2003-05-24 - 11:18 p.m.
I'm talking with Bob about seeing movies as kids and how amazing and funny they seemed then, and then you grow up and watch the movie again after years and years, and you finally understand ALL the jokes. I just watched Clue tonight for the first time in 10 years, and before then it had been about 7 years since I'd seen it. It was my favorite movie when I was 6, no wonder in retrospect why everyone thought that was strange. Mr. Green is a homosexual, and in the end he goes home and sleeps with his wife? The butler's wife's crime was that she was friends with socialists?? What meaning could all that have possibly had for me when I was 6? Or what about Peewee's Big Adventure, when he gets on the scale and weighed 96 lbs? It seemed reasonable to me that adults would weigh that much, or have a bunch of toys in their rooms when I first saw the movie.
Conversely, some movies that seemed really cool when I was little are just plain not good. The Karate Kid's big final kick in the first movie seemed like the most badass karate move ever, and my brother and I used to practice it. I watched the Karate Kid a year ago, and the opponent just runs right into the Karate Kid's outstretched and waiting foot.
My brother and I also used to practice the Peewee Herman dance, when he danced on the bar in that biker's bar to Tequila. Another example of childhood innocence. Ignorance seems like the wrong word to use in this case. Ignorant of the innuendo in the Peewee Herman dance?
I'll always love these movies I watched as a kid. Watching them is like seeing an old friend; they take me back to being 6 again because I can still remember when I thought that getting dog crap on the butler's shoe was funny to me. It brings me back to that youthful innocence, and reminds me of the way we used to be. My brother thinking black eyes looked cool because of the Karate Kid, and my parents trying to convince him that black eyes really weren't all that cool. Me secretly agreeing with my brother. Us pretending we were the Ghostbusters and playing war with the Ghostbusters gun and other foam weapons that shot. Being jealous of my brother because he didn't have to go to school and he could stay home and watch the Karate Kid or Mr. Boogedy all day long. Later, seeing my younger cousins act out the scenes from Pocahontas.
Pocahontas... they just don't make movies like they did when I was a kid. The Karate Kid vs. Pocahontas. Come on!
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