The Video Dilemma

You know how sometimes you go into the video store and nothing on the new release shelves looks good? Maybe you’ve already seen everything or maybe you’re just in a funk and nothing is appealing. Maybe the new releases all just seem too shallow, too violent, too horrific, too something-that-isn’t-right.
Maybe you leave then, empty handed, resigned to reruns or a night spent surfing the net.

Clint and I hit on the solution to this problem a few years ago when just such a catastrophe nearly happened. Picture this: we’re walking through our favorite video store (appropriately named The Video Store (which has since closed (which makes us really sad ‘cause it was less than ¼ of a mile from home))). We were looking for a family movie to watch, a difficult task because most family movies are an exercise in eye-rolling for adults. I love my kids, but I don’t like to sit through a ridiculous movie. And Lauren was already at such an age that she found such movies childish.
After a shared look of desperation, Clint veered into a totally new direction: the OTHER shelves. You know, the ones in the middle of the video store. I had always walked right past those guys, all forty-seven of them, figuring they held only musty dusty oldies. Nothing I hadn’t already seen. He walked right through the alphabetized stacks to the “I” section, where my eyes and his lit on the same film at the same time. It was brilliant. We were almost gleeful as we assured Lauren and Jonah that this “old” movie was actually good. Lauren was skeptical but Jonah bought it.
Took it home and popped it into the DVD player. Soon the living room was filled with the soundtrack of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Our kids LOVED it! And so did we. It was fun for Clint and me to see a movie we’d enjoyed many years before and find it still pretty exciting. It was fun to watch our kids’ faces as Indy handled every obstacle with a grin and a grunt. Since then, we’ve often ventured away from the new release shelves to find old movies that we remembered enjoying in the past.

Here’s a selection of some of the highlights:
The Princess Bride
Willow
Strange Brew
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

And, uh, low lights:
The original Superman movies (a little cheesy)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (the woman is SO ANNOYING!!)
Ghostbusters (did they swear that much when we were kids?)

What do you think? Any others we should try?