Monday Movie Classics: The Goonies (1985)

A little while back I was having a conversation with a neighbor who is around my age.  She was going on about The Goonies, and how it was one of her favorite movies.  I never heard of it, and for some reason my brain said "Gremlins."  Why did she like Gremlins so much?  That movie freaked me out as a kid.  It just didn't make any sense.  "And I really like the adventure," she said, "and the treasure hunt."  By this point I was just baffled.  We were having two different conversations, and instead of clarifying the mental mishap, I nodded my head and walked away.

A little time passed and I was reading the new American Girl Courtney books, based in 1986, and again The Goonies kept getting mentioned.  Then I started noticing memes.  Articles here and there popping up.  "Where are they now," and so forth.  Sean Astin was in it?  Wow he's young.

It just came to a point that I had to finally see it.  This apparent quintessential 1980's film I somehow missed and knew nothing about.  

The Goonies is on HBO MAX.  Convenient.  No excuse, it was time.  Last week I turned it on, opening credits roll, and the sudden realization:  Wait, this is a Steven Spielberg movie?!! Okay, how did I not know about this film?  And I just looked on IMDb... Chris Columbus wrote the screenplay, and I'm done.

The movie wasn't at all what I expected.  I thought it would just be some pie in the sky sentimental tale about a group of boys in the 1980's, kinda like The Sandlot.  Instead it was an adventure, mystery story with a little bit of everything.  

The movie starts with the general "meet all the cast doing character defining cast things," so we know what we're dealing with and get a good primer.  The story picks up when all the young characters venture into Mikey's (Sean Astin) attic, where they look through all his Dad's stuff: Pirate paraphernalia, paintings, artifices, and a treasure map.  There's a lore, a legend, of a hidden treasure near their town, that no one has found.  And since Mikey's family is about to lose their home, and he's really depressed and wants one last, good adventure, he's determined to find the lost gold and gems. 

The small group joins on the adventure, later including Mikey's brother Brand (Josh Brolin), and a couple of girls, all the while thwarting some criminals in the process, and the whole thing turns into a race against time.  Solving mysteries and avoiding booby traps. 

Through the movie I kept getting Indiana Jones/Hook vibes.

In the end I'm kinda shocked I never heard of The Goonies, and it's nice to finally know what it's all about.  It's just a fun little adventure flick.  And now I need to re-watch Gremlins, because my memories are so morphed on the subject.  How did I confuse the two?!

Sarah

Classic Movie Monday: Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)

This is the review I kept meaning to write, only couldn't after doing some research, and subsequently I've struggled doing any other review as I got it in my head that this should be written and finished first.  Only then could I move on.

"Yours, Mine and Ours," from 1968, is innocent enough.  The movie stars Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.  A family film with all the right motifs.  Two families joining into one, and all the problems this entails.  But this wasn't just any family, these were two large families. Helen North with her eight children and Frank Beardsley with his ten.  Two more came later to make up 20 children.  There are antics between the children.  Situations between Helen and Frank as they managed dating, work (Helen as a nurse and Frank in the Navy), and family raising.  

I enjoyed watching Lucille Ball play a character quite different than her "I Love Lucy" persona.  There's still punch lines, but overall more realistic and serious at times.

While the movie progressed I thought that if this story was based on a real family, it would be courted by the likes of TLC, quickly made into reality television.

After some research it's a good thing reality television didn't exist in the 1960's.

Helen North Beardsley released a book called "Who Gets the Drumstick?" though the book stays quaint and loving.  I haven't read it, but it appears to resemble what's in the movie.  The film's Wikipedia page lists differences between book and movie.

The controversy in my head began after I read the article "A Hollywood tale of happiness rocketed a Carmel family to fame. But one son says reality was more of a horror story."  The interview is with Tom North, the 11th child, and he spells out a different scene.  He describes abuse and heartache.  Violence by Frank Beardsley, Helen marrying him to save his children.  It's a very different story, one that is hard to read.  The Beardsley children deny it, siding with their father. 

It's hard to know what to believe.  Movie's tend to not stick with facts, glorifying and exaggerating for storytelling sake.  Was Helen's sweet biography the true story?  Tom North's interview?  Or the Beardsley children protecting the memory of their father?

All that aside, "Yours, Mine and Ours" is a sweet, inspiration movie.  I'm glad to have not known the background story before seeing it, so now I fear I may have ruined it for others.  Only you can decide what you believe.

Sarah

Classic Movie Monday: Guys and Dolls (1955)

Goodness... so this is a long time coming.  Classic Movie Mondays are back!!  Yippie. :P

So, I saw the stage musical on July 5th, and by the end of that week saw the movie.  Want to know what keeps circling my brain?  The stage musical.  It was so good!

That aside, for now, Guys and Dolls is a movie musical starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, and Vivian Blaine, based on the 1950's Broadway musical.  Essentially the musical is about gambling, New York, betting on horses, just making bets, period, and more gambling while battling love and romance, naturally.  

With the movie I loved Frank Sinatra's song, because he's got a sexy voice, but just about everything else I loved in the stage musical so much more.

The movie song, "Pet Me Poppa," was written for the movie, and dang it has issues.  So problematic. Women dressed like cats singing about being "petted."  Doesn't take much imagination.

Now I'm basing my comparisons with the Hale Center Theater Sandy version, so I don't know how much is scripted vs director interpretation, and how that matches with other theater performances.  But, for instance, two of the characters go to Havana, and the movie version took it so seriously, whereas the stage version I saw played up the comic timing with really great choreography.  It was just so much more enjoyable.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy the movie, it was a nice watch, but if I had a choice I'd head over hills choose seeing the stage musical again over the movie.

Hope you're having a great day.  Listening to the 1992 Guys and Dolls Broadway Cast Recording.  The music is so good.

 

Sarah

Classic Movie Monday: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

After all these years it's amazing how "Someday My Prince Will Come" and "Heigh Ho" are songs that are still sung, loved, and easily recognized, and they're 83 years old.  

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first movie I remember going to the theater to see.  It's not the first movie I actually saw, which I'll write about next week (it's a sci-fi 80's flick that mainly nerds know about and didn't really go mainstream ;0), but Snow White was the movie that cemented the enchantment of going to a theater.

Before the Disney vault rotated movies for home video release, they showed movies in theaters every 7-10 years.  In 1987 Snow White was fully restored for it's 50th anniversary and was shown in theaters.  My parents took me to this theater in Santa Barbara that was on State Street, fully decked out in grand theatrical fashion.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, through random fractured images, I still remember the theater and being in awe.  It was beautiful.  And I remember loving the movie.  

Walt Disney's first theatrical animated feature film is the stuff of legends, groundbreaking in every way.  If you want to read a detailed history of the film, the Fandom Disney Wiki page and Wikipedia has great articles.

It's wonderful that, even for a movie made in 1937, kids still love Snow White today, even with the modern advancements in animation technology and techniques.  The Disney parks help keep Snow White and her Seven Dwarfs alive with rides, princess meet and greets, and songs during shows.  Though, fun fact, the Disneyland ride has had a makeover.  The original "Snow White's Scary Adventure" has been remade into "Snow White's Enchanted Wish".  Some people may be sad over this, but I'm actually excited to see the changes.  The original ride really is kinda sad with an abrupt ending!  

Happy, happy memories from a beloved classic that will always be amazing.

Sarah

Bringing Back the PPPPA, Classic Movie Monday Style

Okay, not quite.  It's a PPPPA of one.  But what is this PPPPA you may be asking?  It's a little club my friends and I created back in High School, and it stood for the Poor Pathetic People of Porterville Association.  It's as awesome as it sounds...

So what did we do?  Well, while other teens were driving the 30+ minutes to the nearest mall, going on fantastic dates, and other really cool stuff, my friends and I would go to Hollywood Video and rent a movie.  (Did we ever go to Blockbuster?!?!  Guess Hollywood Vid was more convenient?  Was Blockbuster already gone?  Why can't I remember?  Dang empty crevices of my mind.)  But we didn't rent just any video, we rented classics and old movies, and in some cases the stranger the better.

Old campy sci-fi.  Once we watched a fantastic random musical that I wish I remembered the name of.  It was great.  Hitchcock's Vertigo.  We rented a silent movie this one time, determined to read every slide with words.  It was fun for the first 30 minutes, until it got old, and I swear that movie was like 3 hours.

So for my PPPPA nostalgia, instead of having a group of people over to watch movies, which sounds fantastic right now, I'm going to seek out to watch old movies and then talk about them.  For "reasons" I've decided not to review new movie releases anymore, and instead write about the old stuff.  It will be fun watching and exploring the classics, and silly campy stuff as well.  Old movies that are new to me, as there's so much I haven't seen, and old favorites I would like to revisit. 

Sarah