Praise The Box And Pass The Remote

Before the blessing that is Netflix descended into my household, I was pretty much a Blockbuster junkie. I would spend weekends chauffeuring back and fourth between the nearby rental store and my home, swapping out comedies for cartoons, horrors for heroics, film noir for fantasy. The entire span of my two-day break revolved around when Blockbuster opened and what time they closed, and more importantly what movie did I want to be stuck with between these times? Before the Netflix queue ever came around, I had a mental queue of everything I had never seen and some things I never wanted to see again. I left no crevice of that store unexplored, even chancing a peek into the sparse back room one Saturday afternoon. My example of R&R after a tolling school-week was curling up on the couch and watching Shogun Assassin or Brazil with plenty of snacks nearby.

But despite all this, there were times that I really couldn't stand those weekend trips. Such times were few and far between, but they happened nonetheless. There was nothing I hated more than when I would hop out in the parking lot and stampede inside, heart pounding, knowing that my weekend was a blank canvas for the painting. And then, after painstaking minutes of trolling up and down each isle, I would find myself with no dvd boxes in hand, nothing jumping off the shelves at me...nothing but a disheartened expression on my face. I didn't know what was wrong with me. There were so many choices. Why couldn't I just pick one?

The problem? I had no idea what I was in the mood to watch.

My mood can change on a dime like the dynamic teenager I am, and whenever I slid through those revolving Blockbuster doors I usually had a pretty good grasp on the character I was channeling at the moment. Sometimes Kat Stratford, others Holly Golightly, it took me many years to figure out that my movie taste depended solely on my character at the time.

The point of this preramble? To prevent anyone and everyone from ever having to go through this nightmare of an expedition. To introduce new movies and give a fresh twist to old ones. To give you, gracious reader, the best bang for your buck. No matter what mood you're in, there are some never-fail flicks out there that can satisfy both your current character and your permanent film taste.

Even if you too are a Netflix convert like myself, queue these babies up!


Required Watchings for The Little Boy in You:

Yu Yu Hakusho: 

 I first found the movie version of this knock-your-socks-off show in a discount bin, shockingly, at Blockbuster. This was about six years ago, and it goes without saying that I've been an addict ever since. Yu Yu Hakusho has this kick-punch of a story line that gets even more webbed and involving the further in you venture, with characters that you'll religiously root for and cringe at their struggles.

The television series follows fourteen year old Yusuke Urameshi, a bite-sized punk who serendipitously gets hit by a car in the first episode and is sent reeling to his death. In classic anime fashion, in flies a pink-haired grim reaper who gives him a second chance at life and the new job title of "Spirit Detective." Believe it or not, it's not as corny as it sounds. Yusuke repeatedly gets the shit beaten out of him by demons and demi-gods of various stature, throwing himself into harms way and venturing into the worlds both above and below planet Earth. This series is Dragon Ball Z without the steroids and corny enemies. Instead, it's a street-wise battle royale with no rules except stay alive and, of course, save the world.

Akira:

Alright, so I'm very clearly a fan of Japanese anime, or "shonen" more specifically, but quite frankly the Japanese know their stuff when it comes to cartoons! Akira (pronounced Ah-Kee-Dah, not Ah-Keer-uh) is a fast-paced feature that centers around a delinquent youth culture thriving in a Japan after the onslaught of a nuclear World War III.

When Tetsuo Shima, a teenaged biker with a big head and a bad attitude, crashes while trying to avoid a child in his path, the government takes both the injured Tetsuo and the boy in. As it turns out, this boy, known as Takashi, is in fact a telekinetic child of the state recently freed by a member of the terrorist "Resistance." While under observation, Tetsuo begins to have violent hallucinations and exhibits psionic powers, causing the government to questionably raise an eyebrow. He displays strong mental abilities, they note, reminiscent of the title character. So the question is, who exactly is Akira?

Next post: Required watchings for the little girl in you!