We all grew up in different times, places, and cultures but no matter where you grew up, provided it was after 1940 or so, your life and especially your childhood has been influenced by certain movies that stuck with you. When I say that these movies defined my childhood I mean that they were so popular that they kind of influenced the way that myself and a great many of my friends would behave at school. Much like my close circle of friends who are around my age will quote Anchorman and Dumb and Dumber on a regular basis, there were times, well before Ron Burgundy that there were a few movies that became a part of our everyday routine and these films are the ones that I remember that being the case with the most.
Pee Wee's Big Adventure
If you were a kid in the 80's you knew Pee Wee, you loved this film and you did your best to emulate Pee Wee Herman's voice as often as possible. The iconic laugh, the silliness in almost everything he says and even the way he walked and talked was something that all of us (especially the boys) were incorporating into our day-to-day lives as much as possible. I am quite certain that we irritated the absolute crap out of our teachers as we would do our best to score laughs from our fellow classmates by doing something Pee Wee like in class.
The crazy thing about this movie is that it was Tim Burton's first film and we all know that he went on to do some pretty amazing stuff and is very highly regarded in the cinema world. There is something about Tim's style that was just perfect for this film. Also, if you watch closely in several scenes you can see that there are mistakes that made it to the final cut.
Go back and watch the scene with the increasingly complicated road signs the car encounters at night. You can clearly tell that the "car" is stationary and it is actually the signs that are on tracks approaching the camera. I didn't notice these things as a kid but there are actually a lot more mistakes in the film as well. Perhaps that is why Tim Burton didn't get another job as director until 3 years later.
Three Amigos
Sadly, this film would probably be met with boycotts and screams of racism if it were to be released today because the white guys save the day and all the Mexicans are represented as either helpless or thuggish with no in-between.
We didn't worry about such PC nonsense back in the 80's and if anyone wants to complain that Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Chevy Chase are racist because they did this you need to get back on your meds and probably go outside every now and then.
Myself and my friends loved this film and we went to go see it in theaters twice. I wouldn't learn until today years later that this film was panned by critics and was a box office failure. My friends and I felt differently of course because we would mimic the Amigos as often as possible, especially their greeting of sorts that the would do when presenting themselves to a group.
This film does have some seriously silly moments such as the singing bush that they had to find and this probably pissed off the overly serious critics such as Ebert who gave it 1 out of 4 stars. Since those days it has become a cult classic and is on may lists of top 100 funniest movies of all time. Just don't let the PC police get a hold of that list!
Conan the Barbarian
In 1982 I was waaaay too young to be allowed to see this sex-filled violence fest but my parents were pretty awesome so they actually borrowed a neighbors VCR, and they dubbed it with all of the boobies taken out of it. This was problematic for the gigantic orgy slaughter that happens at the end of the film because the action takes place with a ton of neked people in it. I don't know why but my parents, realizing that this part of the film is actually where some of the best action was, allowed some of it to remain, boobs and butts included!
These were the days when even a Playboy magazine would be considered very forbidden in my household so let's just say that less-than-10-year-old me watched this scene more than a few times. At the time it was considered a very impressive scene because it was done in one continuous shot. Because of this, there is one particular part of the fight where you can actually see one of the stuntmen throw a cup of fake blood on his back. I'm thinking they noticed this in post production and realized that it would be far too complicated to re-shoot and left it in the film anyway.
Arnold barely spoke English back then and his dialogue is extremely limited (he says literally nothing until 20 minutes into the film) and at times it is quite difficult to make out what he is saying. His physique is obviously the reason why he was cast and there is some unproven chatter that the producers didn't even audition anyone else for the starring role. Here's a little "did you know?" factoid... Arnold actually had to LOSE muscle for this role because his upper back muscles were too big to allow for the swordplay and mobility necessary for some of the fight scenes. He also did all of his own stunts because they couldn't find a body double for him.
This film, despite being nearly 40 years old is still very much worth watching today and I highly suggest you do so if you haven't seen it. The soundtrack in particular is extremely good and you get to see a quite young Arnold (now 73) and James Earl Jones (now 90.) There was actually meant to be 7 of these films, but after Conan the Destroyer failed to turn a profit the remaining 5 films were shelved.
The completely unnecessary remake of this film is a piece of crap that should never have been made.
On the not-so-great side of things this film encouraged me and my friends to engage in swordplay that resulted in multiple injuries including a broken arm for my friend Paul. I'm sure we were not the only ones to try to emulate our heroes to our own detriment.
There are of course others but this is already more than 1000 words long and even I wont read articles that are longer than that so we'll leave it at that.
Do you have any favorite childhood movies. I'd love to chat about it if you do!