Watching The Goonies With My Kids: Family Vacation 02

Watching The Goonies With My Kids: Family Vacation 02 August 4, 2015

blog pics.001We watched The Goonies as a family last night. 30 years after it first came out and the film still holds up. My favorite thing about this movie is that it celebrates faithful participation in a community that is vulnerable to those with money and power. The goal the kids are chasing isn’t the means to escape their lowly station in life through some kind of achievement or upward mobility. The goal is to be free to live, free to survive. The goal is to be able to stick together as a community, to embody important virtues along the way, and allow the unjust powers to show their true colors as they become displayed on your own body. The Goonies is an effective critique of the corruption that ensues when wealth is concentrated in the hands of only a few.

We had a good time watching the film. Here are a few interesting Goonies facts:

blog pics.0021) Director Richard Donner wanted an authentic reaction from the kids when they saw Willie’s ship for the first time, so they didn’t get to see it until it was time to shoot.

2) One-eyed Willy’s head was an actual human skull.

3) In the scene when the kids escape the Fratellis and are reunited with their parents on the beach, some of the actors’ real parents were present along with several crew members.

4) The film, which took five months to produce, was shot almost entirely in sequence, a rare feat in filmmaking.

5) The late John Matuszak, who played Sloth, had been a former first round draft pick and an NFL defensive linesman for the Oakland Raiders until 1981.

blog pics.0036) The model ship seen sailing at the end had a miniature R2-D2 hidden on the deck.

7) The film, which took five months to produce, was shot almost entirely in sequence, a rare feat in filmmaking.

8) The song that Jake Fratelli first sings to Sloth and then to Chunk before he’s captured is from an opera, Giacomo Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly.”

9) The movie shot almost entirely in Astoria, Oregon.

10) When Data falls from the cave ceiling, he screams “holy s-h-i-t!” because the actor promised his mother that he would not curse in the film.


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