Throwback Thursdays: The Goonies-R-Good Enough

When i started this blog (A whopping three days ago! Has it already been that long?) I wanted to talk about things I found incredible. Of course, things on the present can be incredible, and you can certainly get excited about things that have potential to be incredible in the future... But we can't forget the past! So, I'm devoting every Thursday to something incredible from the past. And this week's feature is... The Goonies!

I first saw this flick at a birthday party sleepover when I was a wee lad of, oh, we'll say seven or eight. Creepy Crawlers were in fashion (Remember? "They're snuggy, they're buggy, you can embarrass your Dad! You can be a little creep without being bad!") I remember it from the very beginning... Nothing but silence as the camera pulled back from a skull to reveal it as the dot in the "i" of the logo.  Then I was immediately drawn in by the Fratellis: A criminal family that manages to be a fantastic mix of humorous, threatening, and slightly scary at the same time (Anne Ramsey (Mama Fratelli) still haunts my dreams from every now and again.)  After one of my favorite opening credits sequences of all time (and one of John Williams great lost theme songs), we're introduced to the Goonies themselves.  Mikey, Chunk, Mouth, Data, and Brand.  You could immediately connect with these kids, because they were essentially you and your friends. And on top of that, they got to go on the adventure that you always DREAMED about when you were a kid.  I think that's why its such an incredible and timeless movie... You got to live vicariously through these kids that you could see yourselves as.  And along the way we meet Sloth... For those of you who haven't seen this flick, Sloth is a Fratelli as well, though we was dropped ("Only dropped once! Ok, maybe twice...") as a baby which resulted in physical deformation and mental disabilities. He exists at first as something to be frightened of... His family has him chained to the wall in the basement of their hideout, and he towers over our heroes as a monster.  But as the story progresses, we find that he is very much the gentile giant, and ends up becoming a loved character and arguably one of the most memorable and quoted characters of all time. 

Richard Donner takes us on an exciting, terrifying, and fun adventure into the secret caves below Astoria, Oregon, where famed pirate One-Eyed Willie hid his treasure as a last act of defiance against the British Military that pursues him.  The Goonies are forced to navigate a series of treacherous traps and pitfalls all while racing to stay ahead of the Fratellis.  This movie is one of my absolute favorites, and will always have a place on my DVD shelves as time passes.  If its not considered a classic already, it needs to be.

And now, I give you... The Truffle Shuffle!