watched that more than any other film.

The Sandlot Kids (which I think in some parts is just known as The Sandlot) takes me back, too. Walked past it on DVD the other day and was overcome by a flash of nostalgia. I just had to buy it.

The Dark Crystal, Popeye (1980), Land of the Lost(tv series - i hate that i have to qualify that now), ,The Empire Strikes Back, . . . these are all places i still revisit when life is throwing too many kidney punches at me.

childhood tv - Dr. Snuggles,Bear called Jeramy, the phoenix and the carpet, secret railroad, there was also one about a boy who went to the past in a magic trunk, but i dont remember its title

I was also very much into Little House On The Prairie. . .such a pleasant fantasy - a quaint village, with minor ethical dilemmas that are solved in a warm and inclusive manner.

that last one is a secret, do not tell anyone.

My sister and I always used to rent Joe Versus the Volcano. Still one of my favorites.
I also remember NOT watching Dirty Dancing at a sleepover when I was 9 because I was pretty sure my mom would be pissed if I did--so ever since, lots of feeling sneaky when it's on.
Bringing Up Baby was my FAVORITE movie when I was home sick. I just adored it, but now I only ever want to watch it in bed with ginger ale and crackers at my side.
This is one of those topics that could go on forever, but three more quick ones:
The King And I
Beauty and the Beast (disney version)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail with my Dad. I still send him jokes about this movie.

A big YES to The Sound of Music. I have had a big crush on Captain von Trapp since a very tender age. My cousins would drool all over Kurt, but not me. Even back then I knew that the real thrill was not with the cute boy, but with the big, strong powerful man. My mother always looked very worried whenever I said that I liked the Captain, now I understand why!

My other childhood movie is Fiddler on the Roof. It's the one and only time I went to the movies with my dad. Ever.

Maybe I have just a soft spot for musicals.

1. Goonies
2. A very strange but brilliant animated movie called 'Hugo the Hippo'. It was heart breaking, pretty violent and absolutely loveable.
3. The Neverending Story - that wolf thing kept me awake for 3 weeks solid. We were shown it in third class in school.
4. Return to Oz, with a very young Fairuza Balk as Dorothy. Those headless dancing girls...argh!
5. Dirty Dancing (we had Yugoslavian au pair who was mad about it, and the soundtrack).
6. Not so much a film, but we used to rent the Ewoks cartoons from our local video store..LOVED THEM!