Family Movie Night: The Goonies

 

The last time I did a blog was under a year ago...what's happened since then!?  Any news!?  I decided not to blog after, again, maybe 4-5 fully written blogs last year that just...sigh...we won't even get in to it.  I want to enjoy writing again and for now...this is the way.  

My last blog was Space Jam, so it only took a year for me to institute family movie night at my household and what better way to force feed my favorite movies growing up to my children then to start with the Goonies.  Also, man did I miss run-on sentences in my blogs!  I wanted to blog again, but not talk about current events or how I feel about them...so I'm just going to rewatch movies for a while with my kids and enjoy time.  

If you read my Space Jam review last year, you can skip to the next paragraph. If you didn't here is the piece (Space Jam), and here is the premise...I like to be super realistic about movies when I watch them.  It's for the comedy, I completely understand it's just a movie, but the Goonies literally takes place in one day and Chunk already asked Sloth to move in with his family after literally no interaction with him...he has been CHAINED!  Literally every movie you watch is like a week...tops (at some point I will review the absurdity of Star Wars...a 5/5 movie but it's like 3 days!).

So, let's start!  A top 10 all-time favorite movie of mine...The Goonies!

The movie begins just how all children's movies should start.  With a supposed suicide!  Hilarious!  I also love the two brothers are in so many other movies I grew up watching.  Robert Davi when I was a kid I legit thought was Ben Stiller...don't ask.  And Joe Pantoliano is a legend.  

Kerri Green, the red head, clearly I had a crush on as a child, but on this rewatch...a new crush develops, stay tuned!

Also to make it completely about me, if this movie were to cast me in it, I'm 100% Mouth, complete with amazing Purple Rain t-shirt.  

So far...the kids are okay, I do have some concerns about them being scared later on, let's see how this goes!

The Truffle Shuffle as a kid was hilarious, as an adult with kids and sometimes feelings, I feel bad for the guy!  Just a kid...kind of overweight...having to do some demeaning dance in a huge movie.  

Chunk is a lawyer now in real life and skinny...so hopefully he's making some nice Goonies residuals and crushing at life.

The kids just laughed at the dick on the statue falling off.  I really hearty laugh at that...so far this is going well!

Brand (Josh Brolin) works out like mad constantly in this movie. Someday he will become Thanos and snap away half of the population.

New crush alert, Mikey's mom.  Over Andi for sure.  We'll get in to our Andi issues soon.

Is it Andy or Andy?  Oh well...you know who I'm talking about.

Corey Feldman making drug jokes to the housekeeper in retrospect...not surprised he knew so much about them.  

Hearty laugh number 2 by my kids, Mouth putting his tongue in the art work.  My wife even laughed hard.  I need to reconsider my humor with the kids ASAP.

Troy is an absolute fuck.  Attempted murder off the bat with Brand and trying to have his rearview mirror look under Andi's skirt, that mirror is for driver safety buddy!

I absolutely know who Troy grew up to vote for...I had to sneak one in, tell me when I'm telling lies though.  Which I never understood where we got where we did.  If you watch these movies, the bad guys are absolute horrible dipshit assholes.  And they now run the country.  Sigh.

Troy's dad is the absolute worst too.  It rains too much up there for golf anyway.

Side story, I've been to this town.  I have been in the pizza place where Chunk sees the police chase.  It is a dreary ass town.  

Back to the movie, Sloth is just introduced...that poor guy.  Where was child services!?  Instead of money to build a golf course, maybe take those funds elsewhere and help the Sloths' of the world.  He is literally CHAINED!

Also, if you have a doctor spouse, anything medical in a movie that is wrong she will bring up, today I learned Mikey uses that inhaler too much and he needs to be put on better meds.  They also shouldn't be living in that climate so maybe they should build the golf course.

Data is my favorite in this whole movie and I'm so glad he got a career resurgence later in life.  

Andi is wearing Troy's sweater but is constantly eye boning Brand.  Let's figure out her daddy issues ASAP.  Also her friend is prettier when her face isn't getting in the way (that's a quote from the movie don't jump on me!).  She's the nice friend who always gets ignored cuz her friend puts herself out more.  Character wise, in 10 years Andi has had 2 kids and is on husband number 2.  Stef is going to be a happily married doctor, whose spouse is someone like me...Mouth.

Troy is reading Guns & Ammo on the toilet.  Come on...IT'S RIGHT THERE!!!!

The fact these kids made it as far as they did is a miracle.  They are pulling strings out of the ground.  Narrowly missing booby (booty) traps.  Playing with dynamite.  I'm an 80's/90's kid...the best genre of people on the planet btw...we grew up tough, but playing with dynamite is a choice.

You know what else is a choice!?  Chains!?  Sloth is out of them now.  He's a good dude, RIP to the actor who played him after I just googled what he was up to.  

My absolute favorite scene in the movie.  They are going to leave via the wishing well...but Andi decides to stay behind.  Troy what he believes to be Andi up, but it is just his stupid coat she left behind...but here's the question.  HOW MUCH DOES HE THINK ANDI WEIGHS!?  Seriously!?  Is she like pounds to him!?  Come on...IT'S RIGHT THERE PEOPLE!

My kids are doing great.  My son only put a blanket over his head when Sloth was introduced, but he was fine with the bullet in the head of the freezer guy.  I have more questions than answers right now. 

My daughter LOVES pointing out how stupid these kids are.  I have heard her say "C'mon dude!" like 30 times...29 of them were warranted...Chunk deserved that ice cream.

The Fratteli's (band wise, go listen to The Frattelis - Chelsea Dagger).  Who screwed the mom.  Did she steal the kids?  If this was made now, we'd get a straight to streaming prequel within 6 months.  I want these answers.  

So, does Chunk's mom just accept that Sloth is going to live with them?  Is there room!?  Does he have night terrors?  What' is his age.  His IQ?  There's a lot of pain behind those misshapen eyes.  

The dad is so trusting of those jewels at the end he just rips up that contract.  Like, is he going to just pay off his debt in jewels!?  What's the exchange rate on Willie's gold!?

Andi is too comfortable making out with Brand in front of their parents.  You're still in high school...wait like 5 minutes.  Speaking of which she kisses Mikey earlier thinking he's Brand...no way, nuh uh, that girl knew what she was doing.  Fuck off Andi. 

Clearly the ship will be stopped by the government after this...there's no way that ship even gets remotely close to international waters.  They are taking all of that booty for themselves and the irony is they will use that money to spend even more to tear down all of their houses for an even bigger golf course loaded with Guns & Ammo magazines.  

And that's the Goonies!  We end with the bop by Cyndi Lauper - The Goonies R Good Enough.  That song is AMAZING and it has been in my head for 2 days since I watched the movie.  

The Goonies is still 5/5 on the movie scale. It's a classic.  The end.

I'm debating what to do for the next movie, but I am heavily debating Austin Powers or Star Wars. This was really fun so I'm definitely not taking 11 months to write another blog again.  

Jeff 

The Sequel's We Need, The Reboots We Deserve!

Hi, I'm Jeff.  I like all forms of entertainment.  I love music.  I love TV.  Sports still catches my fancy, MLB not as much as I used to, but I can have a nice debate on why baseball sucks now.  CLEARLY I love pro wrestling (and I can have a nice debate on why AEW is better than WWE, but I already lost half of you didn't i?).  But my favorite form of entertainment USED to be movies.  Why do I say USED to be?   Movies suck now.  It's remakes, Marvel/DC movies, live action retelling's of Disney cartoons that are shot for SHOT THE EXACT SAME MOVIE and boring Oscar movies.  

I just watched Nomadland.  I liked it.  But was it boring?  Yes.  Would I still recommend it?  Yes.  Do you get anything out of watching it?  Depression, mostly.  I was folding clothes while watching it and that was more enthralling for me (although Frances McDormand was fantastic!).  

Then my buddy John (JOHN!!!!  There's a Terminator 2 reference for you all) started texting me about movies as he often does.  He brought up that Bad Boys 3 was pure garbage.  He wasn't wrong!  If it was released during Will's heyday (the beginning of the Willenium) it may have been good, but it was just pure...garbage.  Couple that with some unneeded sequels (Dumb & Dumber 2, Zoolander 2, Independence Day 2) and it got me thinking, what movies DESERVE a sequel?  

While we're at it, what movie deserves to be remade?  There are so many movies from the 80's and 90's that were subpar, but they remake the good ones?  We didn't need a new Point Break.  We didn't need a new Total Recall.  We do need a new...well...let's start with that, shall we?

1.  Showgirls  

This movie is hilarious.  Re-watch it sometime, the pool scene is funnier than any comedy that came out this year.  The acting is top notch bad.  It's so good!  Now remake it!  Or somehow make it a sequel, get Elizabeth Berkley, put in an inside joke how she's addicted to caffeine pills or something and is running some sort of show in Las Vegas.  Get Gina Gershon because she is a national treasure of 90's hot.  Then when it leaves theaters release it on VHS (ironically, duh) and kids can wear out the tape like my friends and I did in the 90's...if they can figure out how to use a VCR.  

Hey Hollywood, I'm just getting started!

2.  The Running Man 

This is a classic Arnold movie.  My third favorite movie by him (Terminator 2, True Lies...okay maybe third cuz Twins is awesome!).  The movie was ahead of it's time, I've already written a blog about this, but a society obsessed with reality TV and then watching a dude (who is innocent, duh!) mow down through some bad guys?!  Get whoever is the biggest action star now in it (THE ROCK?!?!), get Salma Hayek, get some bad ass villains and, you know what?  For the Richard Dawson part?  Give it to Trump before he goes to jail.  I'm not even kidding.

3.  Ladybugs

I have the record for renting this movie the most times by anyone not named Jackee'.  I to this day do not know why I liked this movie so much when I was 9.  I loved Caddyshack, soccer, and Tommy LaSorda...so maybe that's why? 

Let's remake this and have a dude try to do the same thing, but then realize the women are 10x better than him and he learns a valuable lesson  Or have a girl do it and show how much better she is than the boys, but professionally, then show the pay disparity.  OR HAVE TWINS SWITCH PLACES AND THEY BOTH REALIZE THE ERROR OF THEIR WAYS!!!  AHHHH I'M SO GOOD AT THIS!!!  And the Oscar for Best Picture of 2023 goes to....Ladybugs!

Hollywood, I am seriously just a call away.  (also nothing screams Hollywood more than this idea...a man writing a movie from a woman's perspective and then winning an award for it).

Also listen to How Did This Get Made's episode about Ladybugs, it's just insane to hear some of the stories.  

4.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Yes, reboot city, I know.  When I was in college there was a website called Newgrounds that had an adult version in...clearly highly illegally made cartoon shorts.  It was amazing.  Where's that movie?  They keep rebooting TMNT for the young kids, the young kids have so many options, they don't care, you know who cares?  80's and 90's kids.  And those kids can go to an R movie.  

Think Deadpool meets...Turtles.  Clearly John Cena is somehow Casey Jones.  Get someone awesome to play April O' Neil, if we're not being stupid it's Jessica Chastain.  Then get four real life turtles, mutate them, and see what happens all for the sake of cinema.

5.  M.A.S.K./C.O.P.S.

Two things that are awesome.  1.  80's movies.  2.  Acronyms.  M.A.S.K. was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid, but the name was super confusing for good ol' Jeff when he was 4 at Christmas time.

Mom: What do you want for Christmas?

Jeff: M.A.S.K.

Mom: A mask?  

Jeff: Yes....?

Mom: Okay....?

*end scene*

C.O.P.S. is bad ass too.  And the theme songs for both are fantastic.  So here's the sell.  Fall Out Boy does BOTH songs.  Then you have a third movie where they cross over and you get M.A.S.K.C.O.P.S.  Thinks Avengers but not as long...and maybe not as good, but more re-watchable because each movie isn't three hours long.  Fighting crime...in a future time!

6.  The Goonies 2

Now we're to sequel territory.  What happened to The Goonies when they grew up?  I know this movie has been in development since the 80's, but why not have them all seriously dealing with the psychological ramifications of criminals trying to kill them over gold on a pirate ship?

Mikey stayed behind in Oregon.  Clearly Brand and Andy are divorced.  Mouth is a stand up comic.  Chunk is a skinny, successful lawyer....okay dammit this is starting to sound like the movie It.  Screw it, do it anyway.

7.  Pulp Fiction (More Pulp)

Tarantino has sort of done a sequel (Kill Bill was one long movie, the studio forced him to split it to two...advantage all of us, now go make part 3 to that!), but you know what movie of his could use a sequel?  No, not the Hateful Eight...it's Pulp Fiction.  Get some of the old cast.  You know Travolta will do it.  You know Bruce Willis will do it.  And Sam Jackson.  And Christopher Walken.  Seriously, did the entire cast in the 2000's decide to take any roll they could no matter how good or bad the movie?  

With the exception of Jackson, they are all in serious need of career resuscitation.  You too Uma and Ving Rhames.    

8.  Mannequin um, 2 (let's forget part 2 happened, we cool?)

Mannequin was stupid.  But watchable.  And it was on HBO all the time in the late 80's so I've  seen it a billion times.  Also Kim Cattral was basically my first crush (and Miss Elizabeth, I was a sucker for poofy 80's hair), so believe me when I say I have so many unanswered questions.  

First off, so she's real at the end of the movie, what does she...end up doing?  Is she a stay at home mom?  Hiding from society because they have no documentation of her existing?  Or, and this is probably it, did the Andrew McCarthy character scheme his way in to an identity for her?  Is that the movie?  That the identity they take ends up coming back, upset that she's had identity theft?  Then they become friends and take down big chain stores, showing that the true heart is in mom and pop stores.  Shop local!

Also you know who we are getting to do the song?  That's right America, FALL OUT BOY!  And for the girl part, Demi Lovato...because we're not just mannequins, we're people.  AND WE CAN BUILD THIS DREAM TOGETHER!!  STANDING STRONG FOREVER!!!!   

9.  Mrs. Doubtfire

I loved Robin Williams.  True story, this is one of my least favorite movies by him because it's creepy, but it's still a good movie...it's just, like...dude, just do better and get visitation man.  Also you messed it up with Sally Field, that's arguably the lady who wins "possibly nicest celebrity ever just because she doesn't look like a horrible person".  

Sadly the sequel won't have Robin, and that's not who it would be about anyway.  Again, the psychological ramifications of your dad pretending to be an old nanny, then becoming a successful TV personality and then clearly Pierce Brosnan and Sally Field divorce.  I want to know how those kids grew up and dealt.  Did Sally Field remarry for a third time?  Did Robin Williams get bigger than San Francisco famous and got in to the Hollywood game?  

10.  Con Air

No explanation needed.  Greatest movie ever made.  Make a second.  Bring back the entire cast.  Then do the movie in reverse with no explanation.  Hollywood.  Call me.  Seriously.  I have 93 more ideas.  I've made it through this entire article without stating I share my name with a Hollywood producer.  Let's team up.  Jeff Kleeman squared.  

Thanks for reading.

Jeff Kleeman

Stop! There's a Movie On!

I may have gotten lazy last week and waited to release this blog a good 4 days late!  Also the podcast is coming, ran in to some trouble that only this man could help me with!



Thanks Ras!  Computer expert, funny guy, straight shooter...that's Eric Rasmussen. 

So the blog is an easy one this week, and it couldn't have come out at a better time...post Oscars. 

Every Sunday I generally like to lay around (except for yesterday, super busy), and when I lay around my favorite thing to do...besides eating an entire large pizza...is channel surf through movies.  I always enjoy the mystery of what is going to be on. 

The other day The Intern and The Internship were on back to back channels and my head exploded.  So we went and stopped on Jurassic Park. 



Now don't get me wrong, I'm a Sam Neill fanatic, but I never stop on Jurassic Park, or Jurassic Park 2...or 3...I'm not generally a lover of this franchise.  It's a great movie but if I'm flipping through and land on a movie, it's going to be one of the following! 

The Goonies

There is no better movie that shows the torturing of a young child than this one:



It's so good!  Reasons to stop on this are:

- the soundtrack, the Cyndi Lauper song is amazing...oh a link?  Sure!

- the fact that Josh Brolin is still in things makes me laugh
- the pizza place that Chunk is at in the beginning?  Oh, I'VE BEEN THERE!
- just a classic 1980's feel good movie. 

Space Jam

I don't need a gif or a meme to explain why this movie is on my list.  Because it's awful, but it's good awful. 

The game makes no sense.  The acting is awful.  The NBA stars selected all make sense for that time...except Shawn Bradley who shouldn't be in it. 

But it's all great, does that make sense?  No?  Okay, so it takes me to a time in my childhood when I loved all things NBA and Michael Jordan. The NBA in the 90's was the best.  So many memorable players, among them the greatest player in NBA history in Michael Jordan.  It's kinda funny.  Lola Bunny is uncomfortably attractive for a cartoon bunny...because she's clearly Natalie Dormer!



Oh and Bill Murray is in it!

That's your answer.  Next!

Batman



I've seen this movie probably 54 times in my life, maybe 55...who knows?  I just made that number up, but it's up there.  It's the best one out of the "original 4" and the second best one after The Dark Knight. 

I choose this over The Dark Knight because that movie is long as hell, and this one has Jack Nicholson hamming it up and a gloomy Michael Keaton, what's not to love?

Caddyshack

- classic Bill Murray
- hilarious television edits
- again, an amazing soundtrack
- Baby Ruth scene

I dislike Chevy Chase, he has 3 good movies, this is one of them.  * can anyone guess the other two!?

Dumb and Dumber

I first saw Dumb and Dumber in 7th grade.  Our school took us to it the night of our state capital trip to Pierre, SD (if you're not from South Dakota, hell even if you are, now you know the state capital). 

I don't think the adults thought this selection through, and every time I see this movie I laugh about how insane it was to take a bunch of 12 year old's to this movie.  Even edited you get to see a lot of the classic scenes.

Also, this was literally right before Jim Carrey lost his damn mind.  He was such a treasure!

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

I don't know why, but every time this is on, I stop. 

Brad Pitt is pretty funny in it, Vince Vaughn is great...Angelina...



Oh that's right, now it makes sense.  I'm team Angelina by the way, even after the divorce. 

It's a decent movie, I can sleep during it and wake up having felt I missed nothing.  It's a perfect Sunday movie experience. 

Talladega Nights

Our household loves Will Ferrell, even though he has some real crap movies from time to time.

He has so many classics: Old School, which almost made this list, Anchorman, Elf...but I chose this, why? 

Not sure.  But every time it's on, I stop.  It's super underrated.  Sacha Baron Cohen isn't annoying in it (his only good movie is Borat, unless you count Hugo). 

John C. Reilly is great. 



Michael Clarke Duncan (RIP) is great.  So I stop. 

The Incredibles

Pixar is taking over the world.  No crappy movies except for the Cars franchise...I SAID IT!

The Incredibles is my favorite of the bunch.  It's not super sad.  It won't make you cry (Wall-E, Coco, Up).  It doesn't have Tim Allen. 

I have this as my number one all time Pixar movie, in the parenthesis above you can figure out the top 4...with that being said, one less topic of conversation on the Rushmore Review podcast... coming soon!  I swear!

The Replacements

This blog could literally be 10 pages of amazing movies.  I clearly haven't listed all of them, the blog would be too long, and you're probably almost done.  So here's the BEST movie to stop on...



It's not a perfect movie.  There's a ton of flaws.  Orlando Jones is in it.  But if there isn't something about this movie every single damn time I'm flipping through where I think to myself, "I'm going to finish this, I don't even care." 

Keanu is always great, I don't care what anyone says.  Gene Hackman is one of my top 10 favorite actors ever.  The girl (Brooke Langton) in it...is no longer famous, unless you count when she was in Friday Night Lights for a few episodes.  Her casting always make me wonder if Ashley Judd was literally busy the couple of months it took to film this?

Back to the movie!  It's a fun little movie.  It doesn't involve too much thought.  There's football in it.  There's a classic John Madden/Pat Summerall scene that has them do play-by-play of the sex scene. 
It has Gene f'ing Hackman.  Heads or tails I'm done with this blog Gene?   I'm picking tails for yes.



I'm done! 

There are literally tons of movies to add to this.  I missed a lot (Tango & Cash, I'm so sorry!).  If I missed your favorite, or if you have any share, DO IT. 

Later on this week, hopefully that damn podcast will be going up.  Episode 2 is being taped tonight, the top 4 movie soundtracks of all time. 

The end of the week will have word associate with Brian Opp and I believe Aaron Pew is going to get me his list of the top 32 quarterbacks in the NFL, and we know that will be fun to read. 

Thanks for reading! 

Jeff Kleeman