Another night, another review written in the wee hours of the morning. This could become a thing.
Nah. I hate things.
So, yup, just now finished watching the Goonies for the first time in my life. It feels good to finally tick off that box. It’s a seminal movie of the 80’s, it came out when I was just the right age for it, and went to movies a lot, and yet somehow I never saw it.
Maybe it never came to sleepy little Summerside. I must admit, it’s a tad spicy for a kid’s movie. The kids swear and like five minutes into the movie the kids are dealing with a stone penis. I was shocked but not in a bad way.
I actually found it refreshing, because, if we are being honest with ourselves, that’s how kids actually talk when there are no adults around to hear it.
And speaking of hearing, one of my favorite things about the move (spoiler : I loved it) is how rambunctiously enthusiastic the whole thing is. Sure, it’s noisy, and if simultaneous dialogue is a Bad Thing For Your To Be Around (BTFYTBA), steer clear of this movie because there’s tons of it.
It’s part of the movie’s charm for me. They clearly let the kids improvise their reactions to various things. Everything is done at a gloriously high level of energy that perfectly suits the kind of movie Spielberg was trying to make.
Basically, one that was exciting and fun all the way through, packed with all kinds of things kids love like pirates, treasure, really nasty bad guys (who also got to improv some), skeletons, secret doors, puzzle-based booby traps like in Indiana Jones, scares, thrills, and a super feel good ending.
Man, I loved that Super Happy Ending. All the kids and parents seemed genuinely overjoyed to see one another after all the kids had been through. I teared up, it was so beautiful! Made me want to hug my Mom.
Some day, I will come home again, Mom!
The whole movie is one long crazy ride, beginning to end. The only other thing I can think of with that kind of breathless non-stop pacing is A Stitch In Time by Madeline l’Engle. It’s awesome. I wish more stuff was like that!
What can I say, I was raised by television, I need a dense stimulation stream.
This is the kind of movie that I think of when people are annoying me by using “Spielbergian” as a pejorative. In his prime, Spielberg was magic. He made extraordinary entertainment that went way beyond the call of duty and that left a deep and powerful impression not only in the memory but in the imagination.
And in the culture, come to think of it. When everything that comes after your work uses things you invented in your work, you can call yourself a true auteur.
You didn’t change to fit the industry. You made the industry change to fit you instead.
I get all tingly in my creative parts just thinking about it.
Well, I have avoided it so far, but I guess this is as good a time as any to talk about Chunk.
Chunk is the fat kid. He’s obsessed with food (all comedy fat people are, more’s the pity), he’s quite high strung, and he is very clumsy and tends to break things.
All of this was true of me when this movie came out. If I had seen it in the theatre, my response to it might have been… complicated. And troubling.
Now, Chunk doesn’t get an entirely raw deal. He gets to save the day by showing up with Sloth near the end. And the fact that he gets to befriend Sloth in the first place is a win from my point of view, because I am all about befriending the friendless and looking past people’s issues to see the real person inside.
They never did explain why he’s such a mutant, though. I was not surprised, just a little disappointed. The movie made it clear that he’s the third Fratelli brother, and the other two aren’t lopsided Quasimodo looking motherfuckers.
What the hell was Ma Fratelli doing when she was pregnant with him? Work with fumes?
Oh, and Chunk gets to keep Sloth at the end, so to speak. That might not seem like a big win, but do you seriously think anyone is going to mess with the high strung little fat kid with Sloth around?
Not often, and never twice.
There’s little things that don’t quite make sense. But who cares? That would be a ridiculous thing to worry about in a movie like this. It’s nothing really major and the movie’s energy leaves little time for nitpicking anyhow.
This is the point where I should be able to give examples. But I can’t think of any. So they can’t have been that big a deal.
Honestly, I wonder if I was better off not seeing it until now. If I had seen it when it was in the theatres and I was a timid little kid, I might not have been able to appreciate it because it was too loud and chaotic for me.
Then again, I loved the hell out of Indian Jones, and that wasn’t exactly a naptime lullaby. So I dunno. Maybe I would have loved it twice as much then as I do now, and I love it a lot.
So yeah, you could say I recommend it. In fact, do it now. I’ll wait.
Very good! You have a lovely voice.
As long as you go into it expecting nothing more than a fun kid-sized ride, you will enjoy it as much as I did. Let you inner kid out to watch this and I guarantee he or she will have the time of their life.
Oh. And this is Spielberg World. Park your cynicism at the door. You won’t need it here.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.