'Top Gun'

Ol' Top Gun did not age well. It's corny and dumb: From the shirtless volleyball scenes, over-the-top acting and writing, the shower scene, the flying upside down and taking a photograph, the "Great Balls of Fire," Tom Cruise, "You've Lost That Loving Feeling," the music, Kenny Loggins, "need for speed," Val Kilmer's hair, Anthony Edwards' hair, Kelly McGillis, the aviators.

It loses a lot over time.

However, that should not take away from the very fact that Top Gun was the coolest fucking film of all time and it defined everything that we wanted to be as pre-teens and teenagers.

All that shit above, we wanted. We wanted to be magnificent lovers like Tom Cruise. We wanted to be coy and cool like Kilmer. We wanted to drive McGillis absolutely nuts by blowing her off. We wanted leather jackets, aviators, motorcycles, "Top Gun" hats, jets, the ability to play Jerry Lee Lewis on the piano, be a jet pilot, marry Meg Ryan and have a kid without actually having to live with them. Even Goose was cooler than us.

And the nicknames. We hardly knew these people outside of Iceman, Maverick, Joker, Goose, Jester and Viper. How fucking cool was that?!

The general summary here is that most of us at nine, 10, 11 and 12 years old were complete geeks and the cult of personality hits us at that age like no other. We're dumb. We don't like Bob Dylan or Jean Luc Godard. We had a lot growing up to do. Just like Maverick.