My Childhood Movies

I am a child of the 80's and early 90's. Yes, I got to see first hand the transition from where rock stars wore eyeliner, hairspray, and sang about how great their life was to where they didn't shower, wore nothing but flannel, and sang about how crappy their life was. There will be lists for that type of stuff too. During my wonder years, I saw a lot of movies. After all, it was the time were VHS beat out beta in the battle of VCR's. This list will consist of my favorite movies from this time period which for the purposes of this article will be from 1980 to 1990. Anything before '80 I was too young for, although I have a great apreciation for now, and anything after '90 was in more my middle to late teens and really didn't have much influence on my life.

6. A Christmas Story: We all know the famous line from this movie. Every time my child asks why he can't have a BB gun, I tell him in the voice we all know, "You'll shoot your eye out." This movie is so completely true when it comes to how children view Christmas time and the things that go on in a cold town in winter. Simply a classic!

5. A Nightmare on Elm Street: Admit it, Freddy Krueger scared the crap out of you. The first Elm Street movie absolutely freaked me out. Let's face it, a guy that is completely burned up that has knives as fingers is not exactly what you want to envision when going to sleep. Out of all of the horror movies that hit theaters in the 80's, that includes you Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers, Freedy easily had the best. Besides, even DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince were freaked out by him.

4. Fast Times at Ridgemont High: I will admit that when Fast Times originally came out, it was slightly over my head. It wasn't until my early teen years in the later 80's that I fully gained an apreciation for what this movie had to offer. That being said, Phoebe Cates will forever have a place in my heart, and other things, for her award winning role in this movie. Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Nicholas Cage, Eric Stoltz, and Anthony Edwards all had roles in this classic. Great cast, great story lines, and great movie.

3. Caddyshack: GREATEST SPORTS MOVIE EVER! Sure Hoosiers had a more sentimental story line and Rudy was more personal to me, and maybe the end of the movie didn't quite make sense because it actually ended in a tie, but this movie is 100% classic. Bill Murray and Chevy Chase are absolutely brilliant. There are more one liners in this movie than I can get into now. Actually, that sounds like a great idea for another list. I've seen this movie more times than I know and still laugh at something new everytime.

2. The John Hughes Franchise (Ferris Bueller, Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink): Wow. Simply amazing. That's right, one guy is responsible for all of those movies. For me it is completely impossible to rank those seperately since they are all in a class by themselves. I'm not even sure where to begin with this whole franchise. It gave Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Matthew Broderick, and countless others a name. To me, one phrase sums up all of these movies..."You mess with the bull, you get the horns."

1. Stand By Me: It's not too often that, as a man, I get warm fuzzies from a movie. Sure Rudy does it, and maybe Brian's Song. But Stand By Me makes me smile when I see it. We all had that group of friends when we were in our formative years that we always hung out with. We spent every single day together. Then as we got older, we kind of drifted apart just as they did at the end of the movie. This movie takes me to that time and to those friends. This is the only movie that seems to bring that childhood innocence out in me (even though I wasn't that innocent). I can still remember wanting to take walks on the railrood with my friends just as they did in the movie. We knew we weren't going to find a dead body, but we just wanted to do it simply because they did. Classic movie that makes me remember all the great times I had with my buddies growing up. I miss every one of them and am thankful this movie comes as a reminder to how great our childhood can be.