Retro Viewing on Family Day

Here in Alberta Canada we celebrate Family Day on the third Monday in February (since 2007), which gives us a nice long weekend between New Year's and Easter.  This year my wife and I decided to show our kids some movies that they haven't seen, but should have; Purple Rain (1984) and Hackers (1995).

Purple Rain (which I have to admit I've never seen before, unless you include seeing the music videos from the film) was an interesting experience - part concert film, part romance, part family drama, the film moved back and forth between the amazing musical numbers and stuff that really just came across to me as strange: the creation of a girl band that was to be quote "…sexy but not dirty" which ended up being three women singing a song called "Sex Shooter" in lingerie, the fact that a woman is thrown in a dumpster by her boyfriend's henchman, or the incredibly rude way "The Kid" (Prince) treats two of his band members throughout 90% of the film.

Our biggest fear in showing the kids Hackers was simply that it wouldn't date well - that all the references to hacker culture or the mid-90s fear of what "Hackers" might do to your information may have seemed too cheesy for our kids.

Instead, they really just ate it up.  The fact that it starred current Elementary star Jonny Lee Miller definitely helped,   Also the fact that the film has a nice pace, over the top villains and is an interesting look at a specific (albeit dated) sub-culture was a lot of fun as well.

In the end, we didn't show the kids either film because they were the best movies of their time, but for my wife and I there were a part of our culture growing up, and now our kids have a taste of what we thought was cool growing up, just as their kids will have when shown films like High School Musical 2, Another Cinderella Story, and LOL.