Ah, the Neverending Story. This film is the epitome of the '80's fantasy movie. How much more fantasy can a movie be? A little boy who is on the verge of rejecting society and all the math tests attached to it decides to blow off school and read a book that he stole in the school attic. The book is called The Neverending Story. Soon the book takes over the entire movie, giving us only a few glimpses at the little reader until the end of the movie, and even at those brief intervals, his lines suck. Needless to say, Barret Oliver was very bitter about this, and to this day has a deep-seated hatred for Noah Hathaway and Alanis Morrisette. But I digress.

The book is actually a window into another world, where everything is kooky and brownish-green. The ruler of this world, a catty bitch called The Child-Like Empress, is dying from something that no one in Fantasia can cure, and no one really cares. Atreyu, who bares a striking resemblance to Alanis Morisette, is an 11 year old girl posing as a 14 year old boy. He is the only one who can save their precious little princess, and after going on several mind-bogglingly tedious and time-comsuming adventures, including drowning his horse, Artax, in quicksand, he learns that all the Child-Like Empress really needs is a new name, but only a Earthling child can give it to her. He makes it to the Child-Like Empress's Tower of Terror just in time to see Fantasia dissolving like an Alka-Seltzer tablet, waiting for the Empress's new name. Meanwhile, our little reader, Bastian, is having hot flashes caused by his moral dilemma of being torn between saving Fantasia and yelling in school.

Lucky for Bastian, when a well-timed storm blows a tree through the attic window, it creates the trans-dimensional portal needed. He sticks his head out and shouts, shouts, lets it all out. To this day, thousands of Neverending Story fans lie awake at night trying to figure out what the blazes the Empress's new name was; as he had blown off school that day and missed grammar class, his speech was garbled and unclear. But it doesn't matter, because if the name Boosyle or Umlaud or Foomy is good enough for his mother, by golly it's good enough for the Child-Like Empress.

So, the Empress and what's left of Fantasia are saved. Unfortunately, one grain of sand is all that's left. A very sparkly grain of sand. Bastian is allowed to wish on this sparkly grain of sand and bring everything back, including Atreyu's horse Artax. When I first saw this movie at the age of seven, I can't say I really cared when all of Fantasia was destroyed, but boy I cried my eyes out when that damn horse died. Stupid horse.