Is it nostalgia talking?

We all have those memories from our childhood when we think "man was that awesome, I used to love that (insert show, band, movie, book, pretty much anything entertainment oriented)." Let's take a short walk down memory lane to see how some of youngster minx's favorites rank on my scale today.

To help with time management, I'll only be touching on a few examples. Anyone that grew up in the 1980's and 90's would agree that we had a ton of rockin entertainment material, but unfortunately a review covering everything would be way too long for anyone to bother to read. With that brief disclaimer out of the way, here it goes.


First thing that comes to my mind from the mid 90's to me is Ace of Base. Do I really need to say anything else? Chubby 10 year old me could not get enough of these guys. Not only did I have their most popular album, The Sign, I even bought The Bridge! I recently took another gander at some of this bands work, and to be perfectly honest, it left me wondering what in the hell I was thinking. Ok so they have decent backbeats to their songs, but unfortunately it's always the same one. I pretty much couldn't tell the difference between "All that she wants" and "Don't turn around." It wasn't a bad song, it was just all the same. On the other hand the album title song, "The sign" was still totally rocking! It's about the only thing these Swedish hipsters have going for them. Take my advice and ditch the album. Just import "the sign" onto your party mix.

Moving on to musicals. This section may not be for everyone; however I am not ashamed to admit that I have a soft spot for musicals. I think most people would agree that the most cutting edge and popular show of the mid to late 90's is Rent. Jonathon Larson's twist/rip off of the Puccini opera La Boheme was the coolest. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was totally into it just like everyone else, but then again I was only like twelve. The music and presentation of the show was completely different than the classic styles of teams such as Rodgers and Hammerstein. The story was interesting enough, and powerful enough to speak to a generation of struggling artists I suppose. The question is, has Rent been able to stand the test of time? NO. It was cool for a while, but what is it still doing on Broadway? Every washed up star available has pretty much been involved with it at this point. I mean seriously? Scary Spice??? Are you kidding me? Know when you need to give up ok people. And fyi...Rent is not cool anymore kids. It does not speak to your generation and it's not about pampered upper middle class suburbanites that want to go to theater camp. It was an important marker in the genre of musical theater that should be remembered. That being said, the music is out dated and cheesy and to be quite honest, I'm not sure how the whole market didn't crash after that atrocious Chris Columbus movie that came out in 2005. I could go on for a few more paragraphs about how sad the actors in the movie look considering the fact that they are obviously like 40 and are still struggling artists in NYC, but I don't want to depress you even more. Bottom line on Rent: move on people. It's soooo over!

Lastly for now is the movie category. I thought I would pick two nostalgic childhood movies to compare for this section. The first is The Mighty Ducks. Wow what a piece of crap. I used to love this movie as a kid. I'm pretty sure that I made my parents take me to the sequel too. How did our parents manage to get through this in the theater with us? I'm assuming that heavy sedation was involved. The jokes aren't funny and the characters choices are about as thought out as a rural high school production of Les Miserables. As if you couldn't tell, I watched this recently and was sorely disappointed. Does it get any better than a villain with a ridiculous vendetta and no clear motivation? YES! It gets so much better than that. Emilio I'm surprised at you. Thankfully you were only phoning this part in. Good luck next time.

The Goonies is another of my favorite childhood movies. After having been so embarrassed at the other entertainment choices of my youth, I had to take another look at this classic to see how it stood the test of age and time. Luckily this movie still rocks. The characters are probably funnier now than they were when I was younger. There is obvious slapstick comedy for the kids, and word play and references for the adults. I'm pretty sure all my parents needed to enjoy this movie with me was popcorn. There is an additional layer of hilarity to see now famous actors such as Sean Astin, and Josh Brolin in some of their earlier work. The friendships and family relations are believable, and the story between Chunk and Sloth is both humorous and touching. The story is a combination of realistic bordering on the unbelievable. It's not too out there to pull audience out of the experience. The minx says: genuinely fun for the entire family. A classic to watch more than once.

That's it for today. If you have a childhood favorite you'd like discussed let me know. I love a trip down memory lane.