Time of the Goonies

I didn't choose to watch 1985's The Goonies to honour the recently deceased Richard Donner. Like many Steven Spielberg produced movies of the '80s, it was really co-directed by Spielberg (Sean Astin apparently confirms this as regards The Goonies in his autobiography). It's hard to believe Mr. Schmaltzy, Squeaky Clean Spielberg of to-day ever made anything this raunchy. But it was the '80s, when filmmakers were interested in depicting kids the way kids actually are, crude sex jokes and all. It's a fun adventure film but among the weakest of Spielberg's '80s output. Then again, being among the weakest of Spielberg's '80s films is kind of like being one of the smallest titans.

I really don't think I'd seen the movie since the '80s. When I saw the first season of Stranger Things a few years ago, I made a mental note to go back and watch Goonies, but I didn't find that mental note until last night while perusing Netflix. I was recommending movies to be shown in class at the junior high school where I work in Nara Prefecture, Japan, and I was coming up with a list last night. I was going to include Goonies but now I realise I can't. The jokes about suicide and drugs would disqualify it. I'm astonished to find the film is still rated G on Netflix.

All the fat jokes about Chunk (Jeff Cohen) would seem like they'd make the movie deeply problematic in to-day's political climate in the West. It's some of the best stuff in the movie, though, and Jeff Cohen's comedic timing is razor sharp. I feel like Spielberg or Donner had him watch a bunch of Abbott and Costello.

Sean Astin is pretty good, too. That inhaler of his works like Sherlock Holmes' pipe or Columbo's cigar. It adds some kind of mystery to his sincere, straight-forward delivery. The movie has a real heartbeat in his conceptualisation of the group as "Goonies" and his building reverence for One-Eyed Willy. The climax has a pretty amazing, albeit historically inaccurate, pirate ship but it's Sean Astin that really sells it.

A wheel on a ship from 1635?

I love the gang of hoodlums chasing the kids, too, they have a real comic book vibe to them. I like Andy (Kerri Green) and her short tennis skirt she wears for the whole movie but they ought to have gone all the way making her Sean Astin's love interest instead of defaulting her with Josh Brolin.

The Goonies is available on Netflix.

I think I only saw it once or twice when I was a kid. I have stronger memories of playing the second Nintendo game over and over, though it bore pretty much no resemblance to the film.