These Are the Quotes From My Favorite 80s Movies***
Today one of my coworkers expressed shock that I had never seen Caddyshack. This is just the latest in a long series of people being shocked that I had not seen some movie from the 1980s.
My family didn't have cable as a kid, and my parents didn't let me watch all that much television anyway. We didn't get a VCR until I was in high school. We didn't go to movies very often, and when we did they were mostly Disney or other animated films. In short, we weren't watching a lot of movies in my household.
At friend's houses, we sometimes watched television, but mostly we played video games. Or to put it another way, sometimes we watched DuckTales and a lot more often we played DuckTales. What about sleepovers, which 80s culture tells us were designed to watch bad movies? On the comparatively rare occasions when I stayed overnight at a friends houses, we almost always played videogames. I remember one sleepover where we rented Megaman 2 and another playing Ninja Gaiden.
The upshot is that I didn't have a lot of opportunity to watch movies growing up. I missed a lot of classic 80s movies compared to my wife, who has a whole list of movies she saw over and over again, despite being younger than me. She's often mystified by the movies I haven't seen. When she learned that I hadn't seen The Goonies, for example, she insisted that I had to watch it. I liked it well enough, but I'm sure I would have liked it more if I'd seen it as a kid. She was kind of shocked to learn that I hadn't seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off until 2011.
With that in mind, here's a list of well known 80s movies that I never saw:
- Caddyshack
- Most of John Hughes's most famous films, including: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink.
- Most of John Cusak's films from that era, including Say Anything... or Better Off Dead. I did somehow see One Crazy Summer.
- Fast Times at Ridgemont High
- Dazed and Confused, which technically came out in 1993 but whatever.
- Short Circuit
- The Karate Kid and sequels
- Airplane! and The Naked Gun
- A Christmas Story
- Basically any 80s horror film like A Nightmare on Elm Street.
- Stand by Me
- SpaceCamp, which I had never even heard of but apparently is a beloved memory from M's childhood.
I'm sure there are many more films that I could list here, but you get the general idea.
I don't want to imply that I hadn't seen any part of these movies. Over the years, I've probably seen a scene or two or maybe even more on television from some or even most of these films. However, I certainly have no memory of having seen any of these films all the way through.
So tell me, which ones should I make an effort to change that for? To be clear, I don't want to watch a movie that you loved as a kid that hasn't aged well. I might want to watch a movie that actually was good that I might have missed, whether listed or above or otherwise. Also, I'm sure M would love to watch some movies with me.
***With respect to The Bouncing Souls. I have seen none of the six films quoted.
My family didn't have cable as a kid, and my parents didn't let me watch all that much television anyway. We didn't get a VCR until I was in high school. We didn't go to movies very often, and when we did they were mostly Disney or other animated films. In short, we weren't watching a lot of movies in my household.
At friend's houses, we sometimes watched television, but mostly we played video games. Or to put it another way, sometimes we watched DuckTales and a lot more often we played DuckTales. What about sleepovers, which 80s culture tells us were designed to watch bad movies? On the comparatively rare occasions when I stayed overnight at a friends houses, we almost always played videogames. I remember one sleepover where we rented Megaman 2 and another playing Ninja Gaiden.
The upshot is that I didn't have a lot of opportunity to watch movies growing up. I missed a lot of classic 80s movies compared to my wife, who has a whole list of movies she saw over and over again, despite being younger than me. She's often mystified by the movies I haven't seen. When she learned that I hadn't seen The Goonies, for example, she insisted that I had to watch it. I liked it well enough, but I'm sure I would have liked it more if I'd seen it as a kid. She was kind of shocked to learn that I hadn't seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off until 2011.
With that in mind, here's a list of well known 80s movies that I never saw:
- Caddyshack
- Most of John Hughes's most famous films, including: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink.
- Most of John Cusak's films from that era, including Say Anything... or Better Off Dead. I did somehow see One Crazy Summer.
- Fast Times at Ridgemont High
- Dazed and Confused, which technically came out in 1993 but whatever.
- Short Circuit
- The Karate Kid and sequels
- Airplane! and The Naked Gun
- A Christmas Story
- Basically any 80s horror film like A Nightmare on Elm Street.
- Stand by Me
- SpaceCamp, which I had never even heard of but apparently is a beloved memory from M's childhood.
I'm sure there are many more films that I could list here, but you get the general idea.
I don't want to imply that I hadn't seen any part of these movies. Over the years, I've probably seen a scene or two or maybe even more on television from some or even most of these films. However, I certainly have no memory of having seen any of these films all the way through.
So tell me, which ones should I make an effort to change that for? To be clear, I don't want to watch a movie that you loved as a kid that hasn't aged well. I might want to watch a movie that actually was good that I might have missed, whether listed or above or otherwise. Also, I'm sure M would love to watch some movies with me.
***With respect to The Bouncing Souls. I have seen none of the six films quoted.