{"id":33676,"date":"2014-03-05T17:15:30","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T01:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/?p=33676"},"modified":"2020-10-08T14:45:57","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T21:45:57","slug":"blindspot-the-goonies-1985","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/blindspot-the-goonies-1985\/","title":{"rendered":"Blindspot: The Goonies (1985)"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I posted on Facebook and Twitter that I was currently watching The Goonies<\/em> for the first time, the incredulity was palpable. I’m not particularly well-versed in the ’80s films that my generation considers essential, but for some reason, this one has been coming up more and more often lately, so I bit the bullet even though I didn’t expect to get a lot out of it. For some reason ’80s movies often rub me the wrong way, or at least I have trouble buying into their particular brand of goofiness. The fact that several people I know who didn’t watch it until they were adults reported not really caring for the film didn’t help.<\/p>\n

\"bs-The-Goonies\"<\/p>\n

Well, I don’t know if it was those low expectations, or my overall positive frame of mind this year, or if I just have a huge soft spot for adventure films, but I pretty much loved this. The set-up of the kids’ families about to be kicked out of their homes had me a little confused at first (who’s moving? why? how will money help?), but once I realized that it’s basically a McGuffin, I was fine. The rest of the plot, following a group of kids following an old treasure map to try to find pirate treasure is right up my alley (and the backstory was just enough to give the story stakes – if they don’t find the treasure, they lose their homes; it’s more than just fun and games, though of course it is that as well). It’s like Indiana Jones<\/em> meets Home Alone<\/em>, what with the bumbling criminals always one step behind the kids.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If anything, the criminal subplot is the weak part of the film, but I enjoyed it for a number of reasons. First off, it led to some truly scary moments, like when they open the freezer and the body pops out. Kids’ movies these days really shy away from showing anything frightening, and having the crap scared out of you in a safe, controlled environment like a movie is, I think, an important part of growing up. Of course, the booby-trapped trail led to some of this as well, like when Data falls in the hole, and there are REAL SPIKES down there that would have KILLED HIM if not for his miraculous teeth rope gadget, and whenever a corpse turns up. Also, even though she got pretty over the top by the end, I liked seeing the crime family led by a matriarch, which isn’t too common. And finally, Sloth is awesome. At first truly frightening, and then truly lovable.<\/p>\n

\"bs-one-eyed-willy\"<\/p>\n

I also liked how the plot gave each of the kids a real chance to shine, their skills getting them through the next obstacle without making it too overt that “oh, now we’re going to let THIS KID use his one skill.” I mean, that’s sort of what was happening, but it all felt pretty organic within the story. For instance, it seemed like the two girls were just along to be girly, but the fact that one of them had had piano lessons allowed them to get through the organ trap. That wasn’t even really foreshadowed either, just “oh, I play the piano, let me do this one.”<\/p>\n

Overall, I was impressed with just how scary the film was allowed to be, and how much danger it put the kids in. With today’s helicopter parents and nanny state, this sort of thing would never happen even in a film. (Of course, it begs the question of where the parents were during all this, sort of like E.T. does, but from a kid-centric adventure point of view, it worked.) All the adventure moments worked great for me, and I miss this sort of whiz-bang fun adventure film made for any audience. Most adventure films these days have lost their sense of fun and glee, and I miss it sorely.<\/p>\n

\"bs-goonies-pirate-ship\"<\/p>\n

My Souvenir<\/b>: No question, my souvenir from The Goonies<\/em> is the first shot when they come out into the underground chamber and see the pirate ship. I audibly gasped in delight when that happened (no, really, ask my husband). I was expecting them to find a treasure chest, or even a chamber of loose coins like the red herring of the wishing well. I never dreamed they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d find a whole intact pirate ship, with all the romanticism (however misplaced) that goes along with that. I was already enjoying the movie. That moment coupled with the shot at the end of the pirate ship sailing off made me love it.<\/p>\n

\"bs-the_goonies-ship-sailing\"<\/p>\n

\"Blind-Spots-banner\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I posted on Facebook and Twitter that I was currently watching The Goonies for the first time, the incredulity was palpable. I’m not particularly well-versed in the ’80s films that my generation considers essential, but for some reason, this one has been coming up more and more often lately, so I bit the bullet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[2872,2871],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/the-goonies-feat.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":33567,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/2014-the-year-that-was\/","url_meta":{"origin":33676,"position":0},"title":"2014: The Year That Was","author":"Jandy","date":"December 31, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"2014 was a rough year for many on many different levels, from Ferguson to Gamergate, which has made my commitment to positivity in 2014 tough in some ways, though in terms of my moviewatching (which was the real purview of my Year of Positivity), it has held true and I've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/FeaturedBanner.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":33408,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/the-story-of-film-on-tcm-chapter-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":33676,"position":1},"title":"The Story of Film on TCM: Chapter 12","author":"Jandy","date":"November 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In the 1980s, greed is good. Conservative idealogues tell false stories about life and love. Innovative filmmakers spoke back to them - speaking truth to power. This is one of the most politically-charged episodes in The Story of Film, as Cousins positions the innovative filmmaking in the 1980s as political\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/SoF-The_Story_of_Film.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36658,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/challenge-week-50-footloose\/","url_meta":{"origin":33676,"position":2},"title":"Challenge Week 50: Footloose","author":"Jandy","date":"December 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I love musicals and movies about dance, but I have to admit I put off watching this one for a couple of reasons: first, I dislike '80's movies in general, and second, the story as I understood it was about a town that has outlawed dancing and the city kid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/tf-feat-fooloose.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35862,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/challenge-week-17-stand-by-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":33676,"position":3},"title":"Challenge Week 17: Stand by Me","author":"Jandy","date":"May 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This falls into the huge mass of films that everyone who grew up in the '80s loves but I missed because I was busy watching Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies growing up. When I catch up with these films, I rarely love them the way people who saw them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/tf-feat-standbyme.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36654,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/challenge-week-50-some-kind-of-wonderful\/","url_meta":{"origin":33676,"position":4},"title":"Challenge Week 50: Some Kind of Wonderful","author":"Jandy","date":"December 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Teen\/coming-of-age\/1980s movies are often a hard sell for me, but John Hughes-penned ones have a bit of heart and tenderness that hit me in the right place, so I was hoping Some Kind of Wonderful, one of the few I'd missed up to this point, would fit the bill as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/tf-feat-somekind.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36187,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/challenge-week-30-nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind\/","url_meta":{"origin":33676,"position":5},"title":"Challenge Week 30: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind","author":"Jandy","date":"August 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"There are far too many Miyazakis on my unseen list, so I'm glad David gave me the push to get to this one. Sometimes overtly environmentalist stuff bugs me, not because I'm anti-environment - just because it often comes across preachy. I knew this was likely to be heavily pro-environment,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/tf-feat-nausicaa.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}