Something in the Water

Jaws

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and a mechanical shark dubbed Bruce

Released: June 20, 1975

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

Best Editing (won)

Best Dramatic Score (won)

Best Sound (won)

This movie recently celebrated it's 50th (!!!) anniversary and what better time to review it? Jaws is a very revolutionary movie, being known as the first summer blockbuster. It really is that quintessential summer movie, being set on an New England island beach town during the Fourth of July with a killer shark lurking in the water. This was Spielberg's third movie he directed (well, technically fourth, but the very first movie he directed was only shown at a theater in Phoenix where he grew up called Firelight when he was only 17. (Yes, I got all this information from Wikipedia.)) Anyway, I'm not counting that one. 

I had only seen this movie once before. I think I was in middle school when my brother rented it. There were a few things I remembered, like the very first scene when the young woman goes for a midnight swim and becomes a midnight snack for the shark.

New York native Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) is the police chief of Amity Island. We're never really told where Amity Island is, we just know it's off the coast of New England. We do know that the movie was filmed on Martha's Vineyard, a place I've visited! Now I was only in Oaks Bluff (shout out to Stephanie Wolf Designs, this amazing store with these beautiful earrings I'm obsessed with!) and the movie was filmed in a town called Edgartown which is just south of Oaks Bluff. Now I was thinking it was probably an hour drive from Oaks Bluff, but no, I just Googled the distance and it's an eighteen minute drive! Obviously my view was seriously distorted!

Back to the movie! Brody and his wife live in a cute little house by the water with their two young sons; Michael, who is around 12 and his brother, Sean who is four or five. They also have this really cute dog, who, I'm not gonna lie, I was really worried about. Yes, I'm the person who is more worried about the pets than the kids! 

The boy who was with the girl the night before called the police to report her missing. I'm kind of surprised he did this because he had passed out on the beach from too much drinking after she went in the water, so I don't think he even saw her get attacked. Wouldn't he had just assumed she made it out of the water? And it's not like this was his girlfriend and he hadn't heard from her the next day and that's what made him call the police. These two had just met the night before at a bonfire fire when she went frolicking by him and motioned for him to follow her. I'm probably giving this too much thought. 

On his way to the beach, we see Brody pass a big sign welcoming tourists to Amity for the "50th Annual Regatta." There's a painting of a girl relaxing on a floaty lounger in the water. This sign will have an amazing callback later.   

It doesn't take long before another officer finds the girl's remains that have been washed up on the beach. According to the sickened look on his face, it isn't pretty. We just see her hair and a hand and later we will find all that is left of her fits in a small box the size of a basin so there's not that much left of her. Brody puts her cause of death as "shark attack" in his report and buys supplies to make signs to tell the public the beach. is closed. 

It's almost July 4th and when the Mayor finds out that Brody wants to close the beaches, he's not too happy. Amity is a tourist hot spot where many people come to enjoy the beach and spend their money at the local stores (especially around the Fourth!) and he suggests that maybe the girl's body got mauled by a boat propellor instead of a shark. For some reason, the medical examiner is also present for this conversation (small town, I guess) and when Brody questions him about that, he says he was wrong and he'll amend his report. Why does the medical examiner care if the beaches are open/closed? Does the Mayor have something over him? The Mayor tells Brody if people find out about a shark, there will be a panic and no one will want to come to their island for the Fourth (and then they won't want to spend all their money!). This was the first moment I thought FOR SURE the mayor was going to become fish food for the shark.

So the beach remains open and Brody is there with his family with many other people. There's only a few people in the water. A kid around twelve named Alex Kitner who had just asked his mom if he can swim for another ten minutes, goes back out with his inflatable lounger, which, in my opinion, should only be reserved for the pool. How can you relax in the ocean on an inflatable lounger? A guy is on the shore playing fetch with his black lab, throwing a stick into the water for the dog to chase. I was thinking, Spielberg, I swear to God, if you kill off that dog...

Brody is just surveying everything and we get a few faux shark moments: 

-a woman is floating on her back with her eyes closed and something gray pops up near her, b
ut it's just some guy in a swimming cap who seemed to come out of nowhere. Seriously, where did he come from? 

-a young woman starts screaming, but then we see her boyfriend pop up from under her and she's on his shoulders. 

All of a sudden, a BUNCH of people go into the water and I'm thinking, all this splashing is going to attract and alert the shark to this area. I'll find out later I'm right about that. Brody's two sons also are in the water, or maybe it's just his oldest son, I don't remember. 

The guy with the black lab is calling for his dog and since we never saw the dog getting attacked, I'm going to tell myself the dog got thirsty and ran home to get a drink of water. Yes, that is totally what happened! The dog is okay! And anyway, if the shark had already had a doggie snack, why would he attack a human next (which is what he will do)? The dog is okay, folks! No body, no shark attack, is what I say! 

Alex Kitner, the twelve-ear-old kid, is the one who is viciously attacked. Now, if this movie were made today, they would have introduced him to the audience a little earlier, perhaps have him be a friend of Michael's so his death would hit a bit harder. Not that it wasn't horrific a young boy is attacked by this shark. There is A LOT of blood, it's like a fountain. If I were there that day, there's no way in hell I would ever set foot in any body of water ever again! Oh, yeah, did I tell you that this movie is rated PG? What kind of parent would take their young kids to see this? This was before the PG-13 rating was a thing (like a decade before), but this definitely would be a PG-13 if it came out today. 

Everyone is scurrying out of the water and there's a terrible moment when Alex's mother is calling his name, but of course he doesn't answer her and his ripped floaty washes up to the shore. 

Soon after, there'a a town meeting at the school for a discussion about what had happened and what they're going to do about it. Brody tells them they're going to put "shark spotters on the beach." When asked point blank if they're going to close the beaches, he tells them they are and everyone starts grumbling. Who are these people? A young boy is killed by a shark and they still want to go back in the water? The f***? He tells them they'll be bringing in an expert from Oceanographic Institute from the mainland. 

The Mayor tries to calm the people down by telling them this will only be for twenty-four hours and Brody tells him he didn't agree to that, but everyone ignores him. They're still pissed even about the twenty-four hours. These people really only care about their money and making sure people are spending money at their shops. 

While everyone is arguing, we get the introduction of  Quint (Robert Shaw), which is my least favorite scene of the movie because he gets everyone's attention by scraping his fingernails down a chalkboard and, ugh! I HATE that whole sensation/sound. It just mades me SHUDDER. That scene was way worse than any shark attack! Quint is a fisherman and tells them he can catch this shark. He'll find it for $3,000, but wants $10,000 to kill it. Okay, so of course I had to go to the conversion calculator! Three thousand dollars in 1974 (the movie came out in '75, but it's set the year before) would now be $19,608 (I rounded up) today in 2025. Ten grand would now be a whopping $65,360! (Again, I rounded up.) This guy would be making out with nearly $85,000 today! I guess thirteen thousand dollars was a lot of money back in the mid '70s! Too bad he won't be around to enjoy any of it (spoiler alert!)! He wants that much because he knows it's not going to be easy (spoiler alert: he's right about that!)! The Mayor tells him they'll take his offer under advisement.  

Later that evening, Brody is at home, studying a book about sharks at a desk when his wife sneaks up right behind him and leans in over his shoulder. He clearly sense something and jumps, startling her and she tells him that he scared her! Lady, why would you sneak up on someone like that? You clearly started him! 

Brody realizes that his youngest son is sitting in a boat tied to the dock while the older one is sitting on the dock (or maybe it's the other way around). He yells at whichever son to get off the boat and when he tells his wife he doesn't want the kids in the ocean, she replies he's not in the ocean, but on a boat. Lady, do you not realize that a shark could easily just tip this little row boat over? She looks at his shark book and sees an illustration of a shark crashing into the bottom of a boat and yells at her son to get off the boat. 

After the death of her son, Mrs. Kitner had posted an ad (that was put in the back of the newspaper) rewarding $3,000 for the person who killed the shark who killed her son. It's evening when we see two guys looking to collect their bounty. They have an idea to entice the shark with one of the men's wife's holiday pot roast. He says they better catch something since they're using it. (Something tells me the wife didn't give him permission to use it!) The other guy joke that $3,000 will buy him a lot of roasts. Side note: who the hell has a pot roast for the Fourth of July? That is a day reserved for hot dogs and hamburgers, grilled chicken perhaps. NOT a frickin' pot roast! That's something you have for Christmas. What kind of American are you if you're not eating grilled hot dogs on the Fourth? Look, I honestly don't care if you have hot dogs on the Fourth, but POT ROAST? The hell? Am I the only one who thinks that's weird? 

Anyway, the two guys have tied the roast to a buoy, then have tied the chain connected to the buoy around one of the dock's posts. Some time has passed and we see the buoy moving and the chain on the dock starts to uncoil so they know they have caught something. The shark is so strong that part of the dock falls off, taking one of the men with him. The guy starts swimming back, then we see the dock turn around (I guess to show that the shark is following him, even though it doesn't make sense why the shark would be attacked to the dock). I did laugh when his friend calls out to him, "Charlie, take my word for it, DON'T look back! Just swim!" I thought FOR SURE Charlie was going to be the main course after the little appetizer of the pot roast for the shark, but he manages to make it back unharmed. This guy doesn't seem like he's in great shape; there's no way he could out swim a shark, so the shark must have just been toying with him. 

The next day, on the docks, we see a bunch of people who have seen Mrs. Kitner's ad and are out hunting for the shark. We also meet Matt Hooper (a young Richard Dreyfuss) who is from the Oceanographic Institute. He wants to see the remains of the girl on the beach, the first (known!) victim of the shark. He reads the girls' cause of death as "probable boating accident" as the medical examiner takes her remains out. This is the scene I was referring to earlier when I said what's left of her fits in a small box. From what Hooper examines, he tells them this was clearly not a boat accident nor the cause of a propellor. 

We see many of the men who are trying to catch the shark out on their boats just being so careless and I thought FOR SURE at least one of them was going to become shark chow. They obviously didn't know what they were doing and weren't even equipped to kill it. One of these dummies didn't even know what "chumming" was. However, someone has caught a shark and thinks it's THE shark. This shark is pretty small and I know it's not our guy. (Plus, there's more than an hour left of the movie so of course it's not the shark!) Hooper takes measurements of its mouth and tells Brody that they don't align with the wound bites found on the victim. He wants to cut the fish open since the digestive system of a shark is very slow and if they cut it open, they can see what it's eaten in the last 24 hours (how long has it been since the boy was killed?). Speaking of which, Mrs. Kitner has arrived from her son's funeral, dressed in all black. She approaches Brody and slaps him, telling him she found out about the girl who was also killed by a shark and how he knew it wasn't safe to go in the water. The Mayor is standing next to him during this whole exchange and he seems to have no remorse because he knows he is the one who convinced Brody not to close the beaches. By now, I'm one hundred percent convinced this guy will be a victim of the shark's. (Spoiler alert: he's not! If this movie was made today, he totally would be.)

That evening, Hooper and Brody do cut the shark open to make 100% sure it's not their shark. All they get are some fish, a can, and a license plate. There's a joke about how it came up from the Gulf Stream in souther water because it's a Louisiana plate. 

They go searching for the shark at night (no, thank you!) and come across fisherman's Ben Gardner's boat drifting in the water. Hooper wants to check the under the boat. There is absolutely no reason for him to do that right this instance since they're going to haul the boat to the shore anyway. But he does and we quickly see why this scene is here: it's for the jump scare (which totally worked on me; it scared the sh*t out of me!) we get when Ben's ghoulish corpse pops out from the boat. This startles Hooper too and he drops the shark tooth he had collected from the boat. 

They both tell the Mayor about this great white shark. The Mayor still isn't budging about closing the beach and doesn't seemed all that concerned. As they're walking, we see them stop in front of the sign we saw earlier. The girl on the sign has painted on wide eyes and a painted on open mouth. There's a dorsal fin in the water near her and above her an air quote bubble with the words "Help!!! Shark". The Mayor is not amused by this and already he has people painting over it. He doesn't need any advertisement of a shark! 

Brody tells him they could still save August if they close the beach now and start shark hunting, but the Mayor just laughs at him and tells him they WILL be open tomorrow for the 4th. He adds that Brody can do whatever he needs to do to make sure the beach is safe if he's so concerned...just short of actually closing the beach. 

The ferry arrives crowded with tourists ready to spend their money and swim in the ocean! It's unclear to me if they know about the shark attacks. I don't think they were making the national news, much less the local news. 

On July 4th, the beach is packed, but nobody is going in the water. Hmm, perhaps these people know that humans can get attacked by sharks in three feet of water, about ten feet away from the shore; a fact that Hooper confirms for Brody in an earlier scene.

There's a reporter on the beach (played by Peter Benchley, the author of the book this movie is based on) who's talking about Amity Island and the shark. 

The Mayor orders suggests to somebody he knows (it looked like an older couple with their grandkids) to get in the water. The two adults, especially the woman look pretty scared, but they go in with the two kids. Once they go in, more people go in. There are several boats out on the water with men who have guns and are watching the water with binoculars. 

Brody sees Michael and his friends about to take a sail boat out and he tells them to use the pond instead...the pond that is connected to the ocean! How is that going to help? This is probably one of the dumbest things Brody does in the movie. 

We see the Mayor giving an interview of how he wants to reiterate that they "caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers." First of all, yes they caught A large predator, but not THE predator. Second of all what is this "injured" nonsense? That shark straight up ripped them apart and all his victims died. How did this a**hole not die (I'm talking about the Mayor!)?

There's a lot of underwater footage of legs thrashing around in the water which I'm sure look like a tasty treat for a shark. A dorsal fin pops up right behind two oblivious girls. Another girl sees the fin and starts screaming, causing a panic. The lifeguard starts blowing his whistle and Brody tries to get him to stop since the noise will just attract the shark (although I think any shark would already be attracted to this area with all the splashing). I guess there was no contingency plan for what to do if a shark appeared! But that whole scene reminded me when Sam Neill is telling everyone to stay still around the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.

Once it is revealed that it was actually two young brothers snorkeling underwater with a cardboard fin, I wondered if I was a terrible person for hoping the real shark would show up and make a snack out of one or both of them. But on the other hand (fin?), also kudos to them because these people do need to be scared out of the water. If you know there's a blood thirsty shark in the water, why would you go in the ocean? There is an amusing moment when the two boys look up and see all these guns pointed at them from the people on one of the boats. The little brother points at his older brother and tells them, "He made me do it." 

A girl standing near the estuary sees a fin and yells, "Shark!" Well, guess where it's headed for? That's right: the pond! The very pond that Michael and his friends are in! The very pond that Michael and his friends are in that is CONNECTED to the ocean! Well done, Brody, well done! :::slow clap:::

Michael and two of his friends are on the boat working on a sail. Some guy in a boat rows up to them and behind him you can see a fin. It's almost comical how obvious there is a shark in the water and nobody seems to notice it. The guy is asking the boys a question when he falls into the water and gets his leg bitten off and becomes the shark's latest victim. One hour and four minutes into the movie and this is the first time we see the shark. Previously, we had only seen his dorsal fin. 

Michael and his friends make it out of the water, but Michael has passed out from shock and is taken to the hospital. Now the Mayor realizes he's messed up and Brody wants him to hire Quint to kill the shark, which he does.

That was the first hour of the movie. Now the second hour of the movie will focus on our three main characters (Brody, Quint, and Hooper) out on Quint's shabby fishing boat attempting to find and kill their shark. 

Before he leaves, Brody's wife asks him what she should tell the kids and he replies to just tell them he's "going fishing." I mean, he's not totally wrong!

Once they're out to sea, Brody starts chumming the water to attract the shark. We get some foreshadowing when Brody accidentally unties the wrong knot (I forget what he was trying to do) of a rope that was holding canisters with compressed air. Hooper tells him, 'If you screw around with these tanks, they're gonna blow up." 

There's a passage of time (there will be a lot of these!) until Quint gets the sense that the shark is near. He straps himself into a chair that is bolted to the boat and hooks the pole to the contraption. Despite all that, I feel like that still wouldn't hold him in! He knows he has something and is reeling the line, but can't see anything. My question is, would a fishing pole really work on a shark? Especially one so big? 

Every time someone would get super close to the edge of the boat, I would scream at my TV, "What are you doing? GET AWAY FROM THERE!" Seriously, sometimes they would lean over, like they weren't expecting a huge shark to pop out from under the water. In one scene, that does happen and it made me jump a mile! 

There's more passage of time and Brody chums the water again. His back is towards the water as he's throwing chum in the water and this is that famous scene when the shark pops up right behind him. You see this scene in every retrospective or TV special about Jaws, so I knew it was coming, otherwise, it would have probably made me jump! I love Brody's reaction. He quickly stands up and stares at the shark, then walks to the cabin and tells Quint, "You're gonna need a bigger boat," unquestionably the most famous line of the movie. Hell, one of the most famous lines in cinematic history! 

Now they all see the shark swimming near the boat and Quint measures it to be 25 feet. Now, I Googled how big a great white shark gets and females are 15/16 feet while the males are 11 to 13 feet, so I guess this means this is a female shark? (Even though I constantly refer to it as a male.) Isn't one of the sequels one of this shark's offspring getting revenge on the people who killed its parent? IDK, that sounds pretty ridiculous, but I've heard the sequels are pretty bad. I've only seen the one that takes place at an aquarium (?) and even then I barely remember it. 

There is a very narrow strip of wood (it reminds me of a plank) at the front of the boat that looks very unsteady and is surrounded by a railing that doesn't look like it will keep you from falling into the water. From there, Quint shoots at the shark with a harpoon and a barrel is attached. I guess the barrel is so they know where the shark is. 

The barrel disappears under the water and more time passes as darkness starts to fall. The three men are in the cabin, having just eaten dinner when Quint tells a harrowing story of how he was on the USS Indianapolis during the war which delivered the Hiroshima bomb to the island of Tinian (yes, I had to look this up on Wikipedia!). After it was delivered, a Japanese submarine "slammed two torpedoes into [the] side" and 1100 men went into the water. The vessel sunk in twelve minutes and they didn't see the first shark, a thirteen-foot tiger shark, until half an hour in. Because their mission was top secret, no distress signal had been sent. The men huddled into groups and tried to fight the sharks away, but that didn't work and 100 men were lost after the first night. So if anyone has a vendetta against sharks, it's Quint! 

It's the next day and they have shot a second barrel at the shark. Brody wants them to lead the shark to shore instead of the shark leading them out to sea. The shark is so strong, it's able to tow the boat where he wants to go. Honestly, I'm not that surprised because Quint's boat is the shabbiest thing. It's not that they needed a bigger boat (though that certainly would have helped!), they needed a better boat. The Orca is a terrible boat for this kind of excursion. 

The shark had rammed into the bottom of the boat so now it's starting to flood and they cut the barrels away so the shark doesn't cause any more damage. They start heading towards the shore and the shark is following them.

One thing that baffled me is that when Brody attempts to call the Coast Guard, Quint takes the receiver from him and smashes the radio. Dude, what are you doing? The boat is flooding, there's black smoke coming from the cabin, the engine is about to run out of gas, and while you can see the shoreline, you're still pretty far from land. Oh, and let's not forget there's a very LARGE and very HUNGRY shark out there. (Actually, he was probably more vengeful.) Maybe he's thinking he won't get the money if the Coast Guard comes and this is his best shot to kill the shark. 

Soon half the boat is underwater because of the flooding. Quint gives the other men life jackets. Hooper wants to "pump 20 ccs of strychnine nitrogen into [the shark]." He won't be able to stick the needle into the thick skin, but if he gets into a cage underwater, he can get him in the eye or mouth. He makes it sound so easy! (Spoiler: it won't be that easy!)

The cage with Hooper is lowered into the water and here comes the shark, but it passes by him and disappears into the dark murky water. Hooper has a spear fashioned into a needle and is ready to jab the shark, but unlucky for him, the shark sneaks up from behind him and rams into the cage, causing Hooper to drop the spear. Oopsie daisy! The shark is biting at the cage and bending the bars and soon Hooper is exposed. The shark's jaws are so huge he could swallow a person whole, no problem. Yikes! Hooper fights against the shark and manages to escape and hide behind some rocks while the shark is thrashing against the cage. The other two men bring up the cage and when they see it's all mangled with no Hooper, they think the worst. 

Now the shark has leapt onto the boat's stern like he's my cat leaping up on my bed. Quint starts sliding towards the shark's upper jaws and even though Brody is doing his best to hang onto him, he slips from his grasp and slides down towards the massive jaws of the shark. He's kicking his legs against the shark, but he is no match against the aquatic man-eater and soon everything below his sternum is in the shark's jaws. While I was watching this, I couldn't help but think, That looks like fun! Not the getting mauled by a shark part, but the acting part of being in this scene and having a mechanical shark thrash you around, back and forth. It really did look like fun! Okay, yes, there's blood squirting everywhere and Quint is screaming, but it's so obvious the shark is fake and the whole thing is ridiculous, it's hard to be horrified by it. They both disappear under the water and the boat is sinking even more. Not even a minute has passed when the shark pops up again. He sure ate Quint really fast! 

Brody throws one of the canisters (remember, they're full of compressed air) into the open jaws of the shark. For some reason, the shark is trying to chow down on this metal container. For a shark who's been outsmarting the humans for most of the movie, this is the one time where he's just an idiot for the sake of the plot. 

Brody has now climbed onto the the crow's nest, the highest point of the boat, which is now almost parallel with the water and aims his gun at the shark, trying to get the perfect shot. As he finds the perfect aim and shoots, he says, "Smile you son of a -", then the canister is hit and it blows up and the shark blows up. He's 100% dead. Hooper pops up and Brody is surprised but relieved to see him and they both laugh. I guess they're going to split Quint's reward money. Actually, I wonder if they even did get paid. I can see the Mayor or whoever was supposed to hand over the reward money, refusing on a technicality since they promised it to Quint and he's gone. 

They use the barrels to swim back to shore...which still seems pretty far from where they are. But I know Roy Scheider is in the sequel so at least we know Brody made it back! 

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

Jurassic Park
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards, Wayne Knight, Samuel L. Jackson
Released June 11, 1993
Viewed in theaters: Summer of '93

Oscar nominations:
Best Sound (Won)
Best Sound Effects (Won)
Best Visual Effects (Won)

Without doubt, the score to Jurassic Park (how did John Williams not get nominated for it? Although he still won that year (for Schindler's List) and I'm sure he has a billion other awards, but still...) is super iconic and probably in the top five for most recognizable movie scores ever. So while you read this review, it's only fitting that I set the mood by providing you with said iconic score. Then you can come back and listen to it again while you view the images of cute/cartoon dinosaurs I found on the web! By the way, if for some reason, you have never seen this movie (or read the book!), there WILL BE SPOILERS!

If you stop to think about it, dinosaurs were an impressive species. They lived on this planet for 165-175 millions years. Humans (modern humans, anyway) have only been around for a couple hundred thousand years. We have a long way to go before we even reach the dinosaurs! I'm sure if you have ever taken an anthropology class, you have learned that if the timeline of the Earth (nearly four and a half billion years) was condensed down to the span of a day, humans wouldn't appear until the last minute of that day. We are just a speck in the grand scheme of things, especially compared to the dinosaurs.

Want to hear something that will blow your mind? Dinosaurs were first here between 231 and 243 millions years ago and they went extinct 65 million years ago which means they were on Earth longer than they've been gone!

Not surprisingly, dinosaurs, in some form or other, have been featured in many movies, but none have been more popular than Jurassic Park and its successors (but we all know the original is the best) as it features the most "realistic" dinosaurs, even though we now know that dinosaurs had feathers. I do like that line in Jurassic World where Henry Wu states that their dinosaurs don't look like the dinosaurs of the real world because they use a different genetic code. It's a smart way for the series to acknowledge that the dinosaurs they created wouldn't look exactly like the dinosaurs that once roamed this earth.

I remember this movie being a big thing when it came out. If you were around in 1993 (and old enough to remember), then you remember what a big deal Jurassic Park was. It was THE summer movie of 1993. Hell, it was THE movie of 1993, period. While I'm sure I saw many previews for it, I don't remember them. Maybe I didn't remember them because they never show any of the dinosaurs which would never happen today. True, they can show the dinosaurs in any of the new Jurassic World movies because we know what they look like, but I think that if Jurassic Park came out today, they would have shown the dinosaurs in the trailers.

I honestly don't remember if I had any desire to see it, despite the hype. (Sure, I may find dinosaurs fascinating NOW, but I was never a dino-obsessed kid). However, after my brother saw it with his friends and came home and was raving about it, well, you better believe I had to see this movie. There was no way my brother got to see this amazing movie and I was going to miss it! Uh-huh! So I begged my mom and she took me to see it. I don't remember having to twist her arm too much, so she must have been fine with it. So watching the movie, you would have thought all the jumping I did in my seat was a result of all the scary moments of dinosaurs popping up and attacking. Wrong! I jumped because my mom kept grabbing me every time one of those scary moments happened and that startled me more than anything that was on screen! Not surprisingly, this is one of my most memorable movie theater experiences!

I read the book a few years after I saw the movie. I must have been 15 or 16. My parents already owned the book because it was in our family bookcase. I remember it being very gruesome. Much more than the movie was. I actually re-read the book a couple months ago, and yes, it was as gruesome as I had remembered when I first read it. If they had followed the book faithfully, it definitely would have received an R rating! While the premise of the movie is the same, there are many differences between the book and film.

Tim and Lex (Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards) are in the book as John Hammond's (Richard Attenborough) grandchildren, but Tim is the older one. Lex is six or seven, and my God, is she ever f*cking annoying. I was hoping she would get eaten by a dinosaur, then I felt bad and had to remind myself she's only a young kid, but she was still super annoying. Her movie counterpart is much less annoying, although she has a moment of pure stupidity when she decides to take out a huge flashlight and turn it on when the T-rex breaks out of its barriers. Now I understand Spielberg's reasoning for this as you get that cool shot of the T-rex's eye dilating, but from the characters' standpoint, it makes no sense at all. Lex (and Tim! He knew! He told her to shut the light off!) is old enough to know that turning on a light is probably going to attract this huge animal with tons of sharp teeth! Luckily Lex gets her redemption when she is able to turn on the computer systems. ("It's a Unix system, I know this.") In the book, it's Tim who figures out the computers. It also makes me laugh when Lex is excited that the Jeep has an "interactive CD rom!" Whoopty-do!

Another huge difference is that there are a lot of characters who live through the movie, but die in the book or vice versa. Gennaro (the lawyer who is sitting on the toilet when he gets eaten by the T-rex) lives through the first book. It is mentioned in The Lost World novel (which I also read recently) that he died of dysentery on a business trip. I guess Michael Crichton just killed him off since he was already dead in the movie. There is another character in the book (the park's public relations manager) who was with the kids in the Jeep and he gets scared and runs out and gets killed by one of the two T-rexes (yet ANOTHER difference..in the book there is an adult T-rex and a juvenile T-rex and he gets killed by the smaller one). Another character who survives in the novel is Robert Muldoon, the overseer of the velociraptors. You may remember him from the beginning of the film when he yells "SHOOT HER" when one of his men gets attacked by a raptor, then when he calls a raptor a "clever girl" after being ambushed and killed by another one.

Park founder John Hammond, geneticist Henry Wu (BD Wong), and even mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) all notably survive the horrific day on Jurassic Park (along with our other main characters) as Hammond will make a small appearance in The Lost World; Malcolm also comes back in the second movie and makes an appearance in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom; and Wu is in both of the Jurassic World movies. Well, surprise, surprise! They all die in the book! I'm just as surprised as you are! (Well, not really, I already knew about Malcolm's resurrection from the dead and I had a feeling Hammond was going to die). Wu (who has a bigger part in the book...he's only in that scene in the beginning when they're watching the raptor hatch) is killed by raptors and gets a very nasty ending. (He's basically still alive while the raptors are ripping him apart...yikes.) While there are issues with John Hammond in the movie (like the fact that he doesn't think there's anything wrong with cloning dinosaurs and eventually opening a theme park with them), he is absolutely horrible in the book and therefore I knew he was going to die a horrible death. He comments how he wants to make a dinosaur park for all the children to enjoy, then snidely remarks, "All the rich kids, anyway." I mean, he's probably right. The park that was open for ten years that we saw in Jurassic World? You KNOW the same rich families were going year after year, thus the reason they were getting "bored" with the same old dinosaurs. Damn bratty rich kids. Hammond even (internally) curses his own grandchildren (he's much more grandfatherly in the movie!) and his grandkids are kind of the reason he dies! They're playing with a sound system that allows them to play different dinosaur calls and he gets scared when he hears the T-rex, thinking it's close and ends up twisting his ankle or something where he can't really walk very well. There are these little scavenger dinosaurs called procompsognathus (compys) that are not in the first movie, but will play a big part in the next film, as they do in the novel. These things are just pure evil and eat anything that's wounded and can't run away and you can try to shoo them away, but there's so many of them, you can't get away from them, and well, Hammond becomes a buffet for a bunch of them. Yeah, not a pretty way to go. I do recall a scene in The Lost World where somebody (I'm presuming a bad guy!) gets killed by them. Then you have Ian Malcolm who, in the book, gets attacked by the T-rex, then breaks his leg when the large animals throws him. He is said to have died from his wounds, but obviously he is brought back to life in the next book. At least he just had a bad wound, so it's plausible that he didn't really die. Now, if he had died the same way as Nedry (Wayne Knight aka Newman), there's no way he could have survived that as Nedry was dead as a doornail (doorknob?) His death is much more gruesome and graphic in the book! He does get killed by the same dinosaur as in the movie, a dilophosaurus. You get a little bit of foreshadowing of this dinosaur in the beginning when they're taking the Jeeps through the park and the dilophosaurus is the first dino that's featured and the announcer tells them it spits venom into its prey's eyes to paralyze them...and that is exactly what will happen to Nedry in a few scenes. In the book, it is ten feet tall, which is more accurate, while in the movie, it's about the same height as Nedry. It also didn't spit poison in real life and didn't have the frill around its neck.

Speaking of dinosaurs that Jurassic Park took liberties with (well, mainly Michael Crichton), the velociraptor that once roamed this planet is not at all what we see in the movies. They were still something you wouldn't want to come across, but they were a lot smaller, the size of turkeys. Apparently, legend is, the dinosaurs that are described in the book are actually more in line with the deinonychus (never heard of it), but Crichton thought "velociraptor" just sounded cooler and more menacing. And, yeah, he's right. Nobody goes around saying what a fierce and ferocious creature the deinonychus (die-non-uh-cuss) was, but thanks to the success of Jurassic Park and its following movies, everybody and their grandmother have heard of a velociraptor. And they're getting all the credit! Poor deinonychus! I remember a time when no one even knew what a velociraptor was. They might as well just switch the names! Do you think that irritates paleontologists when they watch this movie? There's probably a lot of things that irritate them when they watch this movie (like the dilophosaurus having a neck frill and being able to shoot poison); that's why I'm glad I'm not one, otherwise I wouldn't be able to enjoy Jurassic Park! 

Speaking of things that probably irritate paleontologists, this probably doesn't come as a huge surprise, but if you did encounter a T-rex, it would be able to see you even if you were standing still, contrary to what Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) says. I guess a paleontologist must have informed Michael Crichton he was wrong (that scene was in the book, right? I honestly don't really remember. To me, the movie is cannon, not the book!) because there's a scene in The Lost World novel where a character (a bad guy, of course) gets eaten by a T-rex because he was misinformed about a T-rex not being able to see him if he just stood there, and nope! Not true! Also, the scene when paleo-botanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Malcolm, and Muldoon are in the Jeep driving away from the T-rex, it would have easily been able to catch up to it and overturn the vehicle. I recently read a book called The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs by a young paleontologist named Steve Brusatte and he touched upon the mistakes the film made.

This movie establishes that opening a theme park with real life cloned dinosaurs is a terrible, terrible idea. (And Jurassic World PROVED it!) I would say Jurassic World was worst in that it was a full-operating theme park and there were many people there that day (although the fatality rate didn't seem to be that high considering there were carnivorous dinosaurs running around!) In Jurassic Park, there was only Hammond and his crew and his guests and grandchildren. The park seems so antiquated compared to what we would later see in Jurassic World. And the dinosaurs didn't seem to be very well contained....especially when the power went off so they could escape from their cages which were held with power lines.

I don't know, if you were going to have a dinosaur theme park, why not start with some simple and non-threatening ones? Why have the T-Rex? I sure as hell wouldn't want to go anywhere near that thing! And then why even create raptors when you know they are one of the most vicious and intelligent of the dinosaurs. (Until Chris Pratt will come along 20 years later to train them!) I mean, when Muldoon tells Grant, "They should all be destroyed" when talking about the raptors, maybe you should listen to the expert! Is Hammond just not thinking about this stuff? At least when his grandchildren are in trouble, he seems to realize what a mistake he made. Just because you CAN do something outrageous (like clone dinosaurs) doesn't mean you SHOULD. This theme is brought up in the movie (and the book). How did Hammond think he was going to feed his sauropods which are easily more than four times the size of an elephant (if not more)? And how much livestock was he going to need to feed all the carnivores? And did he not stop think that the air dinosaurs breathed nearly 65 million (and beyond) years ago would be drastically different from the air we breathe today? Moral of the story? Don't play God!

Jurassic Park is just a little over two hours long, but yet dinosaurs are on screen for only fifteen minutes! I was really surprised when I first learned this fact. I know it takes awhile before we actually see a dinosaur, but I would have guessed at least 30 minutes of dino screen time. Even though a dinosaur may not be shown at all times, we are constantly reminded we are in the midst of them and the atmosphere gives us the perception they're always around even though we may not physically see them. And when they are on screen, they make a huge impression on us (the T-rex attack; the raptors in the kitchen; the flock of gallimimus; the seemingly cute and harmless, but extremely dangerous dilophosaurus, etc.).

What do you call a blind dinosaur? Doyouthinkhesaurus! What do you call a dinosaur that nobody's ever heard of, but is actually the star of Jurassic Park? Deinonychus!

Nerd Alert

Ready Player One

Director: Steven Spielberg 

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Mark Rylance, Ben Mendelsohn, Olivia Cooke, Lena Waithe, Simon Pegg

Released: March 29, 2018

Viewed in theaters: April 10, 2018

I will be spoiling both the movie AND the book, so you have been warned! And there are things that happen in the book that don't happen in the movie and vice versa.

I remember when the book by Ernest Cline came out in 2011 because I had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly and I first found out about it when it was reviewed in that magazine. I thought the premise sounded interesting, about a teen living in the year 2045 who has an obsession with pop culture from the '80s. However, when I realized that most of the pop culture references were from video games, I decided this book wasn't for me since I knew I wouldn't get any of the references, no matter what decade they were from! Fast forward six years later when I saw a trailer for this movie. I was impressed it was directed by Steven Spielberg (imagine writing a book and having the movie adaptation being directed by SPIELBERG, yeah, I'm jealous!) and thought it looked visually interesting. However, I still wasn't interested in reading/seeing it, but then I decided to check out the book from the library and give it a shot. I really thought I would be bored reading it and wouldn't understand the references. Well, while I mostly didn't understand ALL the references, I ended up really enjoying it and had a lot of fun reading it. The premise of the book (and the movie) is that everybody is obsessed with this virtual world called the Oasis created by a man named James Halliday (Mark Rylance) and his friend Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg) who were born in 1972 and have an obsession with '80s culture since they were teenagers then and that's when they discovered their love for all things film, video games, music, and anything pop culture. I should also point out that the author was born in 1972. 

The Oasis is this virtual world where you can literally spend your entire day interacting with other people, going to school or work, and traveling to different places all without ever leaving your home. The only thing you still need the real world for is to eat, sleep, and use the bathroom. Naturally, there are a lot of rules in the Oasis and while they touch on some of them in the movie, it's much more thoroughly explained in the book. I think the reason why I enjoyed the book more than the movie is because of this. I feel like I would have been a bit confused if I had seen the movie without reading the book because it seems like you can do anything and go anywhere, but that's not necessarily true. There are levels and points you need to acquire before your avatar can go to certain places; do certain things. 

Our protagonist is eighteen-year-old Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) who goes by the name Parzival in the Oasis. Everyone has an avatar they can control and give their own name and looks. Most of the time they are better looking versions of themselves in real life, but some are well known pop culture characters. In the book, he goes to school in the Oasis, but they skip this detail in the movie. I understand that they don't have time to show everything even if the movie is two hours and twenty minutes! Wade lives in Columbus, Ohio with his aunt and jerk boyfriend because his parents died when he was young. They live in "The Stacks" which are trailer homes stacked on top of one another to save room. Things are looking bleak in 2045 and that's why everyone escapes to the Oasis. 

We find out that five years ago Halliday passed away, but left a message for everyone in the Oasis. He has left a series of clues to find keys and whoever finds all three keys will win his inheritance of 47 billion dollars and complete control of the Oasis. (Keep in mind Morrow is still alive, but he and Halliday had a falling out before his death). Everyone will have to go through a series of challenges based on their knowledge of pop culture, specifically '80s pop culture. Now the least believable thing about the book is a teenager from the 2040s being obsessed with the '80s. I understand that everyone in this world is obsessed with the '80s because it will help the win a crapload of money, but still. Teenagers today don't care about the '80s and why should they? (Even though the '80s IS an amazing decade!) Wade even mentions he's seen Blade Runner a ridiculous amount of times, like 37. Gimme a break. I've never seen any movie that amount of times! But whatever, you just have to go with it and enjoy the ride.

I actually thought the book was going to be ALL '80s references, and while that is the decade where most of the references come from, they also mention pop culture from different decades like The Iron Giant (which makes an appearance in the movie)) and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (I assume they were talking about the Peter Jackson films, though I know there is an animated version from 1978...that would be hilarious is they were talking about those, but I'm pretty sure it was the Jackson ones). There's even a scene where the characters are discussing the Indiana Jones movies and how awful Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was. This made me chuckle since Steven Spielberg would end up directing the film adaptation of Ready Player One. I'm guessing that didn't hurt his feelings too much! The movie is just all about pop culture references, not necessarily those from the '80s. 

Wade doesn't have any friends in the real world (except in the book he's friends with an old woman who lives in The Stacks who grew up in the '80s and she tells him stories of what that was like, but she's not in the movie), but he has a couple in the Oasis. There's Aech (Lena Waithe) and Artemis (excuse, me, Art3mis (Olivia Cooke)). I was spoiled that Lena Waithe played Aech in the real world, who is actually a male in the Oasis so I figured that was a twist in the book, or Spielberg wanted to make it a twist for the movie, but she does reveal herself to be an African-American woman who is playing as a caucasian male in the Oasis. Aech is very different in the movie because he's described as looking like your everyday high school student, but in the movie he's made to have the physique of The Hulk or The Thing from The Fantastic Four. Artemis plays Parzival's love interest and there's even a scene where he says, "I love you" even though he doesn't even know her in the real world and has never met her. It's pretty cringe-y. There's also two young Japanese boys named Daito and Sho who have nothing much to do in the movie and there's a huge plot in the book that is completely scrapped in the movie where the older one is killed by IOI, the evil corporation led by Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) who will stop at nothing to obtain the keys and acquire the fortune and to be able to run the Oasis. These five characters are called the High Five (although that's only mentioned once in the movie) because they were the first five avatars to beat the first challenge and obtain the first key. 

There are three challenges and this is where the movie and book deviate significantly because they are totally different. I can only assume they do this because of licensing rights and because it might be super boring watching someone play Joust against Anorak, the avatar of Halliday. (Even though he's dead, he's still able to access his avatar, but it's better explained in the book). In the movie, the first challenge is a car race (and Parzival drives the DeLorean from Back to the Future) which is a lot more visually fun and also incorporates a lot of pop culture references such as King Kong and the T-rex from Jurassic Park and they even pass a movie marquee which is featuring the newest Jack Slater movie, so that was a deep cut with The Last Action Hero reference!

In the book, even though it may take him more than one try, Parzival is able to beat the challenges because he has spent hours upon hours studying video games and movies and knows every move to make or every line from a movie that he's watched more than 30 times. (Has he seen every '80s movie that many times? That's a little ridiculous!) But in the movie, he gets his answer by going to a museum of Halliday's inner most thoughts where you can access any memory from his life. Don't ask me how that was done, but remember, this IS 2045 so a lot of technical advancements have been put into place to do that kind of thing, apparently. This is where Parzival gets a clue on how to win the first challenge and becomes the first person on the scoreboard.

The second challenge both deals with movies in both forms of media. In the book, all he has to do is play Matthew Broderick in War Games and recite all his lines and he'll win the key. You know, even with a move I've seen many times, I still don't think I would be able to remember every single line of the main character, but he states he's seen War Games several times because he's a nerd. I've seen War Games zero times. I've also seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail zero times which is the last challenge he has to beat in the book. There is mention of The Goonies which excited me but it's only one sentence and is not involved as a challenge, but just as something he does to get more points. There is also mention of several more video games which I have never heard of and I kept crossing my fingers we would get a Super Mario Bros. mention, but, alas, that never happens. He does play Pac-Man (finally! something I have heard of!) where he gets a special coin that will come in handy later on. The movie has them being in the world of The Shining and instead of acting out the entire movie (because that would be a bit much), they have to find Kira, the woman Halliday loved, but she ended up marrying Morrow, so you could say that had something to do with their falling out. I have never seen The Shining (no, thank you!), but I knew about the creepy twins. That was about the only reference from that movie I got. Aech had never seen The Shining either, so when he goes into room 237, everyone in my audience who was familiar with the movie, laughed knowingly. 

There's a huge subplot of the book where Parzival gets captured by IOI on purpose in order to hack in their system and acquire some codes. They give this plot to Artemis in the movie. They also completely wipe away the plot where Morrow offers to help the High Five (well, four, at this point), who are all in danger from IOI (they've already killed the older Japanese boy and killed everyone living in The Stacks because they thought Wade was there, but he wasn't) and offers to fly them to his home in Oregon. He does not offer any help in the movie, but instead the High Five (who all conveniently live in the same city) end up together in the real world. Wade ends up meeting Samantha (Artemis) in the middle of the movie and I think this works better than in the book where he literally meets her for the first time on the penultimate page. It's pretty late when they meet each other face to face. However, while I like his interaction with Samantha better in the movie than in the book, I think his interaction with Helen (Aech) is better in the book. He is shocked at first to see that not only is Aech a woman, but she's also African-American, but he realizes it's still Aech and is very happy to meet her and you hear her story and why she chose her avatar. In the movie, she's just like, yep, this is me. Surprise! 

The third key involves him having to enter a castle that's been blocked by the IOI. Parzival enlists a bunch of avatars to help them and a huge battle ensues. I had to go to the bathroom during this part, so I know I missed a lot of pop culture references with different characters fighting in the battle. I heard Chucky was there...seriously, who would want to make their avatar a murdering doll? And an ugly one at that? That is one sick individual. I looked at a website that listed all the pop culture references in the movie and I know I missed a lot. Not just the ones that went over my head, but also ones that I would be familiar with, but there are some that go by so fast that it's easy to miss them if you blink. I heard there was gremlins in this movie, but I totally missed them! There's also other famous pop culture cars in the first challenge that I didn't register seeing. This might actually be a better movie to rent or stream so you can pause your DVD or device or rewind if necessary. So this movie if a lot of fun if you want to see all of those. 

The movie ends with Wade beating the last challenge, which is some early video games and everyone is happy. He gets a crapload of money and complete access to the Oasis and his first rule is that nobody will have access to the Oasis on Tuesday and Thursday so they can experience the real world. Insert eye roll here. 

While the movie has some fun scenes, I would recommend the book over it. I just had more fun reading the book than I did seeing the movie. I think you have to be a real nerd to appreciate it.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Gremlins

Director: Joe Dante

Cast: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Corey Feldman, Polly Holliday

Released: June 8, 1984

This movie is INSANE, y'all! I first saw it when I was eight or nine and it scared the everliving crap out of me! I have seen it again since then, but the last time I saw it was probably in the early 2000s, so it has been awhile. In fact, it's been so long that there were quite a few things I didn't remember or remembered wrong. I'll address those when I come to them. Even though this movie is 33 years old, I'm sure there is an entire generation who hasn't seen it so there are spoilers! Like The Goonies (which came out a year later and has its own Gremlins reference), it was also written by Chris Columbus, produced by Steven Spielberg, and Corey Feldman is in it.

The movie begins with the father of the main character, Mr. Peltzer (Hoyt Axton), looking for a Christmas gift for his son. He's in Chinatown looking through an old shop with lots of strange and mystic stuff while an old wise Chinese man oversees him (the whole thing reeks of stereotypes) and he comes across a strange (and SUPER ADORABLE!!) creature known as a Mogwai. I didn't remember it ever being called a Mogwai, I always just thought the creatures were known as Gremlins whether they were in the cute and furry stage or the, ahem, monstrous stage. Peltzer tells the shopkeeper he has to have it and "it's exactly what [he's] been looking for." Wait a sec. A strange creature he has never heard of or seen in his entire life is exactly what he's been looking for? How is that even possible? He says he'll pay $100 for it, then ups it to $200. The shopkeeper tells him a firm no because he really is wise. He tells Mr. Peltzer that a Mogwai "comes with much responsibility" (and boy, does it!)  However, his young grandson tells Mr. Peltzer to meet him around back and secretly sells him the strange creature because they need the money. There are three rules (simple rules, really!) when it comes to owning a Mogwai:

1. Keep it out of light, especially sunlight. It could kill the Mogwai.
2. Don't get it wet.
3. And most importantly, whatever you do, never, ever, EVER feed it after midnight.

I, like many, as I'm sure, have a few issues with these rules and I will address these more as I continue on with my review. You'll notice the kid only tells what happens if you don't keep the Mogwai out of sunlight: it will die (which seems way more important than the third rule!) He never says what happens if you get it wet or feed it after midnight. Maybe if he did, then the Peltzers would be a little more careful with their new pet! Hmm, you think? Oh, and guess how long it takes before the rules are broken?

Because Mr. Peltzer is an inventor (and a crappy one at that - he's invented a "bathroom buddy" that's way too bulky and shoots out toothpaste, a juicer that explodes when you put the fruit in it, a coffee maker that pours out sludge, and a wireless phone (hey, I guess he was before his time, but if it only worked!)), he names the Mogwai Gizmo and gives it to his son, Billy (Zach Galligan), that evening, a few days before Christmas. I could have sworn that Billy was a young kid. I would have guessed anywhere between eight and thirteen years old. But he's not! Billy Peltzer has a job at the bank, he drives, he hangs out at a bar. I'm not sure exactly how old he is (Galligan was 19 when he filmed this), but he can't be any younger than eighteen. When we were first introduced to Billy working at the bank, I just assumed he was the older brother of the main character and he was going to be involved in the plot. I didn't realize he WAS the main character until his father gives him the gift. I think this movie would have worked much better with a younger protagonist. I really can't see a teenager (or someone in their early twenties) wanting a pet for Christmas. (Especially if they already have one, as Billy has a loyal dog named Barney). A teenager wants a car or something cool to wear to impress everyone. Now it's possible I was thinking of Corey Feldman who was probably 11 or 12 when he filmed this, but I do remember him not being in this movie as much as he was in The Goonies or Stand By Me or The Lost Boys (he only has a couple scenes). I guess I just assumed he plays the friend to a kid, who is, you know, his own age!

Billy opens his gift and this is when the audience is first shown Gizmo and OMG HE IS THE CUTEST LITTLE THING EVER!! He's so wittle and cute!!! I want one so bad!! Well, maybe not. As we will find out, this adorably cute little guy can cause A LOT of problems, especially if you don't follow the rules (And, obviously, I would follow these rules!) I also want to point out that NONE of the mayhem that will soon occur is Gizmo's fault, NONE OF IT. He is perfectly blameless in all of this mess. He is an innocent little bystander. They created Gizmo and the Gremlins with puppetry and animatronics. As you can see in the film, Gizmo is super tiny. When they showed close ups of just his face they used a large animatronic head. Sure, there are some scenes where it's super obvious Gizmo isn't real, but you have to admire they weren't using CGI (since this IS 1984) and had to create something that was actually in all the scenes with the actors.

Billy's dad tells him the rules of owning a Mogwai. You know, I felt really bad for Barney because Billy has dropped him like a hot potato and is spending all his time with Gizmo. Barney is probably thinking, I've been Billy's loyal pet for however many years and now I'm being pushed away for a cuter pet who can play the piano AND talk. (Gizmo is voiced by Howie Mandel. I thought that name was familiar and realized I know him best as the host of Deal or No Deal. Haha, remember that game show from the mid-2000s?) He can't talk in full sentences, but he does say phrases. Whenever Billy turns on a light, he'll say, "Bright light, bright light!" so Billy can turn it off. He also says "Uh-oh!" a lot (and with good reason!)

When Gizmo gets a boo-boo on his head (because he falls into the trash because Billy shows him his reflection in the mirror after putting on a Santa hat, so this is all BIlly's fault, mind you), Billy takes him to the freaking bathroom of all places to put a bandage on him. Now, I don't know about you, but my bathroom sink and counter is usually wet! WTF are you thinking, Billy? Can't you leave Gizmo in your room and get the bandages from the bathroom? I thought for sure something was going to happen in this scene, but it doesn't. Gizmo is so cute!!! I just wanna cuddle him and give him kisses on the top of his head, awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!! He's so cute, he makes me cry.

The next day Corey Feldman comes over to deliver their Christmas tree. He grabs a glass of water and goes upstairs to Billy's room, which is in the attic, where Billy introduces him to Gizmo. Corey, his glass of water, and Gizmo are all on the bed. Seriously, why isn't Billy saying, "Damnit, Corey Feldman, get your glass of water away from my pet." Cuz that glass is tipping towards the Mogwai. But nothing happens...yet. Billy takes him over to his table where he likes to paint. There is a glass of water for cleaning brushes. Guess who clumsily knocks over the glass and spills water all over poor Gizmo? Now you can blame Corey Feldman all you want, but I'm blaming this all on Billy. Corey didn't know about the rules. Billy, however does know about the rules and brings Gizmo over to a table that has a glass of water on it. Moron. The water causes Gizmo to shriek in pain and his fur starts to boil and a small ball of fur (a hair ball, you could say) pops out of his back. Billy and Corey are more interested in the small ball of fur and don't seem to care that Gizmo is writhing in pain. I wanted to smack Billy so hard across his face. Four more of these small balls of fur pop out of Gizmo's back and start to grow until they become the size of Gizmo. Billy now has five more Mogwai! While all this is going on, Barney seems very concerned. In fact, the damn dog (and Gizmo, of course) is the only one who seems concerned about this. Poor Gizmo looks so sad and is shaking his head. He knows what's up! (And it isn't good!) Corey wants one since there are now five more, but changes his mind when one of them bites him when he tries to pet it. This one has a stripe of white fur across his head and he will eventually become the leader and go by the name Stripe.

Billy tells his father about what happened and he thinks this will be a great way to create and sell more Mogwai to kids and that it will become the new popular pet. Their plans for this will soon be sidetracked, but how would that even work? You might be able to sell a couple, but if other kids wanted one, they could just ask their friends for one and all they would have to do is throw water on their Mogwai. If you can make these things multiply by five just by adding water to it, then it wouldn't be that rare! Billy also brings one to his science teacher and multiples another Mogwai. The teacher asks if he can keep one so he can run tests on it.

Now I remembered these creatures being good when they were in the cute and furry Mogwai stage and thought they only turned evil when they became the scary lizard-looking monsters, but that's not the case. Even when Stripe and the others are in the Mogwai stage, they are all mischievous and up to no good and have a sinister look in their eyes. In their Mogwai form, Stripe spits at Gizmo (so mean and uncalled for, Stripe!), ties up Barney in Christmas lights (totally uncalled for and how did five little creatures manage to do that to a pretty good sized-dog? They must have super strength? Also, why didn't Barney start barking the minute the Mogwai had him? He doesn't start whimpering until after he'd been tied up), AND they trick Billy into feeding them after midnight. They had unplugged his clock so when they're all begging for food, he think it's only 11:35 and grabs them a plate of chicken which they all eat like they're piranhas. See, this is a reason you could never make this movie today because all he would have to do is look at his phone! The feeding after midnight rule is a little confusing, because when, exactly can you feed them again? When the sun comes up? But, technically, it's still after midnight. Also, even if Billy does think there's still twenty five minutes left before midnight, doesn't he need to account for the food being swallowed and digested? I know, I know, I'm reading way too much into this. Point is, the Mogwai trick him and he feeds them after midnight. He even offers Gizmo some chicken, but he refuses. Meanwhile, at the lab, the stupid science teacher leaves his sandwich in plain sight right in front of the cage where he's testing the Mogwai so he's able to easily grab it. ("Yum, yum!") Now, to be fair, I don't think Billy ever told him about the rules. Geeze, Billy, when you introduce people to the Mogwai, you think you might want to tell people about the three rules?

The next morning when Billy wakes us, he sees these weird pod things. He shows his mother and realizes that the cord to his alarm clock was chewed through and that he did, in fact, feed the Mogwai after midnight. He seems to have no concern at all that these weird shells are in his room. He goes to the school to speak to the science teacher where he's looking at the pod in the cage. Now, until this moment, the movie has been a cute story about a boy and his strange pet ala E.T., but from now on it turns into a straight up horror show. Sh*t is about to hit the fan (and a couple of Gremlins too, ba-ba-ba). Billy's mom hears something coming from upstairs. She gets a phone call from Billy warning her to get out of the house after the Gremlin at school has killed the teacher with a lethal dose of something (why is something so dangerous at a school, anyway?), but one of the Gremlins has disconnected the phone. She then hears Do You Hear What I Hear? playing downstairs. Hands down, that is my favorite Christmas song of all time (I'm partial to the Whitney Houston version), but man, is it ever creepy when they play it in this scene! Mama Peltzer has her carving knife (from baking gingerbread cookies...don't ask) and she's about to go to town on these little demon monsters. Let's see: she throws one into a huge industrial blender, she sprays bug spray into the eyes of another until it backs up in the microwave and she nukes it until it explodes, she straight up stabs another one...Mama P. don't play around! She is attacked by the fourth one, but Billy comes home in time to knock it off of her and send it into the fire. Fun fact: this movie (and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) is the reason the PG-13 rating exists. The studio didn't think this movie should have been rated R, but it was defintely way darker for the PG rating it did get, so thus became PG-13. This movie almost got an R rating because it was supposed to be A LOT darker than it turned out to be. For one thing, the poor dog and mom were supposed to be killed by the Gremlins (and in quite gruesome ways!)

Stripe is the only Gremlin left and he runs to the YMCA where he jumps into the pool, producing hundreds of other Gremlins. I would have guessed that these creatures are only able to multiply when they're in the Mogwai form, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Stripe and the rest of the Gremlins wreck havoc on the town of Kingston Falls. This includes terrorizing Mrs. Deagle (Polly Holliday), the old mean lady who lives in town. We have been introduced to her earlier, and, boy, is she a nasty old witch. She threatens to kill Billy's dog (more than once) and she doesn't care about anyone. You just know she's going to get a nasty comeuppance, and boy, does she! She has one of those mechanical chairs attached to the wall that takes her upstairs/downstairs and a Gremlin messes with the mechanics of it and when she sits on it to go upstairs, it speeds out of control and she goes around and around (the house is only two stories, but she is going up way more than that) and it sends her flying out the window and crashing into the snow. A pretty horrifying, yet satisfying and hilarious death for a horrid character. Oh! Speaking of snow, all the Gremlins are all out in it. Why aren't they multiplying?

Billy, Gizmo, and Kate (Phoebe Cates), the girl Billy works with at the bank and has a crush on, try to stop the Gremlins. Kate tells Billy that this is just another reason for her to hate Christmas. Why does Kate hate Christmas, you ask? (Oh, as if you didn't know!) Even if you haven't seen this movie, you're probably familiar with this crazy monologue Kate tells about the day she discovered Santa Claus wasn't real...which is the same day her father died. When she was nine, he had dressed up as Santa and gone down the chimney, but had slipped and broken his neck and died instantly. They didn't discover him until they had started a fire and smelled something and the firemen came out and pulled out his body. Just a few questions: why was Kate's dad so stupid? And how did he fit down the chimney? I'm pretty sure nobody can fit down a chimney. Everyone knows Santa uses magic to go down them, duh!

All the Gremlins have assembled at a movie theater where they're watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (I was surprised Disney gave a Warner Brothers movie permission to use one of their films) and Billy and Kate sneak into the broiler room where they set off an explosion, killing all the Gremlins except for Stripe who has managed to escape to a nearby Montgomery Ward. While Billy is trying to ward (no pun intended, honest!) off the little demon monster, Kate is trying to find a light switch. Stripe has a chain saw and is going after Billy who is holding up a bat to stop the chainsaw. You would think the saw would easily go through a bat, which is made out of wood, but nope. I mean, it does go through it, but quite slowly so Billy has time to escape when Kate finally is able to turn on the lights. Also, Billy is a bit of a wuss. Here is his mother who singlehandedly butchered four of these creatures in a matter of minutes and he can't stop a little two foot creature from throwing balls at him. Just kick it. Stop being a baby, Billy! However, it's Gizmo who saves the day by pulling up a shade when Stripe has put his hand in a fountain and is about to produce more offspring. I laughed so hard when Gizmo pulls the shade because it's so freaking obvious they just attached a Gizmo-like stuffed animal to the cord and it just sort of falls. OMG, it is the funniest thing! It was also really super cute when he says "Bye-bye!" Stripe is killed and all is well. Interestingly, Gizmo was supposed to be the evil leader (obviously he was intended to change into a Gremlin), but Spielberg knew that the audience would (rightly) fall in love with him and wanted to keep him pure and good (and super adorable!)

The old wise Chinese man comes to claim Gizmo, saying Billy isn't ready for a Mogwai. Yes, I agree, but where was he in the first place? A couple days has passed since his grandson sold Gizmo to Mr. Peltzer. Surely he noticed the Mogwai was missing before then? Billy is a little upset that Gizmo is being taken away from him, but if I were him, I would be bawling! Gizmo is so freaking adorable and he can talk and play the piano! And he's soooooo cuuuuute! Super cute! However, I was all for the old Chinese man taking him back. Aside from the mother, these Peltzers don't know how to take care of a Mogwai.

An '80s classic for sure!

Oregon Trail to Treasure

The Goonies

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Corey Feldman, Martha Plimpton, Joe Pantoliano, Anne Ramsey

Released: June 7, 1985

Hey, you guys! Goonies never say die! Down here it's our time; it's our time down here! I love this movie so much! It is THE quintessential children's film from the '80s (although there are certain things that aren't quite appropriate for children, but we'll get to those later!), but, to my knowledge, no other movie captured the awesomeness of being a child in the '80s like this one does. Now, this was a little before my time and I didn't see it theaters as I would have been much too young. I actually don't even remember when I first saw it, but it has been awhile since I last saw it (about 15 years) and I was worried that I might not like it since I'm a little older and more mature. But, nope! I loved it! I was laughing so much. Sure, it has its flaws and there are a lot of things that just don't make any sense at all, and sure, I may have had my nostalgia glasses on, but this movie is AWESOME! (Damn, those glasses just won't come off!) Without this movie, we would not have the likes of Super 8 or Stranger Things, which both defintely have elements of The Goonies. It probably shouldn't surprise you that Steven Spielberg was an executive producer on this. I have even told people about this movie who had never seen it and they watched it and they loved it!

This movie is about a group of kids (leader Mikey,  smart-ass Mouth, clumsy Chunk, and innovative Data) who call themselves "The Goonies" and they live in the coastal town of Astoria, Oregon. They live in an area called the Goon Docks, hence their nickname. The movie is set on what is going to be their last weekend together as their homes are being foreclosed and the property will be used to build a golf course and a new country club. (To be honest, I was never clear on whether it was all their homes or just a few of them). A treasure map is found in Mikey's attic and they use it to see if they can find the treasure and save their homes. The four young boys are joined by Mikey's older brother, Brand as well as Brand's crush, Andy, and her friend, Stef. While trying to find the treasure, they run into the criminal Fratelli family who are after them to shut them up about what they saw. And thus the adventure of a lifetime begins!

I thought it would be fun to rank the Goonies in order of my own personal preference. I'll start with my least favorite and work my way up to my favorite:

7.  Andy (played by Kerri Green)

"This isn't like my mother's Steinway!"

Andy is the only "Goonie" I don't like. And I put "Goonie" in quotes because she tells Mikey she's not even a Goonie. She's just there to be the "girl". She's a cheerleader, she wears a short skirt, she has all the boys lusting after her (Brand, Mikey, and Troy all have crushes on her). She's also the one to freak out the most when they're lost in the cave and realizes there may not be a way out. Look, I don't blame her for freaking out...I would probably freak out too, but my god, she's SOOOO annoying! And the way she freaks out is a little disturbing. Let me back up and explain: When we first meet Andy she is riding with Troy in his convertible. Troy is the hotshot jerk athlete (and his dad is the one trying to take all the homes away, so that way you know the entire family is evil). I'm not sure if Troy and Andy are dating, but I'm guessing they are because she's wearing his letter jacket with his name on it and there's a scene where Troy's friends are asking him if he's "made it" with Andy yet and he says no, but he plans to soon. But if they're dating, then why does Brand tell the others that he has a date with Andy? Maybe she's keeping her options open? She seems like one of those girls who always has to have a boyfriend and can't do anything without a man. Ugh! So when she's freaking out, she keeps blabbing on about how she should have let Troy look up her skirt (when she was in his car, he was adjusting his rearview mirror so he could get a better look) and maybe she wouldn't be stuck in this cave as she tells Brand that's the reason she ditched Troy and joined the others. So she's pretty much admitting she would have rather been sexually violated than be in a cave (where there are ways to get out...she was being a little overdramatic). She also keeps going on about what a beautiful body she has and she doesn't want to die before she gets "fat and ugly". Ugh, shut up!

Oh, and it gets worse with her! With every opportunity, she tries to make out with Brand. Now Brand likes her, but even he gets annoyed with her constant goo-goo eyes and always trying to make a pass at him. Once they are safe, and they are no longer being chased by the Fratellis or they are no longer in harm's way, he has no problem kissing her, but there are times she's trying to kiss him that are just not the right time and this happens about three times during the film. There's a scene when they're taking a bathroom break so she and Steph are separated from the rest of the guys and she starts wailing, "Brand! Brand!" in her annoying "help me, I'm just a helpless girl who needs a big strong man" voice. (CAN.NOT.STAND.HER!) Brand tells his brother to see what she's harping about and when he goes over to her, Andy, with her eyes closed, grabs Mikey, thinking he's Brand, and kisses him. My first thought was, How dumb is this girl? Does she not realize that the person she's kissing is the same heigh as her and therefore is not obviously Brand. They do address this when Andy tells Steph to "be careful" because she thinks there's a hole in the area and that "Brand" was standing in it. Okay, I'm glad they thought of something for that, but I still feel like she would have been able to tell she was kissing a twelve-year-old and not a sixteen-year-old. She does tell Stef that it was "weird" (but she still seemed to like it...we got a future cougar on our hands!) and she's confused because she didn't know that Brand wore braces. I mean, really, how stupid is she? Later, when she's kissing Brand she asks him where his braces went (this girl is really so stupid) and that's when she realizes she was making out with a twelve-year-old...because that's what every high school girl dreams of. God, I hate Andy so much. She sucks.

Okay, okay, okay, I will admit she does have one good scene where she is actually helpful in getting the Goonies out of trouble. There's a scene where they have to play certain notes on a piano made out of bones. If the wrong note is hit too many times, a part of the floor falls away and eventually they will all plummet to their death, but each time a right note is struck, a door will open a little at a time. She hits the wrong note quite a few times and with each one exclaims, "This isn't like my mother's Steinway!" or "I'm not Liberace, you know!" Or "I can't tell if it's a B flat or an A sharp!" To which Mikey replies with, "If you hit the wrong note, we'll all be flat!" I just love the look his brother gives him when he says that. But Andy does come through and plays enough right notes that they are able to open the locked door and escape from the Fratellis who are after them at that point.

6.  Brand (played by Josh Brolin)

"I'm gonna hit so you hard that when you wake up, your clothes will be out of style!"

Brand is Mikey's older brother who failed his driver's test, is always exercising, and has a crush on Andy. His taste in girls is terrible, but I guess you can't blame the guy. Albeit annoying, Andy is a pretty and popular cheerleader and always want to make out with him. What sixteen-year-old boy wouldn't like that? He thinks the idea of going after the treasure is dumb, so Mikey and the other Goonies use the spring-y thing (the thing he's holding in the gif) to tie him to the chair and make their escape. Brand was in charge of watching his younger brother and making sure he doesn't go out in the rain so he doesn't get sick. His mom tells him that if his little brother goes out, then he'll (Brand) will be in some serious you-know-what. Brand says, "Sh*t, Mom." His mom tells him not to cuss, but yes, that's what she means. This scene doesn't make any sense because literally seconds after that happens, she sees a mess of chips on the floor and says, "What is that? What is THAT?" Mouth and Chunk think she's referring to the broken statue (I'll get to that later!) and Chunk says, "Oh, sh*t, what?" Mrs. Walsh doesn't even blink that Chunk just cussed and tells the boys she wants the mess cleaned up. I don't know if she was so enraged by the mess that she didn't hear Chunk cuss or if she only dislikes it when her own kids cuss? It was weird.

I love the scene where Troy's dad and this other guy come to the house to remind them about the foreclosure and Troy's dad says, "Is your Mommy home?" and Brand replies with, "No, she's at the market buying Pampers for all us kids." These kids are all twelve and older...why is he asking about their "Mommy"? It's so weird. But that line made me laugh.

Brand goes after the younger boys by stealing Data's little sister's bike (Data and his family live next door) and telling her he "owes her one" (because Mouth let the air out of Brand's bike tires ("Now it's his flattest thing in the world!")) and is seen riding a little girl's bike with training wheels and a flowered basket by Troy, Andy, and Stef in Troy's car. Troy grabs Brand and starts driving really fast and lets go as Brand flies off a cliff. Um, I'm pretty sure Troy just attempted MURDER and anyone who just rode their bike off a cliff would DIE. But we never see how Brand managed to survive it as the next time we see him, he is with Mikey and the others. I honestly have no idea how he even knew where Mikey was, but whatever.

5. Stef (played by Martha Plimpton)

"I feel like I'm baby-sitting, except I'm not getting paid."

Stef is Andy's friend and while she has even less to do than both Andy and Brand, I put her ahead of them because she does have one of my favorite lines in the whole movie which is the one I chose for her quote. That line cracks me up and I've even used it in my real life a couple of times. (Because, really, haven't we all felt at one point or another like we were baby-sitting, but not getting paid?) I also laugh at the scene when the kids have just discovered the pirate ship and she and Mouth (who hate each other) are hugging each other and exclaiming, "Oh my God!" Then she realizes who she's hugging and says, "Oh, God!" in disgust as she pushes him away. That was hilarious. I had forgotten that there was a little crush subplot between Mouth and Stef and that was the reason they hated each other...because they secretly liked each other. This was a little weird because even though Martha Plimpton is only a year older than Corey Feldman in real life, in the movie, she is suppose to be part of the high school group and Mouth is part of the younger group, so why would she like the a young boy? Is she another cougar in the works? At the end of the movie, she tells him, "You know, your voice is kind of nice when your mouth isn't ruining it" after he thanks her for saving his life and he replies, "You know, your looks are kind of pretty when your face isn't ruining it!" OMG, nice line there, kid. Yes, he does say he's just joking, but ouch!

This movie has many Scooby-Doo elements to it and Stef is definitely the Velma of the group (we all know Andy is the Daphne!) just for the mere fact that she is wearing glasses when we first meet her and ends up losing them once they are in the cave and Mikey steps on them and breaks them. ("You broke my glasses!") However, her eyesight must not be that BAD because she seems to see just fine for the rest of their journey.

4. Mikey (played by Sean Astin)

"Goonies never say die!"

Before he was a Notre Dame college football player or a hobbit, thirteen-year-old Sean Astin played Mikey, the asthmatic unofficial leader of the Goonies. It's his idea to find the treasure when all the boys go up to the attic and they're looking through all the "reject" stuff Mr. Walsh, who is the curator at the Astoria museum brought home, because apparently he's allowed to keep it in his attic? Don't ask me how that works. They find a map of the Astoria coastline behind a painting and realize it leads to treasure that was stolen by the pirate One-Eyed Willy. Mikey tells them the story that his dad told him about the infamous pirate and how the British armada was after him and he got trapped in a cave with his men. They set booby traps so nobody could get the treasure and Willy killed all his men so they couldn't escape with the treasure, although apparently one man did escape and thus that's how people know about the treasure and why there's a map. If there was a way to escape, I'm not sure why Willy didn't just sail away with the treasure, but whatever. The way he was telling it, I was sure Sean Astin was reading off of cue cards because for a while he just stares up at something, but I guess Richard Donner told him this story and just had him tell the story based on memory.

It's also Mikey's idea for them to keep going when they're all about to get out of the cave via the well. He gives them that speech where he says, "Down here it's our time! It's our time down here! Up there, it's their time! But down here it's our time!  Don't you see? Don't you get it? The next time we see sky, it will be over another town. The next time we take a test, it will be in another school." I may not have gotten that exactly right, but you get the gist of it. I have to tell you a true story: I remember seeing The Two Towers in theaters and I believe that's the movie where Samwise gives Frodo that speech about...something. I don't remember exactly, but it was a nice, uplifting speech. Anyway, when I first saw that, all I could think of was this speech Sean Astin gives in the Goonies and I kept imagining that he was saying, "It's our time down here! Down here it's our time!"

You have to give L'il Samwise credit, because without him they would have never had their adventure. He's the one who discovers the map that leads to treasure in the attic and he finds the doubloon where he's able to line up the rock, lighthouse, and restaurant and he's the one who first "meets" One-Eyed Willy.

3. Mouth aka Clark (played by Corey Feldman)

"This was my dream, my wish, and it didn't come true. So I'm taking it back. I'm taking them all back."

This kid is such a little sh*t stirrer and never shuts up, hence his nickname of "Mouth". He is an evil little child, but he is hilarious. I get the feeling the others don't like him very much, but they let him be part of their group. We know Stef doesn't care for him and he makes poor Chunk, the chubby kid do the Truffle Shuffle which is a dance where he has to lift his shirt and shake his belly, which Mikey doesn't think is very funny.

Mouth's main attribution to the group is that he is fluent in Spanish, so he is able to decode many of the messages/instructions that are written in Spanish as they make their way to the treasure. This is first set up when Brand and Mikey's mom comes home with an older woman named Rosalita who is going to help them pack because Mrs. Walsh broke her arm and needs help. This really makes no sense because a)They are suppose to move the next day and they are just now packing their house? and b)Why didn't Mrs. Walsh just hire a moving company instead of an older woman? Anyway, since Rosalita doesn't speak any English, Mouth ever so kindly offers to translate for Mrs. Walsh since he knows Spanish. Every time they go to a different room and Mrs. Walsh gives the instructions, Mouth tells her something outrageous and everything is so not appropriate for a children's movie! I am shocked at what they were able to get away with for a children's film in the '80s! I guess it was a much different time back then! In the first room, he tells her that the heroin goes in one drawer, the cocaine goes in another drawer, and the marijuana goes in the last drawer and to make sure to not get the drugs mixed up. When Mrs. Walsh tells Rosalita not to go in the attic, Mouth tells her not to go up there because that's where Mr. Walsh keeps his sexual torture devices. And finally, when Mrs. Walsh is telling her about the broom closet, Mouth tells her that's where she'll be kept without any food or water if she does a bad job. It's so messed up! Mrs. Walsh thanks him and tells him how nice it was for him to translate and he replies with a sweet smile and says, "Nice is my middle name!" Mrs. Walsh also tells Rosalita she wants the house clean before they tear it down, which makes no sense at all...why would someone care about their house being cleaned if it's going to get torn down anyway?

When we are first introduced to Mouth, he comes into the Walsh home ready for the last weekend they will be spending together before they are all separated. He is disappointed they won't be able to do anything fun since Brand flunked his driver's test and they won't have a car and now they won't be "cruising the coast, sniffing some lace, downing some brews." Why is a twelve-year-old talking about drugs and alcohol? Oh, never mind, it is Corey Feldman, after all. Funny how that worked out.

One of my favorite Mouth moments is when clumsy Chunk knocks over this statue of a naked man (I think it's suppose to be a replica of Michaelangelo's David) and the genitals break off. Both Mikey and Brand are freaking out like it shattered into a million pieces instead of one piece just broke off and it would be pretty easy to glue back on. Brand screams "YOU IDIOT!" and Mikey is also upset and tells him, "That's my mom favorite piece!" In reply, Mouth says, "You wouldn't be here if it wasn't" and that just made me laugh...not just what he said, but the way he says it. Both Mikey and Brand yell at him to "SHUT UP!", but I'm on Mouth's side here. I think he had every right to make that stupid crack and honestly I would have done the same thing. Mikey was totally asking for it. First of all, why is he sharing the fact that the penis on the naked male statue is his mom's favorite "part". Who says that? And why does he even know that in the first place? Did his mom tell him that? Is she sexually crazed or something? It's so weird!

Not surprisingly, Mouth's mouth often gets him into trouble. It also almost gets his tongue sliced off! When the four young boys go into the restaurant (that's closed for the season) that lines up with the doubloon, what they don't know is that it's the hideout for the Fratelli family which consists of Mama Fratelli (Anne Ramsey) and her sons Francis (Joe Pantoliano) and Jake (Robert Davi). There's a third son called Sloth that they keep locked in chains downstairs, but we'll get to him later. That enough is to say the Fratellis are horrible people, but Mama and Francis have also broken Jake out of jail and have killed two feds along the way. The fact that they are counterfeiting money seems to be the least offensive thing do.

Mama Fratelli offers the boys water (nasty unclean water!) and asks if they want anything else. The three other boys don't want anything, but Mouth, being Mouth, starts talking in an Italian accent and asks for a bunch of Italian dishes. This prompts Mama to grab him by the face, force his tongue out and tells the kids the only thing they serve is tongue and process to take out a pocket knife and open it up very close to Mouth's face. Now while I don't remember seeing this for the first time, I have no doubt I was covering my mouth with my hand like the three other boys do! And this isn't the only time that Mama Fratelli will threaten to cut off a kid's body part!

I loved the scene when they're all on the water slide (oh, man, how fun did that look?) and when they're coming out of the chute (which was a pretty high drop into the water), Mouth yells, "Ohhhhhhh shhhhhhhhhhhhh*tttttttt!" They must say the s-word at least twenty times in this movie and I'm not exaggerating! And this is a PG movie! I think nowadays you can only get away with using that word once in a PG-rated movie.

2. Data (played by Jonathan Ke Quan)

"That's what I said! Booby trap!"

Data is the Inspector Gadget of the group with all his nifty inventions. Some of them work and some of them don't. Some of them even save his life like the Pinchers of Power (or is it Peril...I'm not quite sure) which is a pair of those plastic clattering teeth attached to a spring coil that he uses to grab hold onto a rock as he's falling hundreds of feet down a pit and the teeth grab the rock right before he is about to get spiked. Don't ask me how that manages to hold a ninety pound kid (well, maybe he's more like eighty pounds because he does say he is the smallest of the group at one point, but still...), but this is a movie and there are many ridiculous things in it. He uses his "slick shoes" to deter the Fratelli brothers who are after them at this point. They're crossing a log over water and Data squirts oil that is in the bottom of his shoes onto the log, thus making it slippery and the two brothers slip on it and land on their groins very painfully. This movie was like a precursor to Home Alone what with all the booby traps that are set (some by Data, some by One-Eyed Willy) and Chris Columbus, who directed Home Alone, wrote this movie. Data also uses the Pinchers to grab Francis in the groin and he has a boxing glove attached to a spring so when he opens his trench coat, it knocks out Jake, but the second time he tries to use it, it malfunctions and he ends up punching himself instead.

Data lives next door to Mikey and uses a zipline to enter the Walsh home. Because of their proximity, he appears to be Mikey's closest friend and they have their arms around each other as they're skipping to the restaurant. It's really quite adorable.

There's a running gag throughout the movie where Data will incorrectly say "boody trap" and one of the kids, usually Mikey, will correct him and he'll reply with, "That's what I said! Booby trap!" Data also refers to himself in the third person.

Even though the actor is originally from Vietnam, I think Data was suppose to be Chinese because at one point, Mikey says they're going so deep into the cave that they might end up in China and Data says, "Ooh, maybe I can visit one of my aunts!"

I mentioned that there are some booby traps set by the famed pirate, One-Eyed Willy. This guy really did not want anyone finding his treasure! I already mentioned the piano made out of bones that Andy plays to open a door. The kids always seem to set off all the booby traps and just narrowly miss getting killed. One that is set off has these huge boulders falling to the ground, about five in a row. Apparently, another set of these was set off as that's how Chester Copperpot, the guy who got the closest to getting to the treasure, was killed. We see a skeleton comically posed under a huge boulder. I mean, I don't know if it was suppose to be funny, but I sure laughed. The only part sticking out from under the rock was the upper body and the head and the rest of the skeleton was crushed underneath the boulder.

1. Chunk aka Lawrence (played by Jeff Cohen)

"Gee, Mister, you're even hungrier than I am!"

Chunk is the chubby, klutzy, scaredy-cat, pathological liar kid who has a much different adventure than the other kids because he gets separated from them. I laughed so hard when we are first introduced to him where he's in a pizza parlor and sees a police chase and excitedly runs up to the window to watch it and smashes his pizza AND his milkshake against the glass (I'm not sure why!), but as you see from the above gif, it gives a very amusing result! This is the first use of the s-word when Chunk exclaims, "Ah, sh*t!" after he ruins his lunch. He has a ridiculous sense of smell. When they're in the basement of the restaurant, he can smell the ice cream in a sealed refrigerator. He is so excited to have all these different flavors of ice cream that he doesn't even notice the DEAD GUY with a bullet through his head that's also in the fridge. ("IT'S A STIFF!") He is a fed the Fratellis killed and Chunk ends up getting stuck in the fridge with him while the other Goonies make their escape. I loved when the corpse is falling onto him and he tells it to, "Stay! Stay!" The other Goonies have escaped down through the firepit, but after Brand and Mikey notice Chunk is missing (glad they didn't make it too far before they realized someone was missing!), they go back up and tell Chunk to run and find the police because they are in "serious sh*t". By this time, it is dark when Chunk goes outside and he keeps telling himself, "I'm not afraid of the dark. I like the dark, I love the dark. But I hate nature! I HATE nature!" He runs out in front of a car and screams, "STOP! I'M JUST A KID!" which cracked me up. When a car does stop, he tells the driver he needs to be taken to the police because he found the hide out of the Fratellis, these disgusting people and that he can describe all three of them. A light comes on and of course it's Jake with Francis in the passenger seat and they grab Chunk and throw him in the back...where there's another dead body. That's some pretty scary stuff right there.

They bring Chunk back to the restaurant and threaten to put his hand in a blender if he doesn't spill the beans and tell them where the other kids are. In a matter of seconds, Chunk gives them all up (I can't blame the kid; I would do the same) and tells them they're down the fireplace, but they don't believe them. Lucky for Chunk, right when they have his hand in the blender and are about to turn it on, this is when the Goonies have come across a bunch of bats that have been let loose when Brand moves a big rock blocking a part of the cave. After we see a bunch of (obviously) fake plastic bats dangling in front of the kids, they all fly up through the fireplace and that's when the Fratellis realize there's a tunnel leading down somewhere.

They throw Chunk in with Sloth, the third Fratelli son. He's this super jacked guy who has a deformed face. It's like his skull didn't quite form properly and he had a droopy face because his eyes don't match up and he has about four teeth. We later learn that his mom may have dropped him "more than one time" when he was a baby, hence his deformity. He's quite scary when you first see him, especially since he screams at Chunk, but then you realize he's just a gentle giant who just wants some chocolate. ("Choc-o-late? Choc-o-late!") I'm pretty sure when I first saw this, I thought they actually found someone who looked like that. No, they used make up to make the actor look like that. Sloth was played by John Matuszak who was a football player for the Oakland Raiders (and Sloth wears a Raiders t-shirt). After Chunk gives Sloth a Baby Ruth candy bar ("Ruth! Ruth! Ruth! Baby Ruth!") they have an unbreakable bond. ("Sloth love Chunk!") Sloth even breaks his chains to retrieve the candy bar that Chunk threw at his head. They start heading after the Fratellis who are now heading after the other Goonies.

Chunk does call the police and tries to tell them about the Fratellis, but the officer doesn't believe him because Chunk has pranked called the police before by telling them that 50 Iranian terrorists took over all the Sizzler steak houses in the city (how many Sizzler restaurant are in Astoria anyway?) and about the creatures that multiply when water is thrown on them, which was obviously a reference to Gremlins which Chris Columbus wrote (remember, he wrote this film) AND Corey Feldman was in as well. At the beginning of the film, the others don't believe Chunk when he tells them about the police chase he just saw. This is because he has lied about Michael Jackson using his bathroom, that he saved a bunch of old people from a nursing home fire, and that he once ate his weight in Godfather's pizza. He admits that MJ didn't use his bathroom...but his sister did! Hmm, I wonder it it was Janet or LaToya?

When the Fratellis have captured the Goonies on the pirate ship, Chunk and Sloth save the day. This is where we get the famous "Heyyyyy youuuuuu guyyyssssssss!" line from Sloth. The scene below I clipped from YouTube, was something I (and I swear to God I'm not even lying) laughed AND cried at the same time. And no, I'm not talking about I was crying so hard because it was funny, no I was laughing at this scene because it was absurd, but I was also crying, because it was so heartwarmingly sweet.  Just watch:

It was just so sweet, BUT, on the other hand, absolutely ridiculous that Chunk would just have this grown man, who obviously has special needs, live with his family without getting his parents' permission first. So that's why I was crying and laughing at the same time.

I don't know how exactly how long the kids were in the cave; I know it was overnight for sure because it's daylight when they get out, but everyone is there to greet them on the beach: their parents, the police, the MEDIA. They act as though these kids have been stuck in the cave for WEEKS. Oh, and even Troy's father shows up to have Mr. Walsh sign the foreclosure papers. However, Rosalita, who is also there, discovers Mikey's marble bag in his jacket (she has his jacket for some reason). The kids had gathered a ton of treasure on the pirate ship, but Mama Fratelli made them all hand it over. However, she missed the marble bag that Mikey had dumped out his marbles and filled with jewels. Rosalita announces the bag of jewels (why didn't she just keep quiet and keep the jewels for herself? She has no loyalty to this family, plus that Mouth kid was a little jerk to her!) and Mr. Walsh rips up the papers even though he has no idea how much these (cheap-looking) jewels are worth. And we will never know because the movie ends with the kids and Sloth watching the pirate ship sailing away (I guess the ghost of One-Eyed Willy is at the helm?) and there was never a sequel.

There are so many things about this movie that don't make any sense:
-What were 17th century pirates doing in the Pacific Northwest?
-If they had found that secret tunnel that Willy and his men built, then what were those very modern pipes doing in there?
-Why are there water slides in this secret tunnel...pretty sure water slides didn't exist in the 17th century!
-How come Mouth was able to enter the house without activating that Rube Goldberg contraption and this was before Chunk arrived and they made him do the Truffle Shuffle before they let him in...and he could have easily unlatched the gate! (Is he just a little dim?)
-Why did the museum let Mr. Walsh keep all that historical stuff in his attic? If they had actually went through all this stuff, they would have found the map that led them to some valuable treasure.
-If nobody was allowed in the attic, then why are those glass orbs with the "laser beams" seemingly plugged in all the time? (I don't know what they're called, but you know what I'm talking about, right?)
-Why did nobody go after the ship at the end? Um, hello, it was filled with rubies, diamonds, gold, silver, coins, you name it!

But even despite all those problems, I still love it. Those nostalgia glasses will never come off! If you are also a fan of The Goonies, I hope you thought this review was, ahem, good enough!