108 eM chigan DailOy -W end' etc. agazine - Thur ay, February 24, 2000 b etc From the Vault Gaggle of "Goonies" gets goofy 41rThe Micigar oa* -- Weekenda THIS COLUMN MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO 1 By DvdVco Perhaps the greatest kids adventure movie, at least for the last generation, is "The Goonies" Just the tite brings back memories of tons of gross jokes, nifty gadgets, underground secret caves full of raps, bumbling bad guys, a load of pirate treasure and even some vintage Cyndi Lauper music. Wuht more could a kid, ask for? This is one oft -se movies you can see way after you've "out- grown" it and still thoroughly enjoy it for the nostalgia alone. Those of you who grew up in Fiji or something might need a rundown of the plot. A bunch of best fiends are about to be separated because of a housing fore- closure. During their last days together, they stumble across an old pirate map that leads to a stash of buried treasure. When they follow the map to a criminal's hideout, they find themselves chased by the bad guys while exploring forgotten underground caves for the loot. But a mere summary doesn't do the film (directed by "Superman" and "Lethal Weapon" veteran Richard Donner from a Spielberg story) proper justice. There's so much more to the recipe that makes "The Goonies" so good. The unforgettable cast of characters is probably *Goonies ''strongest aspect. The motley gang of boys had someone every kid could identify with. There was the asthmatic leader. Mike. who finds the map and leads ever.one on the adventure. He was played by Sean Astin, who will soon star as Samwise in the film adaptation of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Mikey was constantly tormented by his hunkv older brother, Brandon (Josh Brolin, who grew up to CouFeso : Ceruy a Sean Astin as "Mkey" Walsh calls the sots for his fellow 'ooles. snag Minnie Driver). Mikey's talkative friend, nickneed Mouth (played snidely by terminal child star Corey Feldman) always had some- thing smarmy to say. Way before "Star Trek: TNG", there was Data, who had an incredible number of gadgets stuffed into his trench coat (this is also the kid who played Short Round in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"). The obnoxious, obese Chunk was always either eating something or freaking out. The two older hotties, Andy and Stefanie, made a memorable female duo. The bad guys set a great standard for being both menacing and bumbling at the same time. Anne Ramsey, as Austin Powers might say, played the entirely too "mannish" Mama Fratelli. Her mean- spirited sons, Jake and Francis, were simply an antagonistic presence, but most modern-day viewers will recognize Francis as the traitorous Cypher from "The Matrix." And then there was Sloth. Sloth was the freakiest person I had ever seen. He must have been dropped on his head as a baby -'into a food processor. However, his halting, inno- cent speech, childish behavior and Superman t-shirt won us over, and in many impressionable memories, he'll always be the ultimate misunderstood hero. My favoriteline: "Ruuuth! Baaaby Ruuth!" All these characters come together to make some hilarious scenes. There are so many great bits in this movie. If you know what I'm talking about, recall them fondly from your hal- cyon days, and if you haven't seen the movie vet, look for them when you rent it. Watch, rewind, repeat. For example, that Mouth was always such a punk. His best scene was early in the film, when he talked to the maid in Spanish and freaked her out. The fact that he was talking about marijuana was lost on me at my young age - it's a detail that just gets better in repeat view- ings when you're older. Data also rocked the house repeatedly with his cool gadgets. Who hasn't want- ed "slick shoes" or a spring loaded box- ing glove in their coat? And that Mikey sure got the ladies ... what a stud. However, this movie belongs to the improbably lovable Chunk. Whether he's smashing food against restaurant win- dows or pigging out on ice cream, he was hilariousr. The single most laugh- filled moment in the history of my child- hood was when he told the bad guys his fake-vomit-in-the-movie-theater story. In retrospect, it's also highly amusing how he freaked out over seeing the "Black ORV" I guess that's what SUV's were called in the '80s. It wouldn't be so shocking for Chunk today, now that they're jam-packed in every fraternity driveway across the nation. Back then, though, there was only one: It was black, and the bad guys had it. Overall, "Goonies" is one of those classic movies that shaped the youthful years of our generation. If you haven't done so already, drop by the video store and rent it. If you remember it as fondly as I do, I can guarantee it's just as good the second, third, fourth or twentieth time around. Simply put, "The Goonies" rocks. Piles have a tendency to grow in my house. Name anything and there's prob- ably a pile of it. There's a pile of empty bottles, pizza boxes and other assorted recycling/garbage standing four feet high and 10 feet long. There's another large pile of dirty clothes accumulating in my liing room, while my dirty dish- es tend to multipli at the expense of my clean ones. At one point this year there was a large pile of trash in my front lawn \ e covered the heap wit a torn. mold green tarp. which most of the tudent section walked past on their way to football games. "But our house sparles compared to where I used to li e" my housemate Rav said. "We were so bad, we uot sued for more money on top of our damage deposit. "I doubt it could be much worse than some of the fraternity houses I'xe scen, at least the one I lived in" Ben said. ''e got condemned twice by the fire marshal our first week." "I've got you both beat," I said. "My house sophomore year was so disgusting that when my father, who's a landlord, came by, he said if it'd been his house, he'd report us to the Health Department." "Fine, if we're going to compare scars a la Jaws, 1 might as well shut you two up right now," Ray said. "There was smell so putrid in my house a few years ago, rotting flesh would've been an improxe- ment. 'A checked the x ents to make sure our cat Jules wasn't decomposing there" "I don't think ronting flesh is a strong enough smell to overcome your stench, Ray:" Ben said. 'There was an over- whelming stink of Tabasco and other assorted spoiling food products coming from my frat's basement. And when that didn't overtake all three floors there was the combined stench of piss, puke. cheap skunked beer and decaying half empty growth outside my house was so high we got a SSOO ticket from the city. You could telI the stu- dent house from the townies' bV the broken 40's on the porch and in the weeds. Actuallv. it was probably for the best the officer didn't notice the suspicious-look- ing tomato plants the gutters sprouted.- Jon Zemke $peak jng take-out boxes from four-foot-tall trash piles outside our rooms." "How in God's name did you guys manage to have parties?" I asked. "We had a cleaning crew," Ben said. "None of that matters," I said. "The get rid of it he put a bug zapper with everything that gets dumpe honey under the nest," Ray said. "He'd ends of beer bottles with I sit on the other end of the porch, get rette butts next to overflow high and watch their bodies smoke with various seeds and after they electrocuted themselves. He around. You have to make said he always felt like a sadistic hick the those seeds fall into hal when he did that." of molding fruit because yo "Coffee tables are always the most what might grow out of the overlooked trash dumps in the house, "Then there are certain a though," Ben said. "Seriously, look at don't go - the back of th "All right, all right, all right. m sure we could go on like this all day, but the bathroom's by far the worst part of any student house," Ray said. "At least you know where the standing month-old shower-water in the bathtub has been. You don't know where the hair that you're stepping on came from" "No, the kitchen's the worst, easy," I said. "We had so many fles in our kitchen from the crusted and broken dishes, we bought fly-swatters and had a three-hour insect massacre." "That's nothing," Ben said "Mv kitchen was so bad you couldn't tur the kitchen light on without being swarmed b fruit flies." "Yeah, I remember your frut trap: I said. "You had a light shirn net o a fan on fill blast so they would get sucked in and shot out onto the porch. "I had a friend who had a yellow jackets' nest on his porch onc, so to