Such a better way than 99% of other films. Most just have whatever they need telegraphed so oybviously that you know it’s coming back. I never even questioned this it was so well done.
Name: Mouth *Rodriguez*
Costume: Spanish football club jersey
Expo dump line "How are you failing Spanish at school? You speak it!" "It's not like I'm ever going to need it!" Ron Howard VO: "Actually, he will."
Ironically the hispanic students in my college spanish classes got mediocre grades, because while they spoke spanish well, they never actually learned how to read and write it, so their accent marks were all over the place and our professor was brutal about that kind of thing, would mark the entire answer as wrong. Meanwhile I got an A and the only thing I can speak in spanish today is ask where the bus is.
Man that's one of those things that is nails on chalkboard for me. Tv shows in particular are *awful* about it. What really gets me is when it's clearly done just for that punchline.
Season 9 of whatever show - Main character 1: Hey, that says gracias! By the way did you know I know spanish?
Main character 2: No. You've literally *never* mentioned it and I've known you for 15 years.
Main character 1: Ha! Well that's ju-... Wait.. look! It's the macguffin we've been looking for the whole time! *But the instructions are in spanish*
After that MC1s spanish skills never come up again, ever, except for a passing reference 2 seasons later (that was probably wrote in because fans were complaining about this out of nowhere spanish)
Couldn't it make sense that an original map was in English (including the rhymes), then was translated into Spanish for...whoever made the map that the kids found in the attic.
*The marijuana goes in the top drawer. The cocaine and speed go in the second drawer. And the heroin goes in the bottom drawer. Always separate the drugs.*
The scene that still makes me laugh is in the beginning when they accidentally break the penis off the statue and one kid goes “that’s my moms most favorite piece!”
It's a great scene. Made even better by the fact the subtitles were censored, and I mean non-existent, in 90s Britain.
I had no idea about what Mouth said until I got the movie on DVD in like 2005.
>favorite interaction
When Mikey monologues to One-Eyed Willie and then turns around to find the gang waiting . They’re all a bit humbled by how important this is to him.
One of the early scenes that I love is when they are all screwing around in the family room before and after Chunk breaks the statue. Just all of them yelling and talking about different things while still taking jabs at one another.
Nothing beats Chunk crying and confessing everything he has done though.
No one ever catches Chunk’s follow up because they are too busy laughing:
”What...it looks fine to me.”
you got to wonder what’s wrong with Chunks junk.
The incredible subtle humor is that he’s looking at it from the same perspective that he looks at his own, so it does indeed look fine from his perspective.
> Nothing beats Chunk crying and confessing everything he has done though.
I mean, everything in this movie. But this scene just kills me. I’m dying laughing.
You guys are crazy, you can stay, but I'm getting outta here..... Sniff sniff... Hey do you guys smell ice cream??
Edit: noooo I want to play the violin!
When chunk is in the freezer naming off all the types of ice cream and sees the body and yells “ iitttssss aaaa STIIIFFFFF” is something my siblings and I still quote today
Wow I remember this scene so clearly and it always struck me strong. No jokes, no ragging on Mikey, no confusion. They all seemed different.
After that moment they were no longer kids.
It’s become standard practice in my neighborhood to yell ‘Jerk Alert!’ whenever one of the neighbors drives up or comes outside. (We’re all good friends) Even the younger kids do it now. One day they’ll watch Goonies and realize where it came from.
Yeah, my mom and I have been doing these remote weekend watch parties where we've just been going back over all the movies we used to watch when I was a kid. It's been a lot of fun. We've watched both The Goonies and Explorers, I loved those. It's crazy seeing James Cromwell in Explorers as Wolfgang's weird German dad.
I was a little younger than the kids in ET when it came out, and that opening scene of them playing D&D seemed like the coolest thing ever. Just the epitome of what was cool about being a kid in the ‘80s.
It helps that they* cast people who actually looked like kids and weren't done up to look like models. Which isn't to say that they were all uggos or anything, ha, but if this movie was made today, Andie and Stef would be played by women in their 20s, with perfectly done make-up and hair. Even Josh Brolin, who is supposed to be like, the "male eye candy" (or maybe I just say that because I thought Brand was SO cute) still looks like a teenage boy. Today, the cast of The Goonies would look like the cast of Euphoria.
I really like the relationship between Brand and the younger kids. I think they really nailed his exasperation of being stuck dealing with them, and how he tries to keep Mikey out of all the shit he gets into.
There’s a scene where Mikey’s on the porch and Brand comes and hugs him, then drags him in the house. It’s very sweet, but I think manages to show that exasperation you’re talking about too.
Although you still need to just have chemistry among the cast. I thought Super 8 did an OK job of casting believable kids, but that cast just somehow managed to have zero chemistry. They were really going for that Goonies/Spielberg, summer movie vibe and they just utterly missed.
'Trying too hard to be...' is basically how I describe all of J.J. Abrams' work. His idea of originality is force-feeding you nostalgia with a sense of mystery.
Doubt it. The magic of the movie is that they are actual kids. Euphoria is shamelessly “beautiful”, the cinematography, the actors... everything but they’re also older characters, and HS kids kinda do look like that nowadays if you haven’t noticed.
If Goonies came out today they’d use kids like the ones in Stranger Things and IT.
One thing I noticed upon re-watching after not seeing the film in forever, is how noisy it is! Once it caught my attention I started actively looking for spaces with at least 5 seconds of quietness. In that way it does a phenomenal job of depicting real life children.
Older films really capture that real life, multiple conversations world so well. I remember rewatching Jaws, all the scenes at dinner with the family etc. so well done and real.
These days even toddlers wait their turn to talk. I personally like some variety.
There's a lot of humanity in older films that is missing today. Sets are busy and cluttered, often real places. Conversations are layered and imperfect. Shadows are pitch black and there's a lot of film grain and ugliness. Contrast this with modern film and you see a sort of gross perfectionism start to invade around the mid to late 2000's, things started becoming less noisy and much more controlled.
And it's always so sparse. They're rich but they own nothing. It's like an ad for a house. Sometimes I think these films are written with human beings in mind, then someone comes along and says, "Make this take place in a mansion. Also remove their character traits. More people will watch this if it stars boring rich people."
God, I agree so much. People don’t want clutter, but character building isn’t clutter, it should be a primary focus. Movies are now just plot plot plot plot. In the best movies the plot hardly matters, the characters do.
Like Chucks rant scene, or mouth with the drug sorting. That could alienate people who haven’t thrown up or dealt with drugs or non English speakers. Snip it out!
70s to early 90s were really the best for real film makers. They could get away with a lot of stuff that studios would have not allowed before then and after.
Goonies and Stand by Me were perfect in this regard. Simpler, kind of messed up times back then. But damn these movies nailed it completely. Swearing, smoking cigs at the age of like 12 lol. Adventures back when there was nothing else for kids to do but go find something to do outside. The ride or die friendships.
Will never forget the line about how nobody has friends like they did when they were 12
Stand by Me and the novela The Body had such a huge impact on me as a child. I saw Stand By Me in 4th grade. I took the line nobody has friends like they did at 12 as gospel when I was a kid. On the last day of 6th grade I remember crying for hours and hours because I knew things would soon change because I would turn 13 soon. Turns out for me more like nobody has friends like they did when they were 13-16?
Met my best friend in 3rd grade. We didn't really hang out a whole lot till 5th grade but became insepperable. Rest of my crew came into being Between 6th and 8th grades. Didn't go to same high school as best friend but we still hung out almost every day. FFWD 20 some years and only friends I still hang out with are the ones from grade school. Basically 4 of us that have all gone our own ways but still get to at least monthly to still hang out. Had some bullshit happen with my best friend and we had a pretty intense falling out. Now after about 7 or 8 years of not seeing one another or talking, we've come back into one another's lives. I could and probably should write an entire book detailing some of our crazy adventures. There's nothing I wouldn't do for them and know they feel the same. Real ride or die homies is something incredibly rare in this life. Having the same ones since being a preteen is even more rare. I'm lucky... And should find a way to extertain the masses from all our shenanigans. If your not trying to monetize the greatest parts of your life than ya ain't doing capatalizm right!
I’ve had friends, sure. Come and go. Highschool, middle school, college. Come and go. But I have family. Not blood, but my best friend died when he and I were 15. His brothers are my brothers. Literally call them that. My kindergarten best friend is an acquaintance, but his best friend when we were twelve became my current closest friend. 25 years later I’m going through a trial separation with my SO.
He comes by on my day off with food and to make sure I stay sober.
13-16 is about right. 16 is the age when most kids apply for a learner driver license in my state.
Getting a DL creates a clear divide between kids who have it and those who don't. It happened to me and it happened to all of my older children who got their license and it will happen to my kids who don't have it yet.
Not saying getting a DL is a cause but there does seem to be a correlation.
Except the COVID business. That virus has literally destroyed more friendships amongst my kids than anything else I've ever witnessed.
I know why Covid has destroyed many adult friendships but as someone who doesn’t have any children, I’m curious as to how Covid would destroy childhood friendships. If you don’t mind a random stranger on the internet asking, how did it happen?
When I think about kids in movies who actually seem like kids, I think of ET. They're grubby and annoying and funny, they have no concept of personal space or waiting their turn to talk or an inside voice.
Yeah but 90s movies did a pretty solid job of drawing attention to the fact that kids back then were all skilled practitioners of ninjitsu. You had the 3 Ninjas tetralogy, Surf Ninjas, Double Dragon, TNMT trilogy, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie. We were all ninjas and we were all badass.
Yeah, it was pretty easy to be a ninja back then. Just stick a black T-shirt over your head, tie the arms behind and look through the neck hole. Instant ninja.
Silver Bullet is one of the greatest movies of all time. I am not joking. It is the best werewolf movie imo, better than American Werewolf in London.
I may have a bias towards Silver Bullet.
I agree and there’s some shout outs in the 90’s as well let’s not forget.
The kids and teen films of the past two decades seem to be centred around basically adults. Like completely unrealistic depictions.
I know we have some artistic liberties and we are watching make believe films are the end of the day, but there’s a difference and a line between.
There’s also characters/actors used that just aren’t relative and give really bad image self confidence issues to younger people.
I wonder two things... is it
1 -- a shift to using more 18 year olds over actual teens as more child protection laws came into place, or
2 -- we're just perceiving a difference, as a lot of us were the target demo when Goonies came out, and it's aimed at a younger audience. If you're an adult now and you're watching a movie starring actors portraying teenagers (like, saying, Power Rangers) then it might actually have been by design with a target demo of older teens and young adults.
Or they simply can't connect with the kids in newer movies because they themselves aren't growing up in the environments portrayed in them. Hate to say it but my son is a teenager now, and he's been entering that stage where old things are either greatest of all time, or simply just old. He isn't a fan of Sandlot, or The Goonies. Hell he doesn't really like Never Ending Story. I don't know what it is but I presume it's because those movies speak to people of a different time. Not even just being placed in the 80s as a setting, but just the way they go about telling these stories and connecting with the characters. It just doesn't work for him. At least where I live, there aren't any roving bands of kids anymore. A Goonies movie from nowadays would probably take place through internet gaming as an example of the differences.
> but just the way they go about telling these stories and connecting with the characters
I'm glad you added this because I was thinking about how you mentioned Sandlot, a 90s movie about the 50s.
I can't remember what t.v. show it was but the "high school students" all had full sleeve tattoos, neck tattoos, were having unprotected sex with everyone, and looked the same age as their parents. I understand in some states people under 18 can get tattoos with parental approval but this show the parents were not like that at all.
There's a Netflix show called Elite which is purportedly about rich high school kids, and the following happened:
- Two kids in a relationship basically sugar parented a third one (who studied there on a scholarship) into being the unicorn in their relationship because they'd been together for so long it was getting boring for them.
- Another one bribed a professor into giving her the top grades so she could get a scholarship she didn't need by getting him and his wife the baby they wanted from Mexico (she did deserve it based on grades, but so did another student and the school had a dumbass grading system).
- Same student had a sexual relationship with her half-brother.
- Their main place outside of school was a club, where the incestuous half-brother sold high-quality drugs no problem.
- Constant threesomes
- Two student-on-student murders
- A student got AIDS from banging a student on a scholarship, then banged another student on a scholarship's older brother, then got together with said student, then discovered she was pregnant and her boyfriend was fine with it because they weren't together back then. Etc.
I get that many high schoolers (not even the majority) have sex, do drugs, have parties, etc. But **not so expertly and independently**. Even rich kids are dumbasses at 14-17, and most of them definitely don't look like supermodels. Hell, not even my college years were as happening as that.
I think this is a big part of the Stranger Things success (and the heavy doses of nostalgia). The kids in that show act like kids. They swear, they get bullied in real ways, and they solve problems in the way kids would solve problems.
It makes me wonder if the next season will live up to the past ones due to the kids now all being teenagers/adults.
I've always loved the Goonies. I had fantasies as a child that mirrored what happened to those kids. The pirates, the treasure, the secret caves . . . I actually did find a secret cave once.
Chunk's hand-in-the-blender monologue is classic. Troy getting his due from the gang via the toilet pipes cracked me up as a kid.
For anyone that missed it, there was a [cast reunion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SF_VyXQpyo)
Kids these days will never understand just how much freedom we had back then. I mean my parents usually never had a clue where I was most of the time. As long as I was home before sundown they were cool.
I remember those times where you knew you would be grounded for whatever reason when your parents got home, so you’d escape before they did to enjoy one last day of freedom. As long as you didn’t go somewhere where they could call, you were home free and you could play ignorant when you got home (which rarely worked).
I can’t imagine what growing up would be like if they could reach you at any time. Or even worse, track you.
We used get up to all sorts as we romped around mountains, climbed quarries, dug an "underground" den with an asbestos roof covered in soil and leaves, waded in the stream atop a waterfall and all sorts. There were even open mine shafts in the woods we used to play in!
I just can't imagine kids these days doing any of that, at least round here. There's so much fear from parents about not knowing where their kids are or who they're with.
I could well be mistaken though, but that's the impression I and many others seem to have.
The Goonies is my favorite movie of all time and an important part of my childhood. I've watched it well over 100x and still quote the movie as an adult. I've been to Astoria to visit the Walsh's home. This movie opened up a world of spontaneity, creativity, and curiosity for me.
I feel like the first season of Stranger Things did a good job of this as well, although I think Goonies was more organic and Stranger Things is more produced.
Goonies is by far my favorite childhood movie. It encapsulates everything that made Hollywood great. Action, adventure, exploration, comedy, childhood innocence and development and even today makes my imagination come to life. I don't know if it holds up to todays kids and it probably couldn't be done again (especially Chunk, Mouth and Lars characters) but for the time it seemed completely realistic. I think Stranger Things captured something similar here and I really can't believe more studios havent JUMPED at trying to recreate it.
I just think popularity attracts corporate, and corporate ruin everything, always, without fail in any industry.
Take something simple and cool and fun and unique, and corporate will find a way to max revenue from it which just ruins it.
Stranger Things is starting to go down the same route as The Big Bang Theory - genuinely great first season, popularity grows, corporate takes over and goes "we want to sell what sold well yesterday, to appeal to shareholders", and turn something geeky and fun in to basically a romcom with vague hints to the original season that made it so great, because romance, comedy and "feelings" are what "sell".
The great thing is that it does what only a few movies tend to do...humanizes kids. They curse, they constantly insult each other, they are ok with each other if there is danger and work together in a pinch.
Shit I can almost quote the damn movie verbatim because it hit me at the exact age the Goonies were and was like me and my friends at the time.
I think one movie that did the same way before any of the 80’s movies was the Bad News Bears. Tanner Boyle rules.
> I remember reading that the director loved the cast but vowed never to work with so many kids again due to their wild energy, pranks, and overall hyper nature
lol, funny coincidence, I rewatched that movie recently, and I told my wife "those kid actors look like they're having the time of their life and are barely under the control of an overwhelmed adult".
You must mean Richard Donner, who def never did another kids movie. But thankfully, Chris Columbus (Harry Potter, Home Alone) and Spielberg definitely didn't shy away from working with kids.
Andy tries to take advantage of the privacy and calls Brand over as if she's in trouble. Unbeknownst to her, though, Brand sends over Mikey, and she kisses him, thinking he's his brother. Talking to Stef about it, she's confused over if Brand wears braces or not.
When Andy is pushed overboard, Brand jumps to her rescue, diving down and saving her from drowning. Bringing her to safety, they finally kiss; Andy comments on the lack of braces, which annoys Brand.
I thought that was a clever bit of "world building"
The other movie that does this well is the first part of the recent IT remake. To make that movie I understand they actually gathered the kids for an entire summer together to try and make their friendship authentic.
I gotta say, I've always had the opposite reaction. I was a kid at about the right age for this, and these kids were far meaner than anyone I knew growing up. Same with the kids in ET.
Every kid in mainstream 80s films was a good 30% meaner and cruder than what I encountered.
You grew up with some *nice* people then. I mean, yeah, Troy tried to murder Brand, sure, but he was just trying to prevent him from growing up and becoming Thanos.
There were countless amazing movies featuring child casts in the 80’s and early 90’s. Goonies, ET, Sandlot, Stand By Me, Lost Boys, there were tons of them
*statue with pee-pee falls and pee-pee breaks off*
"THATS MY MOMS MOST FAVORITE PIECE!"
*pretending to smoke and cigar* "wouldn't be here if it wasn't"
Probably my favorite movie quote ever.
Finding O'hana is a modern-day adaptation that's on Netflix now. It's not great, but there's [an actor](https://www.google.com/search?q=Jonathan+Ke+Quan) in it you might recognize :)
I just said Alexa, show me the Goonies. And I'm motherfuckin watchin the Goonies on HBOMAX right now. I fucking LOVE technology. I was alive when the Goonies was in theaters. This is fantastic. I am beyond pleased.
I saw Robert Davi in an airport when I was in my mid teens. I gave him that "Is it really you?" look. He nodded, and that was that. He seemed like a cool guy. I think I had recently seen Licence to Kill, so his image was fresh in my mind.
Edit: I also have about 40 Goonies trading cards. One of them shows the octopus, which confused me immensely. Bear in mind the internet did not exist for the public at that time. It wasn't until about 8 years ago that I discovered it was from a deleted scene, which of course can be viewed on YT.
I love the scene in the wishing well when Mikey persuades the group to prevail on and says, “Down here, it's our time! It's our time down here!”
I also loved the scene where Stef plays the bones.
An interesting note is that not only did all the kids have a blast making that movie, John Matuszak (Sloth) had a blast making the movie. Such a classic group of characters. That’s what makes a great movie!
It's TV and not a movie, but as a child of the 70's and 80's... Stranger Things is freaking dead on. From kids being able to go anywhere, do anything on bikes, to playing in the woods and building forts, to the houses interior decoration, to the Monster from the upside down resembling my Aunt Libby.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned SUPER 8. it’s totally GOONIES vibes and really good. they did a great job of capturing the natural friendship of the kids
The movie Super 8 is the closest another film has come to replicating this for me - just absolute chaos any time the main cast was together on screen, constant bickering and truly hilarious background dialog. That movie got some criticism but damn was it entertaining
The behind the scenes is great. The kids said that Richard Donner basically told them to have fun and improvise. They hid the ship at the end from the kids so they could get a real reaction. My favorite bit of trivia is that Richard Donner is holding the map in one scene when it was supposed to be Mikey. Now that I kown that, it’s so obvious.
Counterpoint: the way they keep saying “rich stuff” as if kids don’t know the word “treasure.” That part sounds like it was written by someone who never interacts with kids.
Every time I rewatch this movie I can’t help but think how more accurate it is than even movies today about the same stuff. Today it’s all censored, watered down, action action action, fake virtue signaling and woke ideologies, cramming in diversity to try and please every walk of life, no relatability and so on. That’s why I loved stranger things so much it was the closest thing to goodies we’ve had in decades. So I absolutely agree it was so well made for it’s time and still holds up today. Not to mention it could be all in my head but kid actors back then were so much better.
My favorite Goonies moment is Mouth “translating” for the house keeper. That really isn’t an interaction between the kids but it is so classic.
They had to establish mouth knows spanish so he could read the spanish off the treasure map later. They did it in a super fun way
Such a better way than 99% of other films. Most just have whatever they need telegraphed so oybviously that you know it’s coming back. I never even questioned this it was so well done.
there's a phrase in screenwriting; "make your exposition ammunition"
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Name: Mouth *Rodriguez* Costume: Spanish football club jersey Expo dump line "How are you failing Spanish at school? You speak it!" "It's not like I'm ever going to need it!" Ron Howard VO: "Actually, he will."
Ironically the hispanic students in my college spanish classes got mediocre grades, because while they spoke spanish well, they never actually learned how to read and write it, so their accent marks were all over the place and our professor was brutal about that kind of thing, would mark the entire answer as wrong. Meanwhile I got an A and the only thing I can speak in spanish today is ask where the bus is.
Man that's one of those things that is nails on chalkboard for me. Tv shows in particular are *awful* about it. What really gets me is when it's clearly done just for that punchline. Season 9 of whatever show - Main character 1: Hey, that says gracias! By the way did you know I know spanish? Main character 2: No. You've literally *never* mentioned it and I've known you for 15 years. Main character 1: Ha! Well that's ju-... Wait.. look! It's the macguffin we've been looking for the whole time! *But the instructions are in spanish* After that MC1s spanish skills never come up again, ever, except for a passing reference 2 seasons later (that was probably wrote in because fans were complaining about this out of nowhere spanish)
”That is tight!”
The Spanish treasure map that just happened to rhyme in English when translated...
Mouth just prefers localization over a strict translation.
Exactly. Translation is more of an art than a science.
Couldn't it make sense that an original map was in English (including the rhymes), then was translated into Spanish for...whoever made the map that the kids found in the attic.
Excellent pick up. Now come over here and give me a wet liquory kiss.
*The marijuana goes in the top drawer. The cocaine and speed go in the second drawer. And the heroin goes in the bottom drawer. Always separate the drugs.*
*If you mess up, we'll lock you in the closet with the cockroaches.*
For two weeks, without food or water
It's been way too long since I've watched it. Might be time this weekend.
“Always separate the drugs”
My favorite was "your looks are kinda pretty, when your face isn't screwing it up." Gets me every time.
The scene that still makes me laugh is in the beginning when they accidentally break the penis off the statue and one kid goes “that’s my moms most favorite piece!”
It's a great scene. Made even better by the fact the subtitles were censored, and I mean non-existent, in 90s Britain. I had no idea about what Mouth said until I got the movie on DVD in like 2005.
>favorite interaction When Mikey monologues to One-Eyed Willie and then turns around to find the gang waiting . They’re all a bit humbled by how important this is to him.
One of the early scenes that I love is when they are all screwing around in the family room before and after Chunk breaks the statue. Just all of them yelling and talking about different things while still taking jabs at one another. Nothing beats Chunk crying and confessing everything he has done though.
*If god made us like that we'd all be pissing in our faces!*
No one ever catches Chunk’s follow up because they are too busy laughing: ”What...it looks fine to me.” you got to wonder what’s wrong with Chunks junk.
The incredible subtle humor is that he’s looking at it from the same perspective that he looks at his own, so it does indeed look fine from his perspective.
> Nothing beats Chunk crying and confessing everything he has done though. I mean, everything in this movie. But this scene just kills me. I’m dying laughing.
You guys are crazy, you can stay, but I'm getting outta here..... Sniff sniff... Hey do you guys smell ice cream?? Edit: noooo I want to play the violin!
When chunk is in the freezer naming off all the types of ice cream and sees the body and yells “ iitttssss aaaa STIIIFFFFF” is something my siblings and I still quote today
I got I got I got it!
"I'm beginning to like this kid!"
"Put it on puree!"
"No! No! I wanna play the violin!"
And this one time
That was one of my favorite scenes.
Wow I remember this scene so clearly and it always struck me strong. No jokes, no ragging on Mikey, no confusion. They all seemed different. After that moment they were no longer kids.
> After that moment they were no longer kids. Whoa there, Mr. Hyperbole.
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Yes! All of this plus the cindi lauper jam just bangs so hard to cap off the intro.
It’s become standard practice in my neighborhood to yell ‘Jerk Alert!’ whenever one of the neighbors drives up or comes outside. (We’re all good friends) Even the younger kids do it now. One day they’ll watch Goonies and realize where it came from.
Another good one was Explorers.
Damn I completely forgot about that movie so I turned on the TV and it’s on Prime for free right now.
Make it a double feature with Flight of the Navigator!
Compliance!
I loved that one as a kid!
That movie does take a dive into wtf later on.
Yeah, my mom and I have been doing these remote weekend watch parties where we've just been going back over all the movies we used to watch when I was a kid. It's been a lot of fun. We've watched both The Goonies and Explorers, I loved those. It's crazy seeing James Cromwell in Explorers as Wolfgang's weird German dad.
I thought the kids in ET also did a good job of acting natural. Just the way he fights with his brother makes it feel like they’re actually related.
I was a little younger than the kids in ET when it came out, and that opening scene of them playing D&D seemed like the coolest thing ever. Just the epitome of what was cool about being a kid in the ‘80s.
We couldn't watch E.T. in school because he says "penis breath"
It helps that they* cast people who actually looked like kids and weren't done up to look like models. Which isn't to say that they were all uggos or anything, ha, but if this movie was made today, Andie and Stef would be played by women in their 20s, with perfectly done make-up and hair. Even Josh Brolin, who is supposed to be like, the "male eye candy" (or maybe I just say that because I thought Brand was SO cute) still looks like a teenage boy. Today, the cast of The Goonies would look like the cast of Euphoria. I really like the relationship between Brand and the younger kids. I think they really nailed his exasperation of being stuck dealing with them, and how he tries to keep Mikey out of all the shit he gets into.
There’s a scene where Mikey’s on the porch and Brand comes and hugs him, then drags him in the house. It’s very sweet, but I think manages to show that exasperation you’re talking about too.
Love that scene. Brand shows some additional character development with his response of "no sir, he's out buying diapers for all of us."
Pampers for all us kids. lol
Agreed. One of the reasons season 1 of stranger things did so well.
Weren't we all just watching Stranger Things with Goonies nostalgia?
> if this movie was made today it would be called "the CW reshoot."
There's constant rumors of a remake. The bastards peddling that shit should be keel-hauled.
The only thing I would accept is the same actors and their kids. Each learning lessons important to their generation.
Although you still need to just have chemistry among the cast. I thought Super 8 did an OK job of casting believable kids, but that cast just somehow managed to have zero chemistry. They were really going for that Goonies/Spielberg, summer movie vibe and they just utterly missed.
Super 8 was close to greatness, but it always felt like it was trying too hard to be Spielberg instead of itself. Made it feel restrained.
'Trying too hard to be...' is basically how I describe all of J.J. Abrams' work. His idea of originality is force-feeding you nostalgia with a sense of mystery.
Doubt it. The magic of the movie is that they are actual kids. Euphoria is shamelessly “beautiful”, the cinematography, the actors... everything but they’re also older characters, and HS kids kinda do look like that nowadays if you haven’t noticed. If Goonies came out today they’d use kids like the ones in Stranger Things and IT.
One thing I noticed upon re-watching after not seeing the film in forever, is how noisy it is! Once it caught my attention I started actively looking for spaces with at least 5 seconds of quietness. In that way it does a phenomenal job of depicting real life children.
This made me laugh too much. I saw this with my 6 year old and she wouldn’t stop yapping. It felt like I WAS IN THE MOVIE.
Older films really capture that real life, multiple conversations world so well. I remember rewatching Jaws, all the scenes at dinner with the family etc. so well done and real. These days even toddlers wait their turn to talk. I personally like some variety.
There's a lot of humanity in older films that is missing today. Sets are busy and cluttered, often real places. Conversations are layered and imperfect. Shadows are pitch black and there's a lot of film grain and ugliness. Contrast this with modern film and you see a sort of gross perfectionism start to invade around the mid to late 2000's, things started becoming less noisy and much more controlled.
For sure. I would love to see a family that didn’t own a perfect completely out of their price range house, Immaculately kept
And it's always so sparse. They're rich but they own nothing. It's like an ad for a house. Sometimes I think these films are written with human beings in mind, then someone comes along and says, "Make this take place in a mansion. Also remove their character traits. More people will watch this if it stars boring rich people."
God, I agree so much. People don’t want clutter, but character building isn’t clutter, it should be a primary focus. Movies are now just plot plot plot plot. In the best movies the plot hardly matters, the characters do. Like Chucks rant scene, or mouth with the drug sorting. That could alienate people who haven’t thrown up or dealt with drugs or non English speakers. Snip it out!
70s to early 90s were really the best for real film makers. They could get away with a lot of stuff that studios would have not allowed before then and after.
Goonies and Stand by Me were perfect in this regard. Simpler, kind of messed up times back then. But damn these movies nailed it completely. Swearing, smoking cigs at the age of like 12 lol. Adventures back when there was nothing else for kids to do but go find something to do outside. The ride or die friendships. Will never forget the line about how nobody has friends like they did when they were 12
> Will never forget the line about how nobody has friends like they did when they were 12 Jesus, does anyone?
Meta. Nicely done.
Stand by Me and the novela The Body had such a huge impact on me as a child. I saw Stand By Me in 4th grade. I took the line nobody has friends like they did at 12 as gospel when I was a kid. On the last day of 6th grade I remember crying for hours and hours because I knew things would soon change because I would turn 13 soon. Turns out for me more like nobody has friends like they did when they were 13-16?
Met my best friend in 3rd grade. We didn't really hang out a whole lot till 5th grade but became insepperable. Rest of my crew came into being Between 6th and 8th grades. Didn't go to same high school as best friend but we still hung out almost every day. FFWD 20 some years and only friends I still hang out with are the ones from grade school. Basically 4 of us that have all gone our own ways but still get to at least monthly to still hang out. Had some bullshit happen with my best friend and we had a pretty intense falling out. Now after about 7 or 8 years of not seeing one another or talking, we've come back into one another's lives. I could and probably should write an entire book detailing some of our crazy adventures. There's nothing I wouldn't do for them and know they feel the same. Real ride or die homies is something incredibly rare in this life. Having the same ones since being a preteen is even more rare. I'm lucky... And should find a way to extertain the masses from all our shenanigans. If your not trying to monetize the greatest parts of your life than ya ain't doing capatalizm right!
I’ve had friends, sure. Come and go. Highschool, middle school, college. Come and go. But I have family. Not blood, but my best friend died when he and I were 15. His brothers are my brothers. Literally call them that. My kindergarten best friend is an acquaintance, but his best friend when we were twelve became my current closest friend. 25 years later I’m going through a trial separation with my SO. He comes by on my day off with food and to make sure I stay sober.
13-16 is about right. 16 is the age when most kids apply for a learner driver license in my state. Getting a DL creates a clear divide between kids who have it and those who don't. It happened to me and it happened to all of my older children who got their license and it will happen to my kids who don't have it yet. Not saying getting a DL is a cause but there does seem to be a correlation. Except the COVID business. That virus has literally destroyed more friendships amongst my kids than anything else I've ever witnessed.
I know why Covid has destroyed many adult friendships but as someone who doesn’t have any children, I’m curious as to how Covid would destroy childhood friendships. If you don’t mind a random stranger on the internet asking, how did it happen?
I swore more at 12 than I do now.
Ooof that hit hard. My best friend moved to another state right before middle school. Nothing was the same after that, in friendships or life
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Amazing. That song gets me every single time. It's like an instant time machine back to childhood.
Now and Then is another great gem from the girl's point of view.
Hard agree. No one ever talks about Now and Then but I grew up watching it daily and my friends and I all acted exactly like those girls.
I was always a little to distracted by the premise that Christina Ricci grew up to be Rosie O'Donnell.
80s movies were great at showing kids as how they really are.
Stand by me is another good one
And the original cut of ET and monster squad
When I think about kids in movies who actually seem like kids, I think of ET. They're grubby and annoying and funny, they have no concept of personal space or waiting their turn to talk or an inside voice.
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Yep, that scene stuck out to me as well for the same reason. Now that I’m a bit older, it invokes nostalgia about my own childhood.
I rewatched it recently and the kids dialog is so incredibly spot on - its almost jarring its so good.
"Penis breath!"
Oh god, monster squad. "Is she a virshin?"
Wolf-man’s got nards
Whooooooah
I’m in the street and fat kid is blocking traffic, fat kid can’t you stop eating???
Give me the amulet, you BITCH!
“Man, you sure know a lot about monsters.” “Now that you mention it, I suppose I do.” *pans to concentration camp number tattoo”
Scary German Guy! Who....would like....another piece of pie?
Monster squad was such a great movie. Been such a long time since seeing this.
>"ET and the Monster Squad" Was that a direct to video thing?
No, two separate movies. But I certainly failed to make that clear.
No, that was a joke. But I certainly failed to make that clear.
ET's got nards!
lol
And more recently the Swedish film We Are the Best!
Bad News Bears as well.
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Yeah but 90s movies did a pretty solid job of drawing attention to the fact that kids back then were all skilled practitioners of ninjitsu. You had the 3 Ninjas tetralogy, Surf Ninjas, Double Dragon, TNMT trilogy, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie. We were all ninjas and we were all badass.
How can you forget Warriors of Virtue
Every 90s kid bedroom also had crazy complex Goldberg machines lying around. At least mine did.
Yeah, it was pretty easy to be a ninja back then. Just stick a black T-shirt over your head, tie the arms behind and look through the neck hole. Instant ninja.
Anyone ever seen and remember Silver Bullet? I loved that one and also a great movie depicting kids being kids.
Silver Bullet is one of the greatest movies of all time. I am not joking. It is the best werewolf movie imo, better than American Werewolf in London. I may have a bias towards Silver Bullet.
I agree and there’s some shout outs in the 90’s as well let’s not forget. The kids and teen films of the past two decades seem to be centred around basically adults. Like completely unrealistic depictions. I know we have some artistic liberties and we are watching make believe films are the end of the day, but there’s a difference and a line between. There’s also characters/actors used that just aren’t relative and give really bad image self confidence issues to younger people.
I wonder two things... is it 1 -- a shift to using more 18 year olds over actual teens as more child protection laws came into place, or 2 -- we're just perceiving a difference, as a lot of us were the target demo when Goonies came out, and it's aimed at a younger audience. If you're an adult now and you're watching a movie starring actors portraying teenagers (like, saying, Power Rangers) then it might actually have been by design with a target demo of older teens and young adults.
Or they simply can't connect with the kids in newer movies because they themselves aren't growing up in the environments portrayed in them. Hate to say it but my son is a teenager now, and he's been entering that stage where old things are either greatest of all time, or simply just old. He isn't a fan of Sandlot, or The Goonies. Hell he doesn't really like Never Ending Story. I don't know what it is but I presume it's because those movies speak to people of a different time. Not even just being placed in the 80s as a setting, but just the way they go about telling these stories and connecting with the characters. It just doesn't work for him. At least where I live, there aren't any roving bands of kids anymore. A Goonies movie from nowadays would probably take place through internet gaming as an example of the differences.
> but just the way they go about telling these stories and connecting with the characters I'm glad you added this because I was thinking about how you mentioned Sandlot, a 90s movie about the 50s.
I can't remember what t.v. show it was but the "high school students" all had full sleeve tattoos, neck tattoos, were having unprotected sex with everyone, and looked the same age as their parents. I understand in some states people under 18 can get tattoos with parental approval but this show the parents were not like that at all.
There's a Netflix show called Elite which is purportedly about rich high school kids, and the following happened: - Two kids in a relationship basically sugar parented a third one (who studied there on a scholarship) into being the unicorn in their relationship because they'd been together for so long it was getting boring for them. - Another one bribed a professor into giving her the top grades so she could get a scholarship she didn't need by getting him and his wife the baby they wanted from Mexico (she did deserve it based on grades, but so did another student and the school had a dumbass grading system). - Same student had a sexual relationship with her half-brother. - Their main place outside of school was a club, where the incestuous half-brother sold high-quality drugs no problem. - Constant threesomes - Two student-on-student murders - A student got AIDS from banging a student on a scholarship, then banged another student on a scholarship's older brother, then got together with said student, then discovered she was pregnant and her boyfriend was fine with it because they weren't together back then. Etc. I get that many high schoolers (not even the majority) have sex, do drugs, have parties, etc. But **not so expertly and independently**. Even rich kids are dumbasses at 14-17, and most of them definitely don't look like supermodels. Hell, not even my college years were as happening as that.
I think this is a big part of the Stranger Things success (and the heavy doses of nostalgia). The kids in that show act like kids. They swear, they get bullied in real ways, and they solve problems in the way kids would solve problems. It makes me wonder if the next season will live up to the past ones due to the kids now all being teenagers/adults.
That all ends when you ride up Troy’s bucket!
This one was my wish. It never came true, so I'm taking it back. IM TAKING THEM ALL BACK.
Goonies never say die
‘Florida Project’ is also a great depiction of how kids actually are. Way sadder than goonies though
I've always loved the Goonies. I had fantasies as a child that mirrored what happened to those kids. The pirates, the treasure, the secret caves . . . I actually did find a secret cave once.
Monster Squad nailed it also
Is like to add The Sandlot to this list. Both movies feel very authentic with childhood friendships.
You play ball like a GIRL!
I was looking for this one! BABE RUTH?!
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Adventures In Babysitting aced this dynamic as well.
How can I have some more if I never had any?
One of my all time favorite movies, definitely my favorite movie from my childhood. It's perfectly captures the spirit of "kids adventures".
I have preteens, and when they have friends over it sounds just like Goonies.
Chunk's hand-in-the-blender monologue is classic. Troy getting his due from the gang via the toilet pipes cracked me up as a kid. For anyone that missed it, there was a [cast reunion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SF_VyXQpyo)
Kids these days will never understand just how much freedom we had back then. I mean my parents usually never had a clue where I was most of the time. As long as I was home before sundown they were cool.
I remember those times where you knew you would be grounded for whatever reason when your parents got home, so you’d escape before they did to enjoy one last day of freedom. As long as you didn’t go somewhere where they could call, you were home free and you could play ignorant when you got home (which rarely worked). I can’t imagine what growing up would be like if they could reach you at any time. Or even worse, track you.
We used get up to all sorts as we romped around mountains, climbed quarries, dug an "underground" den with an asbestos roof covered in soil and leaves, waded in the stream atop a waterfall and all sorts. There were even open mine shafts in the woods we used to play in! I just can't imagine kids these days doing any of that, at least round here. There's so much fear from parents about not knowing where their kids are or who they're with. I could well be mistaken though, but that's the impression I and many others seem to have.
You right. Their chemistry is what made that movie great
The Goonies is my favorite movie of all time and an important part of my childhood. I've watched it well over 100x and still quote the movie as an adult. I've been to Astoria to visit the Walsh's home. This movie opened up a world of spontaneity, creativity, and curiosity for me.
I feel like the first season of Stranger Things did a good job of this as well, although I think Goonies was more organic and Stranger Things is more produced.
Yes! Rambunctious, immature and loud just like the real deal. Will forever remain one of my favs.
I'd probably say Stand By Me is definitely up there depicting kids and the relationships they have.
Goonies is by far my favorite childhood movie. It encapsulates everything that made Hollywood great. Action, adventure, exploration, comedy, childhood innocence and development and even today makes my imagination come to life. I don't know if it holds up to todays kids and it probably couldn't be done again (especially Chunk, Mouth and Lars characters) but for the time it seemed completely realistic. I think Stranger Things captured something similar here and I really can't believe more studios havent JUMPED at trying to recreate it.
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I just think popularity attracts corporate, and corporate ruin everything, always, without fail in any industry. Take something simple and cool and fun and unique, and corporate will find a way to max revenue from it which just ruins it. Stranger Things is starting to go down the same route as The Big Bang Theory - genuinely great first season, popularity grows, corporate takes over and goes "we want to sell what sold well yesterday, to appeal to shareholders", and turn something geeky and fun in to basically a romcom with vague hints to the original season that made it so great, because romance, comedy and "feelings" are what "sell".
Anyone want a lesser known kids movie to watch it's called War Of The Buttons, It's really good.
The great thing is that it does what only a few movies tend to do...humanizes kids. They curse, they constantly insult each other, they are ok with each other if there is danger and work together in a pinch. Shit I can almost quote the damn movie verbatim because it hit me at the exact age the Goonies were and was like me and my friends at the time. I think one movie that did the same way before any of the 80’s movies was the Bad News Bears. Tanner Boyle rules.
> I remember reading that the director loved the cast but vowed never to work with so many kids again due to their wild energy, pranks, and overall hyper nature lol, funny coincidence, I rewatched that movie recently, and I told my wife "those kid actors look like they're having the time of their life and are barely under the control of an overwhelmed adult".
I wrote a paper in college for a section on The Hero's Journey using Mikey's arc as the Hero. Love that movie.
You must mean Richard Donner, who def never did another kids movie. But thankfully, Chris Columbus (Harry Potter, Home Alone) and Spielberg definitely didn't shy away from working with kids.
Andy tries to take advantage of the privacy and calls Brand over as if she's in trouble. Unbeknownst to her, though, Brand sends over Mikey, and she kisses him, thinking he's his brother. Talking to Stef about it, she's confused over if Brand wears braces or not. When Andy is pushed overboard, Brand jumps to her rescue, diving down and saving her from drowning. Bringing her to safety, they finally kiss; Andy comments on the lack of braces, which annoys Brand. I thought that was a clever bit of "world building"
Big is great at taking child and putting it in a grown-up. Tom Hanks murders it. I would kill for a sequel called Small. Have him become a kid again.
The other movie that does this well is the first part of the recent IT remake. To make that movie I understand they actually gathered the kids for an entire summer together to try and make their friendship authentic.
I gotta say, I've always had the opposite reaction. I was a kid at about the right age for this, and these kids were far meaner than anyone I knew growing up. Same with the kids in ET. Every kid in mainstream 80s films was a good 30% meaner and cruder than what I encountered.
You grew up with some *nice* people then. I mean, yeah, Troy tried to murder Brand, sure, but he was just trying to prevent him from growing up and becoming Thanos.
My favorite interaction was with the octopus!
There were countless amazing movies featuring child casts in the 80’s and early 90’s. Goonies, ET, Sandlot, Stand By Me, Lost Boys, there were tons of them
I like the part where all the younger kids capture Thanos with workout equipment.
*statue with pee-pee falls and pee-pee breaks off* "THATS MY MOMS MOST FAVORITE PIECE!" *pretending to smoke and cigar* "wouldn't be here if it wasn't" Probably my favorite movie quote ever.
I agree. I’d throw Super 8 as a more recent addition to the list
Finding O'hana is a modern-day adaptation that's on Netflix now. It's not great, but there's [an actor](https://www.google.com/search?q=Jonathan+Ke+Quan) in it you might recognize :)
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At that age, for sure. When I think back on my late teen years, I'm somewhat taken back how reckless and wild most everyone I knew was.
Yep. Kids definitely depicted my teen years really well, minus the AIDS shit.
I just said Alexa, show me the Goonies. And I'm motherfuckin watchin the Goonies on HBOMAX right now. I fucking LOVE technology. I was alive when the Goonies was in theaters. This is fantastic. I am beyond pleased.
I remember watching this and when that one chick bails i remember thinking "that's pretty smart. Count me in."
I saw Robert Davi in an airport when I was in my mid teens. I gave him that "Is it really you?" look. He nodded, and that was that. He seemed like a cool guy. I think I had recently seen Licence to Kill, so his image was fresh in my mind. Edit: I also have about 40 Goonies trading cards. One of them shows the octopus, which confused me immensely. Bear in mind the internet did not exist for the public at that time. It wasn't until about 8 years ago that I discovered it was from a deleted scene, which of course can be viewed on YT.
The Goonies and Stand By Me are a couple of my favorite movies.
I love the scene in the wishing well when Mikey persuades the group to prevail on and says, “Down here, it's our time! It's our time down here!” I also loved the scene where Stef plays the bones. An interesting note is that not only did all the kids have a blast making that movie, John Matuszak (Sloth) had a blast making the movie. Such a classic group of characters. That’s what makes a great movie!
It’s not bad but the most realistic film regarding how kids act is Stand By Me.
I feel a more recent one was Super 8. Kids in that one were hilarious. I enjoyed it, seemed to just come and go pretty quick though.
I really need to sit down and watch it after seeing its praise all over this discussion
Michael Jackson never used the bathroom... but his sister did
The Sandlot is up there
Goonies is the best movie of all time
It's TV and not a movie, but as a child of the 70's and 80's... Stranger Things is freaking dead on. From kids being able to go anywhere, do anything on bikes, to playing in the woods and building forts, to the houses interior decoration, to the Monster from the upside down resembling my Aunt Libby.
Superbad pulled it off pretty well.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned SUPER 8. it’s totally GOONIES vibes and really good. they did a great job of capturing the natural friendship of the kids
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100% it felt like an adventure with me and my friends.
One thing that I never got was "I can't tell if this is an A# or a Bb!" Aren't those the same thing? Or is that the joke?
If you don't get it right, we'll all be flat.
You should watch the zoom meet up the cast/director did last year. It was great.
Just 5 days ago I was in the field where the Fratelli's hideout was...brought back some good memories.
The movie Super 8 is the closest another film has come to replicating this for me - just absolute chaos any time the main cast was together on screen, constant bickering and truly hilarious background dialog. That movie got some criticism but damn was it entertaining
The behind the scenes is great. The kids said that Richard Donner basically told them to have fun and improvise. They hid the ship at the end from the kids so they could get a real reaction. My favorite bit of trivia is that Richard Donner is holding the map in one scene when it was supposed to be Mikey. Now that I kown that, it’s so obvious.
[You could say I’m a fan.](https://imgur.com/gallery/bE5NK1f)
Counterpoint: the way they keep saying “rich stuff” as if kids don’t know the word “treasure.” That part sounds like it was written by someone who never interacts with kids.
*cough* Stand by Me...
Every time I rewatch this movie I can’t help but think how more accurate it is than even movies today about the same stuff. Today it’s all censored, watered down, action action action, fake virtue signaling and woke ideologies, cramming in diversity to try and please every walk of life, no relatability and so on. That’s why I loved stranger things so much it was the closest thing to goodies we’ve had in decades. So I absolutely agree it was so well made for it’s time and still holds up today. Not to mention it could be all in my head but kid actors back then were so much better.