As the only TMB member with kids underfoot, a typical quiet Sunday afternoon is spent around Casa Rodney is spent cleaning up their messes or taking on that last little renovations project we started. This usually means that my boys (5 and 10) are likely watching movies or playing the Wii. So what do they choose to watch? Some of it is what I have bought for myself that they like (boys like to be into what their daddy likes) and some of it I bought specifically for them.
This makes my DVD collection a wide variety of films, many of which get badmouthed on this site. Kids will watch the same movie 15 times in a row if you let them. Many of the ones that are repeat worthy for my boys fall on this list.
Garfield This and its sequel (Tale of two Kitties) were must buys in my house. The kids love it. Seeing Garfield whack Odie off the couch or watching him dance to Black Eyed Peas just has my kids grinning and sucked into the tv. Never underestimate the power of a talking animal movie. My youngest especially will get right off his seat and dance along when the music starts. If he hears that Black Eyed Peas song on the radio he says it is the Garfield Song.
Scooby DooAnother double whammy here. Scooby Doo and ScoobyDoo2 are heavy repeat offenders on my DVD player. Its goofy and silly, filled with bright colours and wacky antics. Scooby is a little odd placed as the only CGI character, but the kids love him anyways. This pays a LOT of tribute to the original cartoon series which still holds up today. Some of the lines are pretty funny but they are isolated. The good news is, they have cookies. You would have to watch it to feel out the perfect timing on that line. It is very clever.
I, Robot This one is my fault. I was a fan of the book so I picked up the movie when I saw in cheap in the Wallmart bin. Yeah, its not much at all like the book, but its a decent Will Smith action flick that isnt too adult for the kids to watch. My youngest was fascinated with the robot characters and the cool futuristic cars. Unlike some of the other movies that gets them up and excited (even after repeated viewings) this one keeps them in their seats. It got its share of wear in the player.
Alvin and the Chipmunks This movie may have earned a spot on John’s Worst movies of 2007 and one of his lowest ratings ever. The one quality he did give it was that the Chimpmunks are cute. And that seems to be enough. The music is catchy and has my kids bursting with energy each time they hear it. The remake of Witch Doctor was actually pretty decent all things considered. Again, the mighty talking animal reigns supreme. This movie may not have been great but the line “Dave, we are talking Chipmunks, we can get out of a Cat Carrier” made me laugh.
My Neighbor Totoro After seeing my children’s distructive habits and hoping to derail their repeat viewings I picked up this family friendly Studio Ghibli peice. Its so silly and ripped clean from a kid’s imagination. A lot of it doesn’t make sense, but it sure captures the kidlets in its grasp. This is my least favourite of the Ghibli library but the kids are absorbed and I can feel good about them watching something with quality. At least by my standards.
Nausicaa So imagine my surprise after giving them Totoro, that they fell in love with Nausicaa as well. This is by far my most favourite of Hayao Miyazaki’s works. I was likewise obsessed with this film when it made its first North American release as “Warriors of the Wind” and though it differs from the epic story found in the graphic novels and was cut to be more “American Friendly”. I would love to see an uncut of this. So would my kids. They are so captivated in this world and love the giant bugs. You can ask them, the bugs are not the badguys. They really watch this A LOT.
Goonies Now this title was another effort of mine to bring some of the solid nostalgia from my youth and expose them to it. Goonies is a classic. Boys their age NEED to see a movie like this. And they love it. Too much. The Cindy Lauper theme song became an ear worm for me for months. I couldn’t get it out of my head. Te boys certainly liked Sloth, and they still jump at the same parts. However, they played it so many times I don’t think I like it anymore. Its still a fond memory from my youth, but I will intercept them on the way to the dvd player with this one.
Of course there are others they love that are fun to watch. Pixar and Disney films top that list as well as some others.
So when you are asking yourself, HOW DID SCOOBY DOO GET A SEQUEL?? I can tell you why.
im jelous for todays kids who get to grow up on movies like transformers while we watched TNMT3 and that michael jackson movie WHICH I LOVED TOO!!!!!!!!
For some reason at my grandparents house I would watch Adventures in Baby Sitting more often than not but maybe that was because they didn’t have anything else.
My little cousins watched The Neverending story (or was that Labyrinth? I always get confused), Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh and Asterix & Obelix.
Movies that kept me entertained as a kid!
All the freddies & jasons
Killer clowns!
poltergeist
Basket case!
The only time to get a true reaction out of horror films is as a kid, I look back now and I’m thankful that I wasn’t censored to heavily as a child because as an adult, horrors while enjoyable are just a novalty, as a kid they f’in rule and scare the sh*t out of you, something you can only experiance as a child!!
My own parents wouldnt let me watch them, but at friends and older friends houses, anything goes!
As a younger kid, Jungle book, indiana and the stars wars trilogy would keep me entertained for days.
Daww, your dudes are so sweet. Good on ya, man.
I have to agree about Scooby Doo. In our household it has had a lot more repeat views than allegedly superior Pixar or Disney films (Apart from Toy Story of course)
Oh yes, I used to watch “The Dark Crystal”, too – and still do so. “Labyrinth” was also a decent movie then. And I just remembered, one of my favourite movies as a child was “Batteries not included”, those tiny spaceships were just soooo cute.
Well, my twin sisters always watch the movie Bratz all the time. Thank God we have a DVD player in each room
I LOVED Dark Crystal. That movie used to scare the living shit out of me when I was a kid. So did 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea…that giant squid/octopus freaked me out.
I see no mention of The Dark Crystal and as such, will be starting a small organization to hunt out and kill each of you. I also enjoyed American Werewolf in London, Nosferatu, Fright Night and plenty others as a kid. If I were a kid now, I would launch myself into traffic with all the brightly-coloured, everything is groovy, happily ever afters being spewed from various locales.
Then again, maybe that’s why I’m a pessimist.
I KNOW I can top everyone here in terms of “WTF” movies I loved as a kid. Anybody here remember Moonwalker, the Michael Jackson movie with Joe Pesci as an evil drug dealer trying to kill little kids? That movie was the shit when I was a little kid. I found it on Youtube after reminiscing with a friend about how much I dug the thing when I was little, and I couldn’t believe I found that shit cool as a kid. Michael Jackson turning into an Optimus Prime knockoff and killing Joe Pesci. Think I’m kidding?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upknptLYiwI
Yay for Miyazaki films! Both of those are excellent choices (although Spirited Away may be another great choice for the kids as well).
FYI: The easily found R1 Disney re-release (with Patrick Stewart and Alison Lohman) is uncut and includes the original Japanese and subtitles. The old “Warriors” hack job is a long forgotten memory.
I realy dug I, Robot. I have a weakness for robots.
I sometimes look back at movies I used to watch as a kid and loved and think ”wtf was I thinking” movies like, Getting Even With Dad, TMNT III, Batman Forever and My Girl 2.
Oh and I forgot, I also liked the He-man live action movie and cartoon as a kid. Although I have not see the live action He-man since so who knows if I’d like it now or not today.
Great post!
I grew up on a lot of the 2D traditional Disney classics. The last one I thought was any good and I was still fairly young at the time was The Lion King. Haven’t cared for any of their 2D offerings after that. I didn’t really have a true appreciation of some of the earlier ones until I rewatched them when older.
I guess my favourites were Aladdin and Sleeping Beauty although I remember watching Bambi and Snow White quite frequently.
I liked the first two live action TMNT movies a lot as a kid (only saw parts of the 3rd one). I still like the first one a lot but the second one is terrible, Vanilla Ice in particular, I can’t believe I used to like listening to those parts of the movie. Well Keno was okay and I thought April #2 was prettier. I liked the TMNT cartoons a lot too as well as Conan the Adventurer. For some reason I watched Captain Planet but didn’t necessarily like it all that much.
Yeah that should be your next feature. When your kids are in high school ask them if they still like any of the movies you have in this post.
The Jungle Book is one I forgot to mention – great movie, absolutely fantastic. Great soundtrack, great characters, I could go on and on.
Miyazaki is awesome, no doubt about that. One movie I watched repeatedly as a child was a French animation called “Time Masters” which unfortunately has not been published on DVD yet. And yes, I also got my good share of Disney movies (“Snow White”, “Robin Hood” and “The Jungle Book” of course, one of my all time favourite Disney movies).
As for “Nausicaä”, if you want to see an uncut version of it (i.e. around two hours long) and your DVD-player is able to handle RC2-DVDs, try to get hold of the German version, it even has English sound.
i agree- the ending of The goonies was ungodly. but the rest of the movie was the best. and alvin and the chipmunks wasnt as bad as i thought it would be when i walked in the theatre. i mean it wasnt like a waste of money
i liked i, robot i ended up renting the dvd in fact, no, i never read the book, and i usually find the book better (im planning on reading it)
thing is if you read the book and then you watch the movie you find out just how bad it basterdized it (harry potter anyone?) but i never read the bok so i found the movie to be good and entertaining (im sure the book was really good though)
i think i am legend was a great movie but if you compare it to the book then in my opinion the book was 100 times better
scooby doo sucked liberachis hairy balls.
AWWW!!!
Your kids are adorable!
And as inferior as I, Robot is at times, it doesn’t deserve to be in the same company as Garfield and Scooby Doo. That thing had some great ideas that were executed poorly, and Will Smith was miscast as hell. That role did not need some guy talking about his cool sneakers. And man, that is the worst product placement I have EVER seen. At least other movies try to make it a little more subliminal, but that was just blatant and abysmal.
The ending of the Goonies sucked because:
A) The kids say NOTHING about the treasure they just discovered, they just hug their parents for 5 solid minutes
B) The adults have NO questions about why bad guys are chasing their kids
C) The father doesn’t even QUESTION where the jewels came from or what the kids are doing with jewels or if they’re real or anything, and rips up a legal contract when hearing they have jewels
D) No one questions a PIRATE SHIP THAT’S BEEN MISSING FOR 400 YEARS OUT IN THE OCEAN and then they just LET IT GO like it’s no big deal.
E) The fact that the pirate ship just magically comes out of the cave was pretty dumb
F) Wasn’t there a pizza ordered for the kids? When the adults had no idea where they were or if they were going to magically appear or ANYTHING????
Great article Rodney, and very true.
Yes NBAKid, I am exposing them to as much as I can (or as much as they will watch) and of course they have seen Wizard of Oz and they have the Adam West Batman movie that was spun out of the series.
And they LOVE Star Wars. Mostly because daddy does, but they are completely in love with it. We went through a Star Trek marathon recently and they didn’t like the first ones, and were ok with the next gen, but nothing near the fascination with Star Wars.
@nbakid2000
Agree with you that Miyazaki is awesome but disagree with the goonies comment I can remember being really satisfied with the end of that film everytime I saw it (which was like 15)
Miyazaki is awesome.
I thought the Goonies had a TERRIBLE ending the last 5 minutes…whoever wrote or approved that ending should be executed.
One of my favorite movies growing up was Peter Pan (the cartoon). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen it. The older I got the more I appreciated all the humor in it.
Another one I watched alllll the time was The Great Muppet Caper – as I got older, I appreciated it even more as well. There is so much humor to be found in that movie for adults that kids just won’t get.
I also watched the other typical Disney fare quite a bit – 101 Dalmations and Beauty and the Beast.
Most of what I watched as a child was basically classic Disney films (cartoons AND live-action) and I loved them. I also remember watching a lot of 3 Stooges (the first time I saw them I remember laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe and I had tears).
The Apple Dumpling Gang, That Darn Cat! and With Six You Get Eggroll were all in my top favorite films. And you can’t forget The Parent Trap and the greatest movie of all time – The Wizard of Oz.
And then my parents would bring home classic adult oriented movies which I loved as well.
I also grew up on the old Batman serials from the 1940s…my brother and I would run around during them fighting invisible bad guys with blankets on for capes.
It’s really a shame nowadays that parents don’t bring their kids up right and let them watch whatever trash is produced today without introducing them to cinema classics. Most kids have no interest in Black and White films (I never had that problem because that’s what I watched most of the time) and anything “old” sucks.
Kids also have no attention span these days, so if you have a movie that is dialogue heavy, forget about it. They won’t sit through it.
Rodney, I hope you’re teaching your kids about the true history of film and not just feeding them the typical kiddie fare out today.