Friday, March 26, 2010

Five Cool Genre things my youngest daughter has shown me

Today is my 97th post, and back in 1997, my youngest daughter was born (quick boast - I delivered her; she was born in our house, no doctor, no midwife, just my wife, my five-year-old, and myself, also there was a snow storm). Like her older sister, Kaia has shared with me a number of genre treats I may not have come across without her. So here we go:

Bookmonkey's five cool genre things his Youngest daughter has shown him.

5. Robin Hood
Growing up I came across Robin Hood three times - first as the Disney Film, second in the Bugs Bunny Short, and Third (during Junior High) as The Prince of Thieves. The story was kind of cool, but as I'm more into Horror, I didn't bother looking for more. Over the last two years, after borrowing the 1938 film, The Adventures of Robin Hood, from the Library, Kaia has checked out pretty much every version there is, and brought us along for the ride. My personal favourite, the 2006 BBC series staring Jonas Armstrong and Richard Armitage.

I've already done a book review on the first of this series as well as a movie review of the film last month, but it is fair to state that I would never have come across this amazing series if my daughter hadn't been reading them first. The next book series I'm planning to check out is also one she's already read - it's called GONE, and I've heard nothing but good stuff about from her and from online reviews.

Sometimes you come across a book series that has been around for a long time, a series you would totally have loved as a kid, but for whatever reason never noticed. Then your kid finds it and it is just awesome. This series of books can basically be considered nightmare batter - read a story, go to sleep and it'll be waiting. The worst (coolest?) thing about the series is that it is aimed at kids, so all the horror is implied, rather than in your face.

I've been a fan of Batman since I was reading comics as a kid, I loved the Tim Burton film back in '89, and even played the video game for the classic NES (That was my very first Japanese import game). I always stayed away from the cartoon, as I figured that a character as cool as Batman could not be handled properly if he was dumbed down for kids. Growing up, this show was probably Kaia's favourite until the third grade when she moved on to Teen Titans. We actually got notes sent home by her teachers saying they were concerned about her love of Batman (he is a psychologically damaged person after all) - which was ridiculous as from Kaia's point of view he was a good guy who never used guns and always caught the villains - never killing them and took them to a safe place (Arkham Asylum). I started watching the cartoon with her and man - it is really, REALLY good.

1. Universal Classic Monsters
I've always loved horror, from as far back as I can remember I think stories about monsters and ghosts, demons and aliens have resonated well with me. But growing up, I simply worked my way through the horror section at my local video store. This led me to see all sorts of B-Grade Horror, and I had seen all the Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Halloween films before I was in Junior High, but it did leave some big holes in my Horror film viewing. Case in point - I had never seen any of the classic Universal Monster Movies until about 6 years ago. Kaia was getting pretty psyched to see the film Van Helsing, but I figured if she wanted to watch the new flashy flick, she should check out the originals - and that's exactly what we did. For the few of you out there who don't know - these films are awesome, and I would still be ignorant of this fact if it wasn't for my youngest daughter.

Thanks Kaia!

1 comment: