Have you ever had the want to recapture your childhood? Want to re-live the hours spent watching the movies that you loved as a child? I used to get that feeling…until I realized that just about every movie I loved was actually a steaming cinematic turd.
This has happened to me countless times. It’s like a piece of me died when I realized that the films I love were in fact better suited to be spread out on the front yard to help grow grass.
These are the 8 times it hurt the most.
8. Police Academy – Remember when Steve Guttenberg was the shit. I mean THE SHIT! When he was the King Midas of everything 80’s film comedy? Well, I do. He skills were never better highlighted than in the original Police Academy. A slapstick comedy tour-de-force… at least when you’re ten.
This a film that you watched when Mom and Dad went “out to dinner” and had to make sure was back in the same place of the VHS stack and queued to the same place on the tape where it was before.
Now, try watching an episode of SNL with let’s say…the oh, so funny guy who played “Stifler” and try to differentiate that from Police Academy.
You can’t, huh?
The only way Police Academy holds up is with inhaling two pounds of weed. But then again, with that much weed, I bet Gandhi is a laugh riot too.
You want real slapstick and physical comedy? Here you go:
7. Every Seagal Movie – My love for Steven Seagal films strangely coincides with my years as a fan of professional wrestling. Someone do you wrong? Well, then you track them down until it’s down to just you and them with no outside interference in a match to the death…where of course, the good guy wins. Hey look, I just wrote EVERY movie Seagal ever made. Took me about 30 seconds.
Once I realized that wrestling wasn’t real and learned what a “steroid fueled coke abuser” looks like, I stopped watching good ‘ol rasslin. Strange, it was right about the same time that I learned what “phony martial arts and uninspiring storytelling” was.
What a coinky-dink!
6. Coming to America – It was funny because Eddie Murphy would swear a lot, well sorta. You know something’s up when they show this movie on HBO at 3:30 pm. Just enough time to get home from school and watch before mom came home. It was supposed to be so cool. Me and my friends all laughed when we were supposed to: the barber shop scenes, the dripping jheri-curl, Sexual Chocolate, etc.
We didn’t exactly know why were laughing. We just felt like we should. 19 years later, we now know why we shouldn’t have been laughing. You don’t laugh at things that blow that bad…you shut off the TV, grab your skateboard, and go steal candy from the liquor store.
5. Kickboxer – Like any good dealer, Van Damme got me hooked with the first hit, Bloodsport. Like a fiend, I couldn’t wait for my next one. Then, I realized how gay that whole movie is. I don’t mean gay as in “jock-term-for belittling something I think sucks,” I mean gay as in, “two-roidheads having anal sex with each other.” This movie proves that being gay is not a choice, otherwise we’d have generation of prancy tae-kwon-do flip kicky homosexuals...I do not appreciate Mr. Van Damme trying to convert me.
4. Gremlins – This movie scared the fuck out of me as a kid. Mutating monsters that would eat you as soon as look as you. Pheobe Cates’ dad dying in the chimney dressed like Santa Claus. Crazy Asian guys. Corey Feldman. That’s some scary stuff. It gave me nightmares.
Now, it’s just kinda sad. It’s like when I realized that those kids in Africa aren’t actually fat and should just stop complaining about being hungry…that they’re actually starving to death and suffering.
That’s what Gremlins is like for me.
3. Spaceballs – This is about as uninspiring as they come. A Star Wars parody, oh, I don’t know…ten years too late? Did the comic stylings really need to percolate this long? Hmmm, couldn’t decide whether “Barf” should be a dog, a monkey, or a bear? Or naming a planet “Druidia” just to make a stupid pun on everything “Jewish”?
It was the Caddyshack in terms of quotability and third grade awesomeness…now it’s Caddyshack II in terms of everything.
2. National Lampoon’s European Vacation – Whenever I was “sick” from school, I’d wait until about 10am to make sure that there was no way that Mom was coming back home for some reason, and I would retrieve European Vacation from the VHS rack. Fast forward to France sequence…then to the Germany sequence. Rewind. Repeat. Rewind. Let the party begin!
It wasn’t until years later that I realized the Griswolds actually went to places where women kept their tops on. Those places aren’t funny.
By the way, what the fuck was up with the lame car chase at the end?
1. Return of the Jedi – We’re people surprised when The Phantom Menace sucked? I mean, really, were they actually shocked? Did they see Jedi? If they had, they would surely know that more suckness was on the horizon.
You know why kids LOVED Episode IV? Good vs. Evil. Rogue pilots. A princess. A wise man and a hero. It wasn’t stupid burp jokes.
Search your soul, the ewoks suck and you know it. After the first two made a gabillion bucks, they knew they could make a gabillion gabillion more if they sold furry little toys. Hence, you get the rock throwing, extremely punt-worthy ewoks.
When I was little, I loved it…just like the Episodes IV and V. Now, I feel like I was “marketed towards.”
What about you? What movies did you love as a kid that are disappointments now?
- Vans McCoy was knocked out at a Dead Kennedys show in the early 80’s and has been a cultural expert ever since. He has spent time in several small bands over the years. He sang for The Magnificent Cox, played bass in Manson’s Ranchers, and was lead guitarist for Televised Execution. He’s spent 347 days in local jails throughout the country and is now gainfully employed managing a local video store.
2 comments:
Buster Keaton=Genius
No argument there, Michael.
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