My Life In Film: 1988.

[Over the course of a few weeks, I will be looking at one year at a time from 1986-1999, one post for every year of my life prior to the new century. But because there are so many good movies, each year will have multiple categories. The following year(s) have already been discussed: 1986 and 1987. Now we're moving on to the next year.]

My Life In Film: 1988

OTHER

- Akira: Considered one of the essential Anime films, Akira pretty much brought the genre to the Western World and popularized it into what it is today. And who doesn't want that badass motorcycle?

- Killer Klowns from Outer Space: I really think the title speaks for itself.

- My Neighbour Totoro: A cute Miyazaki film, this one aimed at the younger ones. I saw this film for the first time... I believe last year via Netflix, and I really enjoyed it.

- Scrooged: One of my favorite renditions of A Christmas Carol. And who better to play the Scrooge character than the snark-master himself, Bill Murray?


MOVIES I HAVEN'T SEEN IN YEARS

- Big: A Tom Hanks classic... I actually think I did watch this again a couple years ago, but I still hardly remember it. The scene I will always remember, though? The giant floor piano.

- Child's Play: One of the big named killers of the 80s, Chucky began his spree in this film, forever scarring youths who like somewhat realistic dolls. I really don't remember much besides the kid talking to the doll and the mom thinking he's just playing around, as well as the doll moving around on its own without you seeing it move (before he starts being obvious about it).

- Die Hard: Um... yeah.

- Rain Man: Ditto.

NOSTALGIC FACTOR

- The Land Before Time: This was a favorite of mine as a youngin', and I'm talking about the original, not any of the fifty thousand crap-tastic sequels that it spawned. I fly? No, you fall.

- Mac and Me: Probably not the greatest movie in the world, and it's been years since I've seen it, but this was another one I grew up with. It's essentially an E.T. ripoff, but whatever.

- Willow: It's Willow, man! I really need to buy this movie. It's magical fun starring Warwick Davis and Val Kilmer. Though is it bad that even when I was young and naive, I understood that the special effects in this movie weren't all that great?

MOVIES I HAVE YET TO SEE (For Shame)

Believe it or not, I actually could not find any major films for this year that I hadn't seen. To get my list of films for each year, I use a mixture of Wikipedia and Google, and neither of them gave me any major "shame on you" films that I hadn't seen... so... good for me, I guess.

RUNNER-UP

- Beetlejuice: There are a couple films out there I really enjoyed, not realizing they were Tim Burton films until later in my life (mostly because I was young and had no idea who Tim Burton was. At that age, my list of directors I knew didn't really span much past Spielberg). Anyway, this was one of them (others being Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Batman/Batman Returns). It's a quirky comedy about dead people and their fight with the living people in their house. And I still think the special effects/costumes/whatever hold up today, regardless of how goofy they might look. My favorite scene? The shrimp dinner/"Day-Oh" scene.

FAVORITE

- Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: Another movie that holds up visuals-wise. There was talks a while back that Zemeckis wanted to remake the movie in a similar vein to what he's been doing with the likes of Beowulf and Polar Express, saying that's how he always wanted to do it. I say he'd ruin it. The cartoon style fits the film perfectly how it is. The tone is perfect, blending dark noir with campy cartoon fare. The comedy is great, the visuals are great... and it's not just my favorite of this year, but it's probably one of my favorite movies in general. I'm not bad... I'm just drawn that way.