Do you ever sit down and watch a movie or television show from when you were younger? Are they just as good now as they were then?
One movie that I had kind of forgotten about was The Sandlot. A young boy moves to a new community in the early 1960s and there’s a group of eight boys that play baseball every day during the summer at the Sandlot… so although the new kid wasn’t good at baseball, he figured he could stand in the outfield and take up space at least since he can’t catch or throw a baseball.
As the summer evolves the kid gets better. There’s a variety of shenanigans that happens… and before you know it he smokes a home run over the fence and into the Beast’s yard. The Beast destroys any balls that end up over the fence. The problem… the ball belongs to his stepfather and had been signed by Babe Ruth. His eight new buddies are flabbergasted as to why you’d play ball with such a special memento, but vow to get it back.
The movie although set in the 1960s was released in 1993 – surprisingly the video quality itself still holds up, but the movie itself was still exceptional. It could be that nostalgia meant rewatching the movie was going to maintain itself in memory; but, I’ve watched others from the 90s - like Power Rangers: The Movie and it was not what it once was when I was like eight-years-old.
The Sandlot, however, remained to be quite funny… it in fact stood the test of time in my opinion. Everyone can still relate to idolizing a sports hero (I suppose Google would allow a kid to look up who it is the other kids are talking about) and when autographed memorabilia is used to play in a game and look like it would be destroyed… it would be devastating to the young group of kids.
There’s the iconic line, “You’re killing me, Smalls,” which is used by people in pop culture still, just as “Stay golden Pony Boy,” is even if the ones using it haven’t read or watched The Outsiders.
Ultimately though it has a message of encouragement at its roots.
“Let me tell you something kid; everybody gets one chance to do something great. Most people never take the chance, either because they’re too scared, or they don’t recognize it when it spits on their shoes.” The Babe tells Benny.
“Remember kid, there’s heroes and there’s legends. Heroes get remembered but legends never die, follow your heart kid, and you’ll never go wrong.”
I’m not sure how many movies really stand the test of time, but I have to say The Sandlot is one of them in my opinion. The Outsiders – which I mentioned above – is as well, although it was an exceptional book first as well.
The Wizard of Oz, Braveheart, The Godfather, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Taxi Driver, Groundhog Day, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Jaws, The Shining, Pulp Fiction, Casablanca, The Breakfast Club, Die Hard, The Princess Bride, Citizen Kane, Top Gun, Grease, Rocky, Psycho, Indiana Jones, The Sound of Music, Pretty Woman, Gone with the Wind, Home Alone, Back to the Future (it’s actually surprising how much they got right in these movies – although we’re still waiting on an actual hover board), Reservoir Dogs, Saving Private Ryan, The Goonies, One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest, Forrest Gump, The Green Mile, and Schindler’s List are a quick list that come to mind for movies that, in my opinion, have stood the test of time.
