GregHowley.com

I've been thinking recently about the science fiction and/or video game education that my daughter will have to get as she grows up. Actually, I accept that Lia may have close to zero interest in video games - perhaps we'll go the board game route with her instead.

But in thinking of the movies that I'd like her to see as she grows up, I got to thinking of when I was a kid, how magical it was to visit Video Galaxy XII or Video Express in good ole Bristol, CT and browse dozens of movies. Discovering movies in the video store rather than hearing about them via advertising or online was quite an experience. I still remember discovering Goonies and bringing home the VHS, probably a couple years after it had been in theatres. Good times.

So here are some of the movies from my own youth that I think kids today would appreciate. (I'm leaving out greats like E.T. and Princess Bride because they're too obvious)

Wolfman's got nards!" Yep. That's the immortal line from Monster Squad, a strictly average 1987 film. Still, it's got a lot of camp appeal, and shows Abraham Van Helsing how I think he should be - not a young guy with a Krull glaive, but an old guy leading the charge against Dracula. Interesting how as I become older I become less of a fan of lewdness for its own sake though. Maybe I won't show this one to Lia.

Spacecamp was a film from 1986 in which a group of kids in Spacecamp get accidentally launched into orbit. Despite the implausibility of it all, I remember really enjoying the movie. I'll probably Netflix it for Lia someday.

Anyone remember D.A.R.Y.L.? The Data analyzing youth life form? A family finds the amnesiac boy wandering and takes him in, only to discover later that he's a super-advanced robot and the government is after him. You've got to love movies from the eighties.

Flight of the Navigator was the 1986 Disney movie wherein a boy living in 1978 wanders into the woods in his background and falls, passing out briefly. When he wakes up, he finds that it's eight years later. Turns out that he was abducted by an alien with a voice like Pee Wee Herman. My brothers and I always liked this one.

Another movie from 1985, Explorers, is one of my favorites. Ethan Hawke played a boy who had a repeating odd dream about a strange pattern. He jotted it down and brought it to his tech geek friend River Phoenix, who made it into a circuit board that he plugged into his Apple 2c laptop. It created a tiny indestructible energy sphere controlled by the computer. Most of the movie involved four boys experimenting with this, eventually travelling into space inside a larger version of the sphere to meet some very odd aliens. Although the ending got weird, this is a fantastic movie.

I don't remember too much about the 1986 movie Rad, except that at the time I saw it, it was the coolest thing EVER. A movie about BMX racing which I'm sure would be amazingly cheezy by today's standards. I will see it again some day.

This weekend, the 1991 movie Toy Soliders was on TV, lending me the impetus to make this list. This movie is so much fun. Lou Gossett Jr. is a teacher at a school for troubled boys with rich and influenial parents. Sean Astin and Wil Wheaton play two of the kids. Terrorists take over the school and hold the kids hostage in the hopes that the kids' influential parents can convince authorities to release an imprisoned terrorist. Of course, those scrappy kids fight back. Great flick.

Lastly, one of my favorites, and I'm sure it's one you haven't heard of. Breathing Fire is a martial arts flick from 1991 starring Jerry Trimble and Bolo Yeung. It's also got Jonathan Ke Quan, A.K.A. Short Round from Temple of Doom, A.K.A. Data from Goonies. Also a guy called Ed Neil who does some of the coolest stuff I've seen. The movie is so good and so cheezy all at the same time - I love it. Best thing since Ninja III: The Domination.

So what potentially cheezy movies from your own youth do you think most people have forgotten?