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!

Nostalgia Redux

Super 8
Director: J.J. Abrams
Cast: Joel Courtney, Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning
Released: June 10, 2011
Viewed in theaters: June 14, 2011

In a summer full of sequels and comic-book adaptations, Super 8 is a small gem to be found among those blockbusters and will most likely get lost in the shuffle, but if you want a fun and suspenseful summer flick reminiscent of Speilberg-esque supernatural movies such as E.T. or Close Encounters of the Third Kind and coming-to-age films like Stand By Me with a little bit of The Goonies thrown in for good measure, then I can't recommend Super 8 enough.

The movie takes place in the summer of 1979 and is centered around a group of middle school-aged kids from a small town in Ohio who are making a zombie movie to enter in their town's film festival. What I like about the cast is that they are actually the age one would be in middle school and they act like normal kids, none of that precocious, cutesy kid stuff you see from so many annoying child actors. I also like the fact that the dialogue doesn't seem to be written by a Kevin Willimason or Diablo Cody-type and there are no lines that are trying to be clever or witty. They're just normal kids who are friends and that's why you believe. Even though they're all really cute kids, I also like that they're not all perfect-looking like they just came from the Disney channel.

Goonies 2011!

Joe (newcomer Joel Courtney) is the main character who's Dad (Chandler) is the local sheriff. He lost his mother in a horrible accident only four months ago and is trying to cope with the loss. He works on the lights and the make-up for the film and has a crush on Alice (Elle Fanning) who agrees to play the leading lady in their film. This was the first time I've seen Dakota's little sister in a film and it was weird to hear her speak because I was expecting this high-pitched, girly voice to come out of her, but her voice was lower than I was expecting. Alice's dad is an alcoholic and he and Joe's dad don't get along because he was somewhat responsible for Joe's mother's death. Neither Joe's or Alice's dad allow them to be friends so they have to sneak around to hang out with each other. Charles is the requisite fat kid who directs the movie and also has a crush on Alice. Cary is the kid with the straggly blond hair and in need of braces with an affinity for fireworks and explosions who plays the lead zombie. Martin is the tall, awkward kid with glasses who plays the lead character and Preston is the wimpy kid who's always saying his heart is beating too fast and refuses to go with the gang when they decide to do something risky.

One night, while shooting a scene near the train tracks, they witness a horrific train crash, which, believe me, even if you don't like the movie, you will get your money's worth just for that scene alone. It is one intense scene. After that, some crazy stuff starts to go down. There's a monster that we don't see fully until the end of the movie, but we do see glimpses of it and when it's rustling in the trees, it reminded me of Jurassic Park and the smoke monster from Lost. Even though it was an integral part of the movie, I much preferred the coming-of-age angle rather than the monster angle. I didn't quite understand the whole story with the monster, but I had a "medium" Wild Cherry Pepsi (really, it looked more like a large!) and had to use the bathroom. I went after the kids get caught sneaking in the school, so maybe I missed some important plot points while I was gone. Oh, I also had Twizzlers and the kids eat Twizzlers during the beginning of the film. Shoutout!

Even though I wasn't around in '79, this movie has a very nostalgic feel to it. I am familiar with movies and TV shows and have seen family photos from around that time, so I was familiar with the "look" of that era. The soundtrack is great! Kids back then listened to way better music than kids do today. Granted, the only songs I remember in the movie are "Don't Bring Me Down" and "My Sharona". One of the podcasts I listen to (Extra Hot Great - I highly recommend it) talked about Super 8 and someone pointed out that the mentioned Rubik's Cube and the shown Walkman didn't actually appear on the market until the early months of the early '80s, but according to the Wiki, the Walkman was first available in the summer of '79.

Now how could have I gone this long in this review without mentioning the lens flare? I've seen/heard several people bitch about the lens flare, but honestly I only noticed it in that one scene where the kids are getting ready to film by the train tracks. It was blue and it was very distracting and noticeable and I kept asking myself, "What the hell is that? What are those blue lights? What does it mean?" Then when I kept hearing about the lens flare, I knew exactly what they were talking about. If it was in any other part of the movie, I didn't notice it, though.

The end of the movie made me choke up and there's a scene that reminded me of Titanic. If you've seen the movie, you know exactly what I'm talking about! (And if you've seen Titanic, of course, which I'm sure you have.) They show the kids' homemade movies during the end credits (about two minutes in so don't get up and leave right when the credits start) and let's just say they are much better filmmakers than that idiot in Cloverfield with his damn shaky camera who was twice their age!

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.

Treasure Hunters

National Treasure

Director John Turteltaub

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight, Sean Bean, Justin Bartha, Harvey Keitel, Christopher Plummer

Released: November 19, 2004

Viewed in theaters: November 27, 2004

Picture it: Lincoln, Nebraska, Thanksgiving 2004. My family is debating over which movie we should see one evening. I want to see National Treasure. My brother wants to see Alexander. I don't know what my parents voted for, but one or both of them must have wanted to see Alexander (the Oliver Stone movie with Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie...I have a feeling most people have forgotten about the existence of that movie!) because we ended up seeing that. I was so mad because that movie looked like a total snooze fest and I was right! I was so bored during the three plus hours I sat through it. (It could have been only a little over two hours for all I know, but it definitely felt LONG!) Even my family agreed it was a terrible and boring movie and pretty much admitted we chose the wrong movie. Now, National Treasure isn't the best movie in the world, but at least it's a hell of a lot more entertaining and fun than some long drawn out historical movie. (There's a good bet I will never review Alexander for this blog!) Now I did end up seeing this movie with my mom (she must have either voted with me or didn't care which movie we saw or maybe she just felt bad for me) the next day, but it still infuriates me that I wasted three hours of my life watching Alexander!

This is probably the only family friendly movie Nicolas Cage has ever made. This and its sequel, which I've only seen once (I've seen this one a handful of times). Oh, and that Christmas movie he did with Tea Leoni. There's probably a few others he's made too, but they seem to be very rare for the actor who is mostly known for R-rated action movies. See Rock, The. Or Con Air. Or Face/Off. In this Indiana Jones/Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?/The Goonies hybrid, he plays Ben Gates whose ancestors were part of some secret society who hid a bunch of treasure. He's had his eye on the prize since his great grandfather (played by Christopher Plummer) told him the story as a young boy, but it isn't until "current day" 2004 when he gets anywhere near finding it. 

With a clue that the treasure "lies with Charlotte", he leads an expedition to the Arctic which includes his right-hand man, Riley (Justin Bartha), who's pretty much in the movie to be the comic relief and a post-Boromir, pre-Ned Stark Sean Bean who plays his partner turned arch nemesis, Ian, and then some other guy who's Ian's crony. Not only do they find the ship in the ice, after, like, five seconds of chipping away, but they find the most important part of the ship which provides a clue. They figure out the clue pertains to the Declaration of Independence that will lead them to the treasure. Now that I think about it, this movie is a precursor to The DaVinci Code. Ian wants to steal the DoI, but Ben puts his foot down and says absolutely not. We then learn that Ian and his crony are bad guys as they try to kill Ben and Riley, and while they escape, they don't succeed in killing the two good guys.

When they return to D.C., Ben tries to warn anyone who will listen that the DoI is in danger of being stolen, but no one takes them seriously because there is no possible way for the DoI to be stolen because it is perfectly safe and secure. "The Declaration of Independence" is uttered many times during the film. It wasn't until halfway through the movie when I realized I should have been keeping count of how many times it was said, but by then, it was too late. I'm pretty sure if there was a category in The Guinness Book of World Records for the most times the phrase "The Declaration of Independence " is uttered in a movie, National Treasure would be victorious. Since the FBI won't listen to them, they go to the National Archives and warn Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) who also dismisses them and assures them the artifact is very safe.

Ben believes the only way to keep the DoI safe is to steal it himself. At least he will make sure its returned while Ian and his cronies won't care if it gets mucked up in the process of stealing it and using it to find the treasure. Plus, let's be honest, Ben wants that sweet treasure for himself. Riley tells Ben there is no possible way for them to steal the DoI because it's protected by security beyond measure, but Ben has found a loophole and plans to steal it when it's being treated in the preservation room, the only place where it won't be under (so much) lock and key. He and Riley devise this big plan that, of course, goes without a hitch. First, they have to make sure the DoI will be sent to the preservation room so Riley goes to the National Archives and surreptitiously points a laser light at it or something so a warning goes off to indicate that something has been tampered with it. No idea if this is a real thing or not. You know, I have been to D.C. a handful of times (maybe four) and I have never seen the DoI.

They plan to have the DoI in the preservation room the same night a big gala will be going on at the National Archives building. Ben will be the one doing the stealing while Riley stays in the van to direct him and warn him if there's any problems. Ben goes in as a maintenance man (he stole the identity of another maintenance man so he would be on the list...or something...I don't know...this whole plan is so convoluted) and is able to get through, no questions asked. I did think it was funny when Riley and Ben pull up at the building right before they're about to pull off the heist and as Ben is getting out of the van, Riley asks him, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" and Ben just slams the door, totally ignoring him.

Once Ben is in, he changes into a tuxedo in the restroom. He does this right in the open, and not in a stall. I at least hoped he locked the door so nobody would see him changing out of a maintenance outfit in a tuxedo because that wouldn't look suspicious! He enters the party where he chats with Abigail, taking her glass of champagne so she can take another glass for her date. You see, this is all part of the plan because they need her fingerprints to get into the preservation room. Ben will use a black light to see which keys she has pressed for the password and they figure out it's "Valley Forge".

Nobody is in the preservation room at all, so Ben is able to get the DoI. However, he's not alone for long as Ian and his cronies have the same idea to steal it that night and they're about to enter the room. Ben takes the whole thing, bullet proof glass and all that the DoI is surrounded in. It's a good thing he has it because once he's on the elevator and the bad guys enter, they start shooting at him and he uses it as a shield. He takes out the DoI and rolls it up like a poster. My favorite part of the movie is when he goes into the gift shop and the cashier sees it on his person and asks him if he's trying to steal that. She tells him it's $35 and he says, "For this? That's a lot." Haha, for the real DoI? I would say that's a steal! He ends up paying $70 because he buys that and then gets a replica to throw off Ian later.

Abigail figure out what's going on and she gets involved in a car chase and this is when Ben gives Ian the fake DoI. Ben, Riley, and Abigail end up at Ben's father's (Jon Voight) house. Since Ben used a credit card to pay for the DoI poster he can't go back to his own house. The DoI goes through a lot of duress during its time out in the real world and it's truly amazing it made it back in one piece. Using lemon juice and heat, they find some clues on the back. But instead of a map like they thought they would find, it's a bunch of numbers that pertain to some letters written by Benjamin Franklin that are important to the case. The letters, which Ben's father used to own, have now been donated to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

The clues and many different cities they visit (D.C., Philly, New York, Boston) reminds me of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, only the version where you're trying to find her in the U.S., which isn't as fun. There's a scene where they go to an Urban Outfitters in Philly to buy new clothes so they won't look so conspicuous in their fancy gala clothes. Right out in the open, when they're buying their clothes, they're talking about the clues. I'm surprised nobody gave them any odd looks. I mean, if you were in an Urban Outfitters and heard three adults talking about going to the Liberty Bell to find the next clue that will lead to long-lost treasure, wouldn't you be a little suspicious?

The clue leads them to a brick in the wall where Ben finds these old-fashioned spectacles used to look at the map and find the next clue. I can't remember exactly where in the movie Nicolas Cage says this, but there's a scene where he finds a clue and he says, "Can it really be that simple?" Everything leading to the clue is just so ridiculously easy, it's almost laughable. But it is a Disney family film, so the best thing is to just enjoy the ride.

Right on their heels is Ian and his cronies. Ben wants them to split up so Ian can't have the DoI and glasses at the same time because they need both to decipher the next clue. He takes the glasses and Riley and Abigail take the DoI. This thing gets drug through the streets of Philly and into a meat market. True, it's in a protective tube, but still. Ian apprehends the DoI and he also kidnaps Ben's father as a hostage in order to get the glasses.

An FBI agent played by Harvey Keitel has captured Ben and tells him he has two options: he can either go to jail or he can tell them where they can find the DoI and go to jail, knowing he did the right thing. Ben escapes and ends up in New York to join the search for the treasure which Ian and his cronies have now joined. The next clue is underneath the Trinity Church and they are all on this rickety makeshift elevator and one of the no-name bad guys falls off and plunges into this never ending abyss of darkness. Where did this chasm come from? All the characters are trying to jump to safety and there's a moment where Ben, holding on to the arm of a dangling Abigail, has to decide between saving her or saving the DoI which is now starting to slip from his shoulder. (Oh yeah, I should mention, Ben got it back). He asks Abigail if she trusts him and lets go of her once he's sure she'll land on a platform a few feet below them. He apologizes later for dropping her and she assures him it's okay and that she would have done the same thing. Can you imagine how much sh*t he would have been in if he had let the Declaration of Independence fall into a deep abyss of darkness? History would be lost forever! FOR-EV-ER!

Ben and his father tell Ian and his cronies that the next clue is in Boston because of the lantern they see. Leaving Ben, Ben's father, Abigail, and Riley, Ian and his cronies start to go back up on the makeshift elevator, leaving the others without any way to get back up. They start protesting, but it's really a non-issue, because surprise! Ben gave them a decoy answer and the next clue is actually right where they are! Who didn't see that coming? They find a huge room (seriously, this thing must have been five football fields long!) filled with treasure after treasure after treasure. There are mummies! Scrolls from the Library of Alexandria! An important looking medallion! And lots of other stuff! And, most importantly, there are stairs to an exit.

Ben calls the police and hands back the DoI to Keitel, who, in return tells him that someone has to go to jail. Ben offers him a bribe of ten billion dollars and tells him he can get him the real bad guy who's in Boston where they arrest Ian and his cronies. Poor Sean Bean. But at least he didn't die this time!

The priceless artifacts have been donated to museums all over the world. There's a joke that Ben and Riley, who are credited with finding the treasure, only got one percent of the profits and Riley is complaining about that while driving a fancy convertible and tells Ben he could have bought a bigger house and the camera pans back to show a huge mansion. Haha, even with only one percent, they still got a ton of money. Bring on National Treasure 3! 

Little Children

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

Director: Joe Johnston

Cast: Rick Moranis, Matt Frewer, Marcia Strassman, Kristine Sutherland, Amy O'Neil, Robert Oliveri, Thomas Brown, Jared Rushton

Released: June 23, 1989

I hadn't seen this movie in a very long time, but I have to say I really enjoyed watching it again. And while there are a few effects that seem very obvious, I think it still holds up quite well for when it was made. If you look at the cast, you may only be familiar with Rick Moranis, but if you ever watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you may notice Kristine Sutherland's name. She played Buffy's mom on that show, Joyce Summers. In this she plays the neighbor to Moranis's scientist character, Wayne Szalinski. 

He has invented a machine that shrinks things, or at least it's supposed to, but it's not quite working. Instead of shrinking things, it explodes them as that is what happens when he tests an apple. We see him giving him a presentation about his new invention, but people in the audience keep leaving and the joke is made that the only thing he's shrinking is the audience. It's actually not a bad idea what he's invented...just think of how much cargo you could get on a ship if everything were greatly reduced in size...of course, you would just have to be able to get those items back to their normal size. And just think how convenient it would be if you moved! You could literally pack up everything you owned into a suitcase! I love it! Although, you probably wouldn't want terrorists getting their hands on this machine. That could spell trouble. This is a movie that could have gone either way - either comedy or flat out horror. But since this is a Disney family film, it's mostly a comedy with a few suspenseful moments. Let's just say if this were the real world, these kids would be dead, dead, dead, and dead! In fact, I was shocked to find out (according to IMDB, not sure where the actual source came from) that there were originally FIVE kids and one of them drowns during the scene the sprinklers are accidentally turned on. Yikes! This is a Disney movie! They're normally not known for being so dark. And I want to know if this kid was part of the Szalinski clan or the Thompson family or if he (or she) was just a another kid from the neighborhood. For what kind of movie it is, I think they made the right call by not adding such a morbid detail!

Wayne Szalinski is so ahead of his time that he even invented texting before texting existed! Well, a very early draft of it. From the kitchen, his children can let him know that it's time to eat, and in return, he can type a message from his computer in the attic where he works and let them know when he'll be down and it's printed out. He just needed to invent auto correct because "I'll be down in five minutes" came out as "I'll be down on fine mimicks."

We have the Szalinskis and the Thompsons who live next door to each other, but don't seem to like each other and the kids aren't really friends with each other. Big Russ Thompson (Matt Frewer) is the one married to Sutherland's character, Mae, and he hates all the noise coming from the Szalinski side since it's usually early in the morning. He has two sons: Little Russ (Thomas Brown) and Ron (Jared Rushton). He finds out his oldest son didn't make the football team (but we later find out he actually quit) because he's too scrawny and is trying to help him with his self-esteem about his size (ah, you see what the movie is doing?) It was bugging me so much because the kid who played Ron looked so familiar to me. I know I had seen him before, so I looked him up. He played Tom Hanks's friend, Billy, in Big, which came out the year prior. Only in that movie he's a redhead and he's a blond in this one. He's a little jerk, always fighting with everyone and causing arguments, although he will have a touching moment later on in the film. The Szalinski children include popular high schooler Amy (Amy O'Neill) who is planning on going to the mall later that day because she is sure she is going to be asked to the dance by the guy she likes. Meanwhile, Russ Jr., who's the same age as her, has a crush on her. Amy's little brother, Nick (Robert Oliveri) is a few years younger than Ron and he's just like his dad: a major nerd and super smart, and he owns it. In fact, he tricks a neighbor kid into mowing the lawn for him, which is his chore. 

Their adventure begins on a day when Wayne is at his convention and his wife (Marcia Strassman) is out and the Thompson family is getting ready for a camping trip and the two adults are too busy to pay any mind to their kids. Ron is playing with his baseball and hits it right into the Zsalinski's attic where it conveniently lands right in front of the shrinking machine. His older brother takes him next door so he can explain what happened. The two young boys go upstairs and when they don't return (because they've been shrunken!), their older siblings go up to see what's going on and they shrink too. Somehow the machine activated when it was hit by the baseball and shrinks all the kids. But before it did that, we see it shrink a couch.

When Wayne comes home, Quark, the Szalinski terrier, barks to lets him know that something is up, but I didn't understand why he didn't go over right to the kids. The damn dog never indicates where the kids are, even though he can smell and hear them while people cannot hear the shrunken kids yelling. I just felt like Quark never tried hard enough to get Wayne's attention about the size of the kids, but I know there would be no movie if Wayne found them and fixed the situation. However, Quark will come in handy in a later scene when Wayne almost becomes a cannibal! Even though I've seen the movie before and know that everything turns out all right in the end, I thought for sure Wayne was going to step on all the kids when he entered the attic. His feet get pretty close to them. The special effects are a lot of fun and this looked like it would have been a fun movie to be in. When Wayne comes home and sees his attic is a mess, he grabs a broom and starts sweeping. All the kids are running from the bristles, but then they grab hold onto them when they can't outrun the broom and are dumped from a dust pan into the outside trash, which is located in the backyard for some weird reason. Don't most people keep their trash in the garage, then bring it out to the curb on trash day? The kids get out of the trash bag and slide down a blade of glass which looked like a lot of fun. Not as fun as the water slide from The Goonies, mind you, but who wouldn't want to slide down a blade of grass?

Nick, our nerdy smart kid calculates that they are a quarter of an inch tall and are sixty four feet from the house which is the equivalent of 3.2 miles (I would have guessed a lot more for how small they are!) This movie could never be made today. Why? Because Nick's calculator also shrunk with him and that's how he was able to figure out the dimensions. If a kid in a current take of this movie was shrunk, they mostly would likely have their phone and could just text their parents and tell them that they can be found on the stone in the middle of the yard. Sure, it might take them awhile to text the message! It would be fun to see a current update on this story, but you would need to find a way to make it so it's not so easy for them to fix the problem.

Ron, our little turd of a character, is whining about how they're supposed to go fishing and Amy replies, "Yeah, right! How are you going, as bait?" And when Amy says, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto," Ron replies with, "I don't think we're on the food chain anymore, Dorothy." There's a few famous movie quotes in this movie. When they realize that Quark can possible hear them and start whistling to get his attention, Russ doesn't know how to whistle, so Amy tells him, "You just put your lips together and blow."

The majority of the movie takes place in the backyard "jungle". They come across a stream of water which is most likely dog urine (eww!) The kids are separated when Nick is nearly attacked by a bee, but Russ saves him and they both jump on the bee's back and it flies around the backyard several times. We even see them past Wayne and they're screaming at him, but he's just trying to shoo the bee away. The special effects don't quite hold up. It's obvious they shot the actors on the back of a large mechanical bee in front of a green screen.

Now around this time, Wayne has discovered what's going on and knows the kids have been shrunk. His shrunken couch is his first clue that his machine works. I laughed when he told his wife that his machine works and she asked him if the kids knew and he's like, "Yeah, they know." When he does tell her what happened, he just tells her, "I shrunk the kids", omitting the "Honey" from the title. Wayne figures out that he threw out the kids with the trash and they're now somewhere in the backyard. While wearing binoculars, he uses stilts to walk on the grass which doesn't make any sense to me. Sure, there's less area on the leg of a stilt than someone's shoes, but HE COULD STILL SMASH ALL OF THEM TO SMITHEREENS! He will eventually be hooked up to a contraption that swings him around the yard so at least he's not putting any weight on the ground. When he's on the stilts, this is when the sprinklers are turned on accidentally, (and this is when the fifth character would have died), the kids have to run for their lives. Amy nearly does drown, but Russ Jr. saves her by giving her mouth-to-mouth (something he learned in French class - this will become a big joke in the movie).

After Amy is saved by Russ, she starts to see him in a new light. There is a really odd scene we see with the Szalinski parents expressing their concerns for their children when it starts to get dark and there has been no sign of them yet. Is Mrs. Szalinski worried that her kids are only a quarter of an inch tall and could be killed by insects, birds, or small rodents...which mostly come out during the night? Or that the weather could kill them, especially if it rains? Or just the fact that if a person or even a dog or cat walks across the backyard, they could be squashed? No, she's worried that it's dark and that her teenage daughter might be getting it on with the neighbor boy. First of all, before this moment Amy and Russ had never really interacted that much before, it's not like he was her boyfriend. And even if he was, their younger brothers are with them and they're super tiny. I don't think they would even be thinking about that. Now, they do kiss, but that's as far as it goes. But shouldn't have she been worried about a lot more things before she was worried about that? The kids find a Lego piece and end up spending the night in it (very cool!)


They are now closer to the house because they had help getting to the Lego piece. They had come across a huge Hostess oatmeal cookie (you know, the ones with the cream filling in the middle...do they even still make those?) The kids are excited and run towards it as they are super hungry. Ron had even mentioned that he was so hungry that he could eat a corn dog the size of a truck and his brother comments that a regular one WOULD be the size of a truck! Now, I don't know how long this oatmeal cookie had been lying in the grass, but it is a shock that it wasn't SWARMING with ants. However one ant does show up and they run away, scared. This is a baby ant (not sure how they know that) and it's bigger than them! Somehow they tame the ant, name it Anty (how original), and use a piece of the cookie to guide it towards their house until they reach the Lego and decide to camp out in it. They tell Anty to go home, but the ant has bonded with them, especially Ron, who's crying as he tells Anty to "Go on!" and "Get out of here!" He even tells Anty that his mom will never let him keep him and I'm thinking, Uh, it's an ant...she probably would't even know if you had one!

The next morning the kids are awoken to a terrifying site when they are attacked by a...scorpion! Uh, what the hell? Do most people find scorpions in their backyard like that? I have never (thank god!) seen a scorpion in real life in my life. It just seemed very out of place. The scorpion attacks Ron who is still in the Lego while the other kids have managed to escape. These Legos weren't exactly accurate because there are two holes which Ron manages to escape out of one since the other hole is blocked by the arachnid. Oh, and who should come to the rescue? It's Anty! There's a fight between a baby ant and a full grown scorpion. Yeah, it's the most unfair fight ever, but Anty puts up a good fight. Even though the scorpion backs up and scuttles away when the kids start throwing dirt at it, it's not enough to save Anty, who got stung. Yes, Anty died! While watching this, I said outloud, "He died?", then burst into tears. No, I didn't burst into tears, but my voice wavered and I did feel really sad! And I HATE ants! They're so disgusting! I once had an ant infestation in a place where I used to live and I had to buy a whole bunch of Raid, and oh, God, it was so gross. They were everywhere. But this made me feel really bad for the kids who had grown an attachment to this little gross insect. But I guess it's better for the ant to die, than, you know, an actual human being!

RIP Anty
June 22, 1989 - June 23, 1989

The kids are so close to their home now and even see Wayne's face peering down at them as he continues the search for them the next morning, but of course he can't hear them when they're yelling at him. There's still one more obstacle the kids have to get through (at least in the backyard) before they make it out of there. Remember when Nick got a neighbor kid to mow the lawn for him? Well, it just so happens he comes over the next morning and the Szalinski parents hear the sound of a motor when they're trying to fix the shrinking machine and realize the terrible thing that's going on in their backyard. They're screaming at the kid to stop, but he's wearing headphones and can't hear them. We have another near-death experience where the kids are nearly hacked to death by the blade, but it stops just in the nick of time.

The kids call for Quark again and he comes out to rescue him. When they called for him the other day, he tried to go to them, but he was scared off by the Thompson cat. This time, he just trotted by the cat. Go, Quark! The kids grab onto his fur which more looks like shag carpet when

we get a close up of it and Quark brings them into the kitchen. Here is the scene where he finally brings attention to Wayne when Nick falls into a bowl of Cheerios and Wayne unknowingly scoops his youngest child up onto his spoon and is ABOUT TO EAT HIM and Quark, thank God, bites his leg so he drops the spoon and then notices the minuscule child in his Cheerios. Can we just all give Quark some major kudos here? A man was about to EAT HIS CHILD, but Quark saved the day! Yay, Quark! For the kid in the bowl of Cheerios scene, they had the actor swim in a tank filled with water and food thickener to make it look like milk and the Cheerios were tractor tires with foam around them. I love it!

Now that Wayne has found the kids, all he has to do is bring them back to their original size, but first he wants to test his machine on a living organism to make sure it's safe. There's a funny scene where the dog runs out of the room when he hears that. Wayne is about to do it himself, but Mr. Thompson (the Thompson parents are well aware of what's going on and come over when they find out their kids have been found) tells him he'll be the guinea pig since Wayne needs to control the machine. Of course, everything is fine and the machine works on him and the kids are returned to their normal size.

Despite some outdated effects and the fact that the insects look super fake, and the parents didn't really seem that concerned about their kids being super small, I really enjoyed this movie and had a lot of fun watching it and it was a lot of fun to go back and revisit it. And let's give it up for Quark one last time!

Good dog!