30 Days of Film: Lou's Day 29

| by Lou | 11.33am UK time |

A film from your childhood

My earliest film memories are:

The Goonies



imdb tells me that it would have been 1985/86. My family and I were on holiday with friends of mum and dad's who lived in a small Canterbury town called Geraldine. I thought they were funny as we all had the Southland rrrrrrr and they had a seeming inability to pronounce an r - therefore my brother Kirrrrrk became Kik.

During the holiday it was one of the Canterbury kids' birthdays and they made her a witch birthday cake from the Australian Woman's Weekly Birthday Cake Book, using those chip sticks you used to get as the broom bristles. The weather was really hot so we celebrated outside in a yard of brown fried grass.



Us kids were allowed to go to the cinema to see The Goonies. One of the Canterbury kids had to come late as she had a doctor's appointment due to having arthritis-like symptoms in her hands. The seven of us sat along the front row armed with popcorn and lollies and feeling like kings and queens of the world.

The film was awesome. I have always dreamed of finding a cave waterslide that leads into a hidden lagoon.





The Princess Bride



It would have been 1988. I had watched The Princess Bride on television and was so overwhelmed by its wonderousness that I promptly wrote all about it in my dinky diary. (It was a purple one that a friend had given me for my birthday.)

I wrote with breathless excitement about a film I had seen that was so great and I might never see it again so needed to get the plot down on paper lest I forget. At the time my brother and sister and I were big fans of wrestling, so Andre the Giant's role in the film just made it even better.



Years later I saw the film again and was absolutely delighted to recognise it as the film I had so loved when a child. Rewatching it as an adult I can't argue with the judgement of my 7-or-8-year-old self - it's a glorious film that captures adventure and romance in a way that nothing else has.