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Jul 4, 2011

Movies that Stand the Test of Time


I love watching classic movies. I don’t mean Gone with the Wind or North to Alaska either. Although I’ve seen both and enjoyed North to Alaska, those are a little beyond my childhood. I mean movies from the 80’s. Timeless classics like Top Gun, Terminator, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, Back to the Future, Aliens, Full Metal Jacket, Die Hard, etc.

Well I thought they were good back in the 80’s. I’ve discovered that not every movie I loved in the 80’s is still lovable today. Movies like The Never Ending Story, The Breakfast Club and Tron all left a bad taste in my mouth after watching them recently in the last few years. I even bought DVD’s of two of those movies with the “Oh man! I remember this movie. It was awesome.” Key word being “was.” Now that their opened I can’t return them either, now just something else that will collect dust till my next garage sale.

Well this holiday weekend I treated myself to two movies I loved in the 80’s. You might have heard of them: Robocop and Night of the Comet.

Well, Robocop lived up to the timeless classic I thought it would be. They didn’t try to push the envelope with graphics which turned out to be a good plan to make this movie still watchable in 2011. There are some cheesy special effects, but it was the 80’s and there are giant robots fighting. All in all, I watched it with my brother-in-law (much younger than me) who hadn’t seen it and he loved it. If you haven’t seen it and you enjoy sci-fi, futuristic movies then definitely try to watch it once, it’s streamed on Netflix.

The Night of the Comet on the other hand went the other way in a dramatically painful way. I finished watching it again out of pure nostalgia after watching it at least ten times in the 80’s. After it was done I found myself wondering how ridiculously easy I was to entertain back then.

If you’ve seen any old movies recently that you had fond memories of and then watched them again after many years then share them with me. It doesn’t matter if it’s the timeless good ones or the ones that should fade away from existence.

6 comments:

  1. War Games, which I sadly hear they're remaking (please don't, Hollywood), is one I watched over and over back in the day. I've watched it many times since and still love it. To me, it's a classic that has stood the test of time. "Shall. We. Play. A. Game?"

    I can't watch Top Gun too much. Loved it when it was released and love it still. "Yeeha! Jester's dead!"

    On the down side, don't laugh, Desperately Seeking Susan. For some reason I loved this movie way back when. Today, not so much.

    Fortunately, a lot of my favorites remain faves today. In addition to the two mentioned above, there are The Shining, Star Wars, The Fly, Aliens, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Terminator, The Princess Bride, The Abyss, Die Hard, Batman, and so many more!

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  2. Not long ago, I watched Vice Versa with Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage. Unsurprisingly, it was terrible.

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  3. I agree that Terminator and Aliens totally stand up after all these years. Those two are such great flicks. I think the original Star Wars does too. I haven't watched ET in forever, but I'll bet that one's still fantastic.

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  4. @Christy I will have to look for War Games. I haven't seen that one in years. Ferris Bueller brings back memories. That's another I have been thinking of watching again.

    @Paul that's a shame, I remember buying that on VHS and watching it several times. I'm not surprised though.

    @Kendall ET! Now there's one I'm sure is still good. Lucas and Spielberg seem to have been masters at making movies timeless.

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  5. Do I lose cool points if I confess that the Karate Kid was one of my favorites as a kid? :P I'm not sure that would hold my attention quite as well today.

    The Princess Bride is still a winner though!

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  6. I loved Karate Kid as a kid, but I haven't tried watching it recently. I bet it would still hold. The situations and the storyline would work well enough to relate. It was good enough for them to do a remake that should have been called Kung Fu Kid, why they called it Karate Kid and put it in China with Jackie Chan, I'll never understand. Although it was pretty good.

    Oh, The Princess Bride. I used to say "As you wish" to my wife all the time because of that movie. She loved it. I'm a geek, what?

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