The Goonies (1985)
Director: Richard Donner
Had I seen this before: Yes
Did I recognize the “famous quote” in the ad: Yes
Here is the general arc of my relationship with the film The Goonies: I was a child in the 1980s and thought it was pretty good, and as far as I could tell so did most of my peers. I was then a teenager in the 1990s, where it developed into a sort of ironic appreciation, as did most things. “It’s our time down here,” my friends and I would say, gently mocking Sean Astin’s earnest-movie-kid delivery. Then, as an adult in the 2000s I eventually developed a contrarian take that it was not in fact pretty good at all, but rather misremembered as being pretty good when it was really just Gen X nostalgia bullshit. This was my approximate position until a few days before I was scheduled to watch it, when from the murky depths of my subconscious started bubbling up the perky voice of Cyndi Lauper.
What’s good enough
For you is
Good enough
For me
It’s goooooooood enooouuuuugh
Good enough for me
And how could I respond except with “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah”? If you had asked me at any point prior to this, out of context, where I knew that song from, my conscious brain would only have been able to generate “something from the 80s.” But waaaaaaaaay way down, under the fireplace grate and through the cave and past the waterfall and over the spikes, Cyndi has been waiting all this time, playing the correct chords on the booby-trapped organ and never saying die. So while I’m not claiming that this film isn’t Gen X nostalgia bullshit, I did have to come to terms with the fact that I personally might be more susceptible to it than I thought.
I was, as always, interested in a small-sample-size Gen Z opinion on the matter, and although I could not coax the target-audience 11-year-old to join, I did manage to entice my high school freshman by promising glimpses of Baby Samwise, Baby Thanos, and Baby Teddy aka “John G.” from Memento. (This spiraled into a satisfying reveal to said freshman that Thanos is the real-life stepson of Judy Maxwell from What’s Up Doc?, followed by a less-satisfying, more received-with-polite-disinterest reveal that Samwise is the adopted son of the television version of Gomez Addams, followed by me low-key freaking out alone upon discovering that Martha Plimpton is the daughter of Keith Carradine because no one else in my household knows who either of those people are.)
The Goonies is about a group of kids from the poor side of their Oregon town—in this case one that is characterized by excruciatingly beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean and towering trees and houses easily twice the size of mine (the real house where the main character lives sold this past January for $1.65 million), but not, like, a country club—who are all about to lose their homes to evil rich 1980s developers who presumably each live in their own Queen of Versailles house on the good side of the tracks. These poor urchins all have nicknames that make it funny when any random adult refers to them by their actual given name—I love when you find out that Mouth’s (Corey Feldman) name is Clark—and they are soon to be scattered to the winds. Fortunately, Mikey (Sean Astin) has a museum-curator father who has crammed a tremendous amount of centuries-old relics into their attic, including a treasure map and helpful map-pointing artifact. It’s surprising to me that the museum’s board of directors has allowed what I assume are near-priceless historical items to be stored in such a sketchy, rundown area, but they probably just take a more relaxed approach to things on the west coast.
Meanwhile, a cartoonish Italian crime family, the Fratellis, has busted one of their own out of jail and is hiding out in a shuttered restaurant that happens to be in the path of our treasure hunters. In trying to escape this threat, the kids sort of accidentally stumble upon the correct route and the adventure is on. Unfortunately, they have lost one of their number, Chunk, who is captured and threatened by the goons, then tied up alongside the secret third Fratelli brother Sloth, who is enormous and has a facial deformity and a childlike mental capacity.
Okay, so. I was pretty worried about how Chunk and Sloth were going to have aged. The overweight kid’s name being Chunk is already not ideal. And I’m not exactly sure how Sloth even got his nickname because he does not seem to be lacking energy or motivation, maybe because of the droopy eye? Sigh. So keep in mind that this is with the eternal caveat that I mean “considering it’s a 40-year-old movie” and is coming from a brain that is unsalvageably Amblin-pilled, but I still can’t help but find them really endearing as a duo. Chunk is dressed like a little Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack and develops verbal diarrhea when panicked. Sloth just wants to be helpful and for someone to treat him like a human. They both want to eat ice cream and candy bars and so do I. And in the end the movie lets them swing in on a rope, in full swashbuckling idiom, to help save the day. It’s sweet! I don’t know! Should Chunk have had at least one discussion with his parents before he volunteered them to adopt Sloth into their family? Probably! But when you survive a Spielberg-produced adventure, sometimes wild things happen and you gotta roll with them.
The actual adventure part of the movie is pretty straightforward—it’s a journey through a cave-as-theme-park-ride, with drops and traps and puzzles and skeletons of those who attempted this path before. Future Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan brings a certain Inspector Gadget vibe, Corey Feldman is smart and mean, Sean Astin has asthma and dopey but necessary sincerity. Josh Brolin, Martha Plimpton, and Kerri Green are the most 80s of teens (the scene introducing Green’s character Andy, resplendent with tape deck, leg warmers, and perms, seems like it’s set in a modern day movie parodying the 80s). The ending is happy and ridiculous in equal measure. I am charmed and skeptical in unequal measure.
Aged the worst: Mouth’s whole deal in the beginning but especially abusing the Spanish-speaking maid, fat kid jokes at Chunk’s expense, Andy kissing Mikey by accident, so much yelling, possibly some anti-Italian sentiment. Aged the best: real sets and practical effects, the music, Martha Plimpton’s look, excellent character name Chester Copperpot. Overall Gen Z assessment: could have been worse.
The Regal Ad
The outfit: Suspenders. Check. A-
The line: In the movie, this is yelled by Sloth as he swings in to rescue the kids from his family, who have them cornered. It’s one of the only lines from this ad that I instantly recognized, but again, my brain is bright neon and soaked in Aqua Net. A
The context: This lady is just hollering upon entering the movie theater, which is not really behavior that I condone amongst my fellow cinema patrons. I would get incredibly jumpy if someone arrived yelling. On most watches I have assumed that the specific people she is shouting at are friends or at least acquaintances, but the beauty of this mess of an ad is that it is not entirely clear that’s even the case. She might just be yelling, at everyone. I don’t believe she’s about to do anything to save the day, but at least yelling a greeting upon entering a room is not entirely nonsensical, which is unfortunately the bar that I have had to set for this. B-
Baby Ruth Candy Bars from Food Network, again
Chunk and Sloth first bond over a shared Baby Ruth bar in a scene that is both sweet and gross, just like childhood. I realize that I could have just as easily gone with Rocky Road ice cream for this movie, but 1) it’s funny to me that Baby Ruth specifically was a significant cinematic object in the 1980s and 2) if you could have seen the love and appreciation in my family’s eyes when they tried the first round of these things you would understand why I am still chasing that high despite it being one week from Halloween, thus rendering the addition of extra candy bars to the household a deeply questionable lifestyle choice.
Up next: “It’s not a man purse, it’s called a satchel”