Episode 11: "The Goonies"

When I questioned Lindsey to see which of my potential list-worthy movies she hadn't seen, "Top Gun" and "The Goonies" were 1 and 1a in terms of freaking out that she'd never seen them. Look, I know my wife. I know and understand why she hasn't seen "Tombstone" or "The Untouchables." And I know humans, so I know why she hasn't seen "The Legend of Bagger Vance" or "61*." But "The Goonies" is A.) an 80's classic, which she is (obviously) the master of and B.) a kids movie from the decade in which we were kids. I feel like pretty much every kid in America born between 1978and 1989 saw (and loved) "The Goonies."

Needless to say I was pretty excited about this one. I even busted out my "Goonies" t-shirt in the ultimate sign of nerdom. (Check that: even nerdier is the fact that at one point or another, I've owned a minimum of 3 "Goonies" related shirts. Boom. Roasted.) And after the absolute DEBACLE that was "Can't Buy Me Love" I was thrilled to see that no one went home disappointed in their movie viewing experience this time around.

From start to finish "The Goonies" is an adolescent males' checklist of Movie Awesomeness. A car chase. Comedic villains. A band of unlikely, underage heroes. A maze-like contraption designed to perform a mundane task. Pirates. Treasure. A fat kid with a funny scream. A retarded lummox who goes from scary to part of the family... You get the point. It's PERFECT.

Is "The Goonies" cheesy? Sure. Is the entire movie completely and totally over the top in every single way? Yup. Do we care? Absolutely not. "The Goonies" is such a classic that you even overlook the editing goof near the end in which Data references a scene that was cut from the final print because Steven Spielberg realized how truly terrible it was. "The Goonies" doesn't take itself too seriously, almost celebrates it's ridiculousness, and yet manages to throw in a TON of truly funny scenes, lines, and performances. There's just too much awesomeness to talk about here. Just get a copy and watch it again for yourself. A.

Best character: Everyone except for the girls. Seriously, who needs the girls in this thing? When I was a kid I couldn't figure out why they put up with the girls but now that I'm older...I still don't get it. They should have left those girls behind at the wishing well. They contributed NOTHING to the treasure hunt with the exception of idiotic screams and looking like Marcie from "The Peanuts." Stupid.

Best scene: The "torture" scene.
This is a no brainer. Chunk telling the Fratelli's everything he's ever done in his life, from pushing his sister down the stairs and blaming it on the dog to the culminating statement below, makes me cry from laughing every single time. Brilliant.

Best line:
Chunk: "But the worst thing I ever done: I mixed up a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa. And then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, and this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life."

Also "Sloth love Chunk."

Do the Truffle Shuffle!
Brian

"The Goonies" through Lindsey's eyes:

Oh I have lots to say about this post. First, I have totally seen "The Goonies" before watching it with Brian. Brian insists that I hadn't seen it before because I wasn't obsessed with it. I couldn't really remember it too well to give all the details of the movie. "The Goonies" was one of those movies that came on Saturday afternoons on channel 27, after "Teen Witch" and before "Lucas." I never had much interest in the movie, so most of my attention went towards looking through my Tiger Beat magazine instead of watching the show. I'm not sure why I didn't care for it, because it totally seems like a movie that I would have loved. I guess there wasn't a cute boy and the girls were totally lame, so it got pushed to the side.

Speaking of the girls, WHO IN THE HECK DECIDED TO PUT THE GIRLS IN THIS MOVIE?!!!! UGH! Worst characters ever in a movie. OK that one girl with the short hair cut, totally looked like Anthony Michael Hall. I think it would be really funny to see that girl kiss Anthony Michael Hall, I don't think I would be able to tell them apart. It would look like he was kissing a mirror. Then the "pretty" girl was straight up annoying.

Finally, can you believe I married a guy that has owned THREE Goonies shirts? The ONE Goonies shirt is definitely not my favorite item of clothing in the closet. Man, when I found out that he had previously owned two before this one, I just about lost it. What a nerd ;) Well, I guess I have no room to talk. I have three bins filled with costumes in our closet.

"The Goonies" was my 4th favorite Nintendo game,
Lindsey