Childhood Films Blogathon

I like writing about the Movies I Grew Up With. In fact, if you click that link you'll see I've built a recurring feature around them. Caz over at Let's Go to the Movies only fueled that already raging fire when he came up with the Childhood Films Blogathon. On top of that, he's holding the grand event on this, my birthday weekend.

Happy Birthday, Me!!!

Ahem...let's move on.

As there always are in things like this, Caz has some rules for us. They are rather simple, but I'll let her explain it anyway.

Ok so instead of saying a film can only be wrote about once, I have decided to leave that open. You can indeed write about just one film if you want. But let’s make it more interesting and pick a few films. At least 3 and at the most 25, you can do it in list format and rank them. Or just simply write your blog post around them, try to explain why they were your favourites and if you still enjoy them to this day – as I am sure some of this would have changed!

No sweat. My only issue is that I've already written about a number of childhood faves. This will require some thinking. That's okay. Thinking is what I do. Give me a sec to put on my thinking cap...

Got it.

Let's go.

Five Deadly Venoms

(1978)

Yang Tieh: "Poison Clan rocks the world!"

My childhood wasn't filled with clean, wholesome Disney movies. For the most part, I watched whatever Mom was watching. One thing that was undoubtedly mine, however, were the Saturday afternoon kung fu flicks. They aired at three o'clock on channel five. My buddies and I would watch them, then go outside to practice what we...uh...learned, for lack of a better word. It's amazing we didn't suffer broken bones. Anyhoo, Five Deadly Venoms was one of my all-time faves and was frequently the feature presentation. A dying master regrets what has become of his star students, collectively known as the Poison Clan. fearing they've become murderous thieves. There were five of them, not all taught together. He taught each one a separate style: Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Lizard, and Toad. Even though they all had regular names, we referred to them by their style. The master is about to die and can't go after them himself so he sends his sixth student after them to stop them if they are, in fact, up to no good. This sixth student has been taught a little bit of each style, but isn't a master of any. He's warned that by himself he can't defeat them, but might be able to if he manages to team up with one of them. Here's the problem: While the first five were under the master's thumb, they all wore masks so he can't even tell number 6 how they look. We find out soon enough, for four of them. The big mystery that runs most of the movie is who is Scorpion. Re-watching it now, it suffers from clunky pacing and drags in spots. The big mystery is also too easy to figure out. It's still a very good movie, though. Back when I was a youngster. it was the coolest movie ever. Martial Arts flicks were a huge chunk of my life and this one simply had more style than all the rest. Still does. By the way, when I met my boys outside after the movie, I was always Snake. Ssssss, ssssss, ssssss, sssstt!

Breakin'

(1984)

Ozone: "Who are you anyway, Fred Astaire?"

Turbo: "Who?"

If you've searched around this place, you may know that I'm a hip-hop lifer. The culture and I are roughly the same age and I've been down since the very beginning. Not surprisingly, I made sure Mom took us to the theater to see Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo when they hit the big screen. I particularly enjoyed the first. It came out at the height of the popularity of breakdancing and Turbo and Ozone became heroes of the art. The movies were fun, colorful, and featured some amazing dancing. I loved every minute of them. Watching them again with my kids. yeesh. The kids liked them, but they were bad. I mean, really bad. The acting was horrid, the camera work was atrocious, and the story was beyond predictable. The dancing is still fantastic, though. The highlight being Turbo's almost solo dance. He uses a broomstick as a partner. Like we did with kung fu flicks, my friends and I also did a lot of breakdancing after watching this. Of course, I was Turbo. Oh, almost forgot, this is the movie that gave us a very goofy, and then unknown, Jean-Claude Van Damme in a leotard.

The Ultimate Soldier: FEELIN' IT!

Let's Do It Again

(1975)

Billy Foster: Now I hear you're 6 foot tall and good looking. How would you like to be 4 foot tall and ugly, down in the river with a box of cement?

All movies important to the growth of hip-hop aren't actually about hip-hop. This is one of those that wasn't. Since the art had only just began to spread from its South Bronx roots and hadn't even left New York City in any meaningful capacity, just yet, it's likely no one involved in the making of this film even knew what it was. Hell, no one even called it hip hop, yet. However, this movie had a huge impact on what the culture would become thanks to its attitude, style, and sheer coolness. It was about a couple of regular guys. Billy and Clyde, respectively played by Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, who need to raise money very quickly to save the lodge they belong to. One of them gets the bright idea to rig a biggest boxing match, the upcoming middleweight championship bout. Everyone knows that the champ, 40th Street Black, and that is his name is going to mop the floor with Bootney Lee Farnsworth, his unworthy challenger. I mean, Black is a mean, tough looking dude who looks like he's been a scrape or two in the streets before he became a pro boxer while Farnsworth is played by Jimmie Walker, aka JJ from Good Times. If they could set it up so that Farnsworth wins, they'd be sitting on a mountain of money. What follows is still a hilarious misadventure involving Cosby and Poitier at the height of their game as a comedic duo as they run afoul of the law, and more importantly a pair of big time gangsters trying to muscle in on the action. One of those gangsters would later give someone all hip hop fans they know his name: Biggie Smalls.

Friday the 13th

(1980)

Mrs. Voorhees: The counselors weren't paying any attention. They were making love while that young boy drowned. His name was Jason.

With those words, Mrs. Voorhees  (Betsy Palmer) explained the mythology that would spawn an entire sub-genre and gave birth to one of the most enduring cinematic franchises of all time. I would later learn/figure out that Friday the 13th essentially ripped off John Carpenter's Halloween, but screw it, I saw this one first. And I still love it. The first time and the numerous times I watched this and it's sequels as a youngster I sat riveted by the madness on display. I honestly don't think I can count the number of times I've seen this movie. Often, I would rewind and rewatch Kevin Bacon's death scene. Morbid, yes, but that particular moment is so well done it's a little shocking that Mr. Bacon is still with us. Doing the math for you, by the way, I was nine when the movie came out, ten when I saw it and already desensitized to most screen violence. And I did say I kinda watched whatever I wanted, didn't I? Can't quite put it all on Mom, though. I first saw it at a friend's house. A number of my subsequent viewings were at my cousin's house. This cousin was about ten years older, but I used to go hang out with him, watch him draw pictures (he was an outstanding sketcher), and watch movies. He loved horror flicks, and shared many of them with me. This is one we watched on more than a few occasions. I've become an unabashed fan of the franchise, as bad as some of them have become, and will always give a new installment a chance. This was my long winded way of saying that I even liked the 2009 reboot and I'm still holding out hope that it gets a sequel.

Check out other Movies I Grew Up With:

The Last Dragon

Teen Wolf

Krush Groove

The Warriors

A Nightmare on Elm Street