The Goonies

Published: Oct. 28, 2008, 5:26 p.m.

Sean Astin leads his hearty band of adventurers—plus his older brother.. and a couple of girls—thru the caverns underneath the rocky coast near his home town in a search for the legendary lost treasure of One-Eyed Willy! I examine the three-part story structure, the emotional arc of each character, and Willy's weird music/skeleton obsession. I admire Mikey's leadership, Troy's Mustang GT, and Andy's panties. I contemplate the nature of the "Goondocks." I point out the age of the various kids (surprise! Josh is younger than Kerry!). I examine the structure of the two-parent Walsh family and single-parent TV families. I wonder about the distance from the lighthouse to the country club. And I wonder about how Data apparently walked in from a Warner Brothers cartoon and how a Chinese character with a Japanese love for technology could be played by a Vietnamese actor.