Which 3 movies would you pick?

 Movie Madness is a video store in Portland, Oregon, that has over 90,000 films that members can rent. The knowledgeable staff members display movies on their recommendation shelves. 

Cole selected a nautical theme for his shelf with Uninvited, Deep Rising, Anaconda, Death Ship, and Ghost Ship. 

Ben recommended Battle of the Valiant, Treasure of the Moon Goddess, Short Time, and The Applegates, all on VHS, no less.

Movie Madness also has a state-of-the-art, 18-seat screening room where the public can watch films for free. The employees pick the three different films that they'll screen on Sundays.

We went to see The Pagemaster when we visited Movie Madness, and I was really impressed with the screening room. I was also impressed with the other eclectic movie choices for the day. 

Ninja III: The Domination is about an evil ninja attempting "to avenge his death from beyond the grave by possessing an innocent woman's body", and in Hiruko the Goblin, "Hiruko is a goblin sent to Earth on a reconnaissance mission. He beheads students in order to assemble their heads onto demons' spider-like bodies."

I'm not saying that I want to see Hiruko the Goblin, but I am glad to know that such a film exists, and I'm impressed that someone thought the movie was good enough to share with others. 

Movie Madness cannot advertise on their website what movies they are screening each week due to legal restrictions. You have to sign up for their email newsletter to see what new releases they have acquired, what classes are being taught in the screening room, and what's showing on Sunday. 

I've been receiving the newsletter since May 2022, and I'm always curious to see what's playing each week. The only patterns that I see in the three selections are that the first film is usually a family film, the second film can sometimes be a classic movie like Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, and the third movie might be anything, but it's usually rated R.

I think picking out three films for the screening room would be fun, so let's play pretend!

If I had to use my own collection of physical media, then what three films would I choose for the screening room? I went looking for films that I think my friends would approve of, and movies that I would want to see on the big screen. I picked out nine movies for each of the three ratings categories: 1) G or PG, 2) PG-13, and 3) R. Why nine weeks' worth? I'm a teacher, and I think in semesters. Also, I tried to pick movies that could fit a theme for each week. I'll keep my comments brief.

Week 1: Time Travel

Char and I had a surprisingly fun time with Cinderella III: A Twist in Time back in the day. It's also fun to watch Tom Cruise being bad at something over and over again in Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Mick Jagger is good at being a bad/good guy in Freejack (1992).

Week 2: Going to School

Sky High (2005) is Harry Potter-adjacent with super powers replacing magic. Charlotte and I think it needed a sequel, but that didn't happen. The Skulls (2000) is an action and crime drama that takes place at Harvard, and this movie got two sequels, and that's not fair. The teachers really are aliens in The Faculty (1998).

Week 3: Going to Camp

Ernest Goes to Camp (1987) is a physical comedy classic. If you don't agree, I will fight you. The characters in The Final Girls (2015) find themselves trapped in the fictional cult film, "Camp Bloodbath." This has a surprisingly touching ending. If you tour the real Alcatraz prison, you'll see a sign that reads,“Break the rules and you go to prison. Break the prison rules, and you go to Alcatraz.” In No Escape (1994), the prisoners who break the rules go to "camp" Absolom.

Week 4: Wheels

Napoleon Dynamite (2004): "Dang! You got shocks, pegs... lucky! You ever take it off any sweet jumps?" I know this is a stretch for a "wheels" theme. Hot Rod (2007): We bought Char a shirt that reads,"I'm jumping the public pool tomorrow. 2 bucks. Tell your friends." She wears her Hot Rod shirt with pride. I scoffed when the remake of Death Race came out in 2008. After finally watching it, I told a friend, "That movie was waaay better than it had to be." He wholeheartedly agreed.

Week 5: Trapped on an Island

I had a student who worked at a video store in 1998. He gave me a 26x40 movie poster for Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island when the store was done displaying it. The poster has been displayed in my classroom ever since.  The Jurassic Games (2018) isn't rated, but since the violence takes place on an island in virtual reality, I'll give it a PG-13 rating. It's a low budget blast. Like The Jurassic Games, Battle Royale (2000) is a "last one alive wins" contest. Think of the first Hunger Games (2012), but on meanness steroids. 

Week 6: Character Development

In Rango (2011), Johnny Depp is a chameleon who becomes the hero he was pretending to be. In Billy Madison (1995), Adam Sandler is a 27-year-old man who acts likes he's ten. By the end of the movie, he acts like he's 15. (Char has a "Rirruto" tee-shirt, but none of her friends "get" it. Makes me sad.) In Avengement (2019), Scott Atkins escapes from prison to get revenge on those who turned him into a cold-blooded killer.

Week 7: M and M and M

My Neighbor Totoro  (1998) is a nostalgia pick. Exactly 12 years and one day ago I showed this movie to a feverish little girl named Charlotte who was tired of feeling sick. It was the right medicine then, and I'll always love this movie for that. Plus, Totoro is awesome, but most people know that. The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021) is what a really good modern family movie looks like. The cover for Mindhunters (2004) makes it look like it's going to be a police procedural, but it's really a slasher film. 

Week 8: It's a Race to the Finish

Char and I saw Storks (2016) at Flix together when she was in 1st grade, but this isn't a nostalgia pick; Storks is legitimately funny. I like Breaking Away (1979) so much I wrote a literary unit on internal conflict just so I could show this movie to my English classes. At the climax, fists would be thrown in the air, and once a girl yelled, jumped out of her seat, and danced around in a circle. This story about townies competing against rich college kids won an Oscar for best screenplay, and it shows. The Tournament (2009) pits 30 professional assassins against each other for a ten million dollar prize for the last one standing. The Tournament deserves the R rating, and I deserve to watch this again tonight. It's been that kind of a week.

Week 9: Masks

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm actually had a theatrical release in 1993, but like most people I didn't see it in the theater. I'd like to fix that. This ranks as one of the best Batman productions ever. The Wraith (1986) is a supernatural revenge film packed with some of the most bitchin' cars, music, and fashions that the 80's had to offer. The killer wears a racing helmet with the visor down, so I'm counting that as a mask. The 5 Deadly Venoms (1978)  is a classic martial arts flick ranked #11 in Entertainment Weekly's "Top 50 Cult Films of All-Time." That says enough right there... love that Shaw Brothers' "SB" logo in the opening of their movies. 

Okay, that's a wrap. It's time to take these movies down to the basement and put them back on the shelf. This was fun, though.

Still curious. Which 3 movies would you pick?

We're with the Band... and with anything else she chooses to do

"Well, if you like burgers, give 'em a try some time. Me, I can't usually get them 'cause my girlfriend's a vegetarian which pretty much makes me a vegetarian." Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction

I like how Samuel L. Jackson delivers that piece of dialog, and I quote it quite a bit when people ask me how things at the high school are going. I'll say, "Well, you know that line in Pulp Fiction when Sam Jackson says... ? Well, Char is in marching band right now which pretty much means we're all in marching band right now." I'm usually talking to another a parent, and they'll know exactly what I mean. 

When your kid is in an activity, then you're mostly in it, too. 

Daphne and I aren't on the marching field, but we are with the band. 

If Char marched at the Friday night football game, then Daphne and I watched the half-time show from the sidelines. That's because we volunteered to pull and/or carry something on and off the field before and after the show. We also pulled and pushed multiple things back to the band room. Daphne and I did this at some of the Saturday marching band competitions, too. We even spent six hours in the concessions stand the Urbandale Marching Invitational. 

Volunteering is a big time commitment, but it's worth it because Char loves marching band. She has said so many times. 

I was discussing this with Charlotte's Japanese teacher when he said, "Yeah, about that time commitment. You know we have the Japanese exchange coming up, and I'm still looking for host families..." 

To make a long story short: Char is a student taking Japanese, so Daphne and I all took in two Japanese students for a week. 

My challenge is posting about their visit without showing pictures of their faces. (I didn't ask for their permission because that would have been weird.) So, we'll see how this goes. For the purpose of this post, I shall refer to the Japanese students as "the girls."

The students from Owa High School arrived via a bus from Chicago on a Tuesday afternoon. 

The Japanese students were 16 and 17 years old. I don't normally take pictures of shoes, but I liked how the girls lined them up when they would get home from school. Char's shoes are on the left.

Here the girls (including Ellie) are taking a break from carving pumpkins. They're watching Spirited Away. Char's head is on the left.

For two girls who had never carved a pumpkin before, their results were quite impressive. Char's pumpkin is on the left.

The girls wanted to experience a high school football game, so we moved movie night from Friday to Saturday. We checked out a couple of Blu-rays from the Urbandale Public Library, and I was impressed  with the number of languages that were available on each release. We watched The Lost City in Japanese with English subtitles. I think they liked it. It was hard to tell because they were so polite.

School activities for the girls included touring our state capitol and spending a day at Living History Farms. We took them to a Spirit Halloween store, Char's church youth group, Char's evening percussion party at school, a volleyball "tournament" where the girls got to play, a Leo Club tailgate, the football game, the Downtown Farmers' Market, the Pappajohn Sculpture Park, the Jordan Creek Mall, Sunday morning church, and the Hurt's Donut Co.  

The girls liked the doughnuts, but they later admitted they wanted to go for ice cream instead. That was an easy fix. We hit up a Baskins-Robbins on Sunday after church. I really like the retro VHS design on the Hurts Doughnut Company's boxes. 

I'm pretty sure the box's slogan, "It's a Jelly", is a reference to the movie Strange Brew.

Wow. Bob and Doug MacKenzie. That takes me back. But I digress...

Daphne bought a Halloween Witches' Tower Cookie kit for the girls to assemble.  Here are the parts for the kit.

And here is how they did. Looks good!

The girls were with us for six nights, and to be honest, it would have been okay if they stayed a few days more. All three seemed to become more and more comfortable with each other as time passed. By the last night, they were really having fun just hanging out and playing online games.

That went on for an hour and a half. Good times.

Hosting was a big time commitment, but it was worth it because Char loved having the girls stay with us. She has said so many times. I think the girls liked being with us as well. They both wrote very nice thank you notes in both English and Japanese, and Char has heard from both of them since they returned home.

High school activities. You don't pick them when you're a parent. They pick you. 

It's okay.