Best Movies for the Kid in You

Image by JefferyTurner (Jeff Turner) on Flickr CC BY 2.0

If you have kid(s) in your life, you probably know that hanging out with them is the best excuse to act like a kid yourself. No, not the messy, tantrumy, “I’m telling Mom!” kinda kid stuff. The seeing the world with fresh eyes, playing dolls/legos, having an epic adventure in the backyard/living-room, acting goofy in public without shame kinda stuff.

And then there’s the kids movies. Even if you don’t have a kiddo to use as cover, there are some made-for-kids-beloved-by-grownups movies you just gotta see.

Here are some of my current favorites:

The Iron Giant (1999)

Kinda like an X-File for kids. Highly rewatchable.

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Meet the Robinsons (2007)

A boy searching for himself and his place in the world. Wacky, hilarious and moving.

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Up (2009)

This movie is unexpectedly deep and very moving. One of my family’s all-time favorites.

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And you can’t forget the classics…

ET (1982)

Who can forget “ET phone home.” or the flying bikes? 

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Mary Poppins (1964)

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…

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What Are Your Favorite Kids’ Movies?

What Gets Your Pulse Pounding?

I am NOT hiding under the bed. I’m…um…looking for dust bunnies.

With the smell of Halloween still in the air (that is chocolate on your hands, right?), it’s good time to ask you about the stories that thrill you the most.

Heart pounding. Heavy breathing. Laying awake at night, scenarios running through your head.

Be they action, thriller, disaster, suspense, horror or whatnot, which books, movies and/or tv shows get you going? Which ones would you read again and again and recommend to friends (or enemies)? Which ones do you dare not read again because they were that good?

Imaged Attribution (In Order of Appearance):
You can’t possibly see me hiding under the bed… by Ninithedreamer, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Do Horror Writers Give Themselves Nightmares?

horror: hor-ror (noun)

1.  An intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust.
2. A thing causing such a feeling.

Do you ever have nightmares after watching a horror flick or reading a horror novel? Maybe just a case of the heebie-jeebies? Do you find yourself making double sure all the doors are locked when you’re home alone at night? Do you check the closets and under the bed? For a split second before you turn on the light in a dark room, do you hesitate, afraid to reveal the monster that might be lurking?

Oh sure, some of you are saying “Suck it up, you big baby. Horror never gives me nightmares.”

To you I say, “You haven’t been working out your imagination enough.”

Okay, okay. So not all horror gives me the willies. Most of the time, I brush it off. Good horror, the kind that does scare the tacos out of us, is hard to come by.

Vast quantities of blood and screaming do not a scary movie make. Nor do creative deaths.

Not by themselves anyway.

When a story is good, it gets me. Often, I’m taken by surprise. I’m prepared to brush off yet another bit of horror fiction but it’s planted its seeds in my mind and my fertile imagination will give it room to grow…and grow…and grow.

That’s when I send up a big cheer.

And sleep with all the lights on.

I have to wonder, if a good horror story works on the reader, does it work on the writer? After all, we readers just visit the world. The writer lives there for as long as it takes to create the finished product. They have to live with the monsters in their head and imagine all the dark scenarios that will wind up in that finished product and many more that do not.

Does it get to them?

Working on my current novel-in-progress, I’m finding myself dreaming about zombies I’m trying to bring to life (*snort*) on the page as well as the less undead monsters. Some nights, I’m slipping into my characters skin (there’s a mental image for you) and running for my life. In short, I am starting to give myself the creeps (I can only hope it translates to my finished product) even though my horror is more dystopian dark fantasy than straight up horror.

What do you think? Do writers like Stephen King, Clive Barker and the American Horror Story scribes give themselves nightmares?

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If you do find yourself plagued with nightmares after imbibing some horror fiction, this WikiHow can give you some tips on how to sleep soundly.

Image Attribution (In Order of Appearance):
Scream by anguila40, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Scary Skull with No Eyes by Craig Walkowicz, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Possibly Probably Related articles

• Prepare For A Darker Season….American Horror Story: Asylum (adventureamigos.net)
• History of Horror RPGs (Part Six: 2006-2007) from Age of Ravens (ageofravens.blogspot.com)
• Do Horror Writers Scare Themselves (lynleystace.wordpress.com)

Movies You Never Knew You Always Wanted to See

Does it seem like every movie these days is a based on a video game,  tv show or a remake? Maybe a remake of a remake? They’re making movies out of board games, for goodness sake.

Maybe you’re asking yourself “so what?” Maybe you like movies based on video games, cartoons and tv shows. Hey, maybe the remakes are better than the originals. And let’s not even get started on sequels.

Either way, here’s a few movies, compliments of the comedic geniuses at CollegeHumor, you probably won’t see in the theater but wish you could.

Couldn’t get enough of Hermione? Wish you could see what she’d do after Hogwarts? Check out Dangerous Wands…

Favorite Movie Lines to Quote

Around my house, quoting movie lines is an olympic sport. This activity sometimes delights innocent bystanders and sometimes causes them back away slowly, never taking their eyes off us, until they reach a safe distance.

Here are a few of our favorite lines…

“Release the kraken!” Zeus, Clash of the Titans

Such a versatile line. It can signal the start of an epic adventure or

Are You Brave Enough? – A Not Quite Review of Pixar’s Brave

*What follows is not exactly a review, just my take on Disney-Pixar’s Brave. It may or may not contain spoilers (depends on your definition of spoiler, really).*

Brave is the story of Merida, a princess who prefers riding, exploring and archery to her “proper” duties and her mother, who wants her daughter to grow into a great queen and carry on the ancient traditions of the land. The two cannot see eye to eye and it sparks a conflict that could tear the kingdom apart.

Abe Lincoln, President of the Vampire Hunters

I caught this movie over the weekend with my hubby (usually he doesn’t go for movies like this but he’s been listening to audiobook and was intrigued).

And…I enjoyed it. The vampires were reasonably scary and, perhaps most importantly, they didn’t sparkle or pine for teenage girls.

I also enjoyed the way history was woven into the story. Sure, it might not be the most historically accurate piece but, hello, it’s fiction. The vampires are kind of a dead giveaway, you know. It’s just a story that asks, “What if vampires were real and what if one of the least glamorous-looking presidents was actually a Buffy-meets-The-Matrix vampire hunter?”

Got Apocalypse?

I have, in the past, admitted a predilection for both disaster and horror flicks. And since a good many movies from either of those genres fall into the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic categories, it follows that I would also have a twisted obsession interest in apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories.

Just what is it about the apocalypse that makes (some of) our hearts go pitter patter?

I suspect it’s the same reason that disaster flicks and horror movies are so appealing. Giant odds and hope. Throw ordinary people into the worst possible situation and watch them rise to the occasion (or die trying).

And maybe we also love it because, on some level, we all worry about the end of everything. We wonder whether will survive. We wonder whether our loved ones will survive. And we hope there’s a hero inside of us instead of a monster.

The Zombies Have Arrived!

Welcome to Killer Thursday, where everything goes bump-in-the-night…

The Walking Dead is back and opened with an episode every bit as stunning as last season’s (check out Jess Witkin’s awesome post on the Season 2 Premiere here).